Re: John Mahama Can Never be Trusted

Unbelievable…President Mahama's Publishing Consultant is the niece of Nana Addo

“No lie can live forever” --- Thomas Carlyle

“Truth crushed to the earth will rise again” --- William C. Bryant

The writer of this article on Ghanaweb is very pitiful and pathetic with his baseless and falsefool analysis. Just imagine, the mere fact that, the President consulted the expertise of an international publisher for his own private book, which he wrote even before he became the President, warrants you guys to characterize him as some one devoid of nationalism.

As I iterated in the previous rebuttals to your myopic articles, I will reiterate again that you guys, just like your Nana Addo, have become so desperate and distrait for power, and because you do not have any pragmatic, practical, smart and systematic solution to our country's socio-economic malady, and your freebies campaign is not selling in the market place of the electorate, you are resorting to character assassination, as well as misinforming and misleading them to change their affectionate and loving attitude toward the President to a hateful and vile one, without any persuasive reason for them to believe you.

In fact the sort of articles the NPP communications team, both home and abroad are writing these days, as we are getting near to the elections leaves much to be desired. These guys really take Ghanaians, who are discerning people for granted. The title of the article seem to reveal very critical and crucial issue of national concern, which will go a long way to place Ghanaians private sectors operators at a great disadvantage. But lo and behold, upon my quick perusal into this foolish and facetious article, I realized that, it was one of their daily-routine of; giving a dog a bad name into order to hang it modus oprandi, just to please Nana Addo's whimsical desires.

Because the NPP communicators know that, it was the NDC first and second regime that had injected and infused real life into the economy, by virtue of the unlimited advantages that our government gave the Ghanaian private sector, which is engine of economic growth, this writer decided to see fault into the President's decision to publish his book abroad. Take it or leave it, the President has the right to do so, because this is his personal memoir, which has nothing to do with even his party, nor the nation at large. But the writer should have done some research to know if his party has ever consulted foreign publishers to publish their manifesto and all other publications by the government.
Fact is that, the President, a gifted communicator (naturally and professionally), is a journalist, aside of being an author. He is as well a columnist in an international magazine, based in the US, called ROOT. And by virtue of his diplomatic stature and even the subject matter itself, that encapsulate and encompasses a broad repertoire of socio-economic, political and historical narratives about Ghana at the micro level and Africa at large, it is more expedient to publish abroad.

If you care to know, as an author of three books myself, the first one entitled; “Paradise Under Mothers Feet.”, published in New York, in 2009 and reviewed by the New York Beacon newspaper, for a book of that caliber to get much publicity and marketability that it deserves, it has to be published in an advanced world-where they have a full-fledge and Photo-finish expertise in the publishing industry to subject the manuscript into a thorough review.

The President, I think sees wisdom in the saying; “Think globally, but act locally” to enable him showcase this historical narrative to the huge global audience. That was why he chose to have another edition in America. I happened to be on a business trip with two American investors to Kenya and Central African Republic over the last weekend, and one of them, Jeremiah sitting next to me, saw the title of the book I was reading inflight (for the second time). He asked what was it about and I told him, it was the first memoir written by Ghana's current sitting President. Lo and behold, this guy already infatuated with investing in Ghana (our next leg of the trip), grabbed the book from me and started reading, and coincidentally, I was sitting next to him still reading this book, (which has completely arrested his attention) when we made a transit yesterday at the Paris airport in France. I removed my laptop from my briefcase and log on to Ghanaweb to read news and I saw this article, accusing the President of not using the local publishers for his book.

I showed him this article on my laptop and he was shocked and said, “But this is a personal initiative of the President, which has nothing to do with nationalism, and besides I could see the exposure this book had, because it was published abroad…” And I said to him, “you seemed to have taken the wind out of my seal, because I just read the story and started this rejoinder to the article and about to state these two points in it.” This happened as we were sitting and whiling away time for our connecting flight back to JF Kennedy Airport, in New York City.

Hardly would such a book, if published in Ghana attracts comments and commendations from such literary luminaries and great think tanks, as Chinua Achebe of “Things Fall Apart”, whose praise on the book partly reads, “A much welcome work of immense relevance.” Andrew Solomon, a National Book Award winner in the US and author of “The Noonday Demon” also wrote, “These are stories…readers will be charmed by them. They brim with humanity.” Ngugi Wa Thiongo, author of, “Weep Not, Child” stated that, “Mahama's stories lure the reader into unforgettable journey in which he interacts with history as a living tissue.” Nuruddin Farah also wrote, “Mahama has given us complex text. I 've enjoyed reading these stories.” Aminata Forna, author of the Commonwealth Book Prize, “The Memory of Love”, wrote “Warm and engaging…The view of a complex world in a microcosm.” As you could see, these catchy and captivating comments were facilitated by the publishers who have great and good rapport with these highly distinguished authors.

One great advantage of publishing ones manuscript with Bloomsbury is that, it is a giant global corporate publishing institution-headquartered in New York, with branches in cosmopolitan and composite business cities like; London in the UK, New Delhi in India, and Sydney in Australia.
It would interest you to know that, the publishing/communications consultant, that His Excellency the President hired to work on the book is not only an ordinary Ghanaian, but coincidentally, is a niece of the Nana Akufo Addo, the presidential candidate of the NPP and her name is, Meri Nana Ama Danquah, daughter of Dr. J. B Danquah, one of the founding fathers of the nation, popular known as, “The Big Six”.

I don't think you even saw the book, nor came to the book launching/reading ceremony at the Schaumberg Center for Black History, a state-of-the-art library located opposite Harlem Hospital in New York City. Because if you were a true Ghanaian, who thinks and acts beyond political expediency, than our President, you would have come at least for the sake of “nationalism.”

Meri Nana Ama, a niece of Nana Akufo Addo, the publishing consultant of the President was the moderator, of the event in Harlem, and I believed she also moderated other book promotion tours by the President, across the United States.

It is interesting to know that, this book, “MY FIRST COUP D'TAT…AND OTHER TRUE STORIES FROM THE LAST DECADE OF AFRICA” was first published in Ghana, and the President came here in July to launch his “First US Edition”. In his acknowledgment and appreciation to those who, overtly or covertly contributed to the success of his first ever book, the President devoted the last four paragraphs showering Meri Nana Ama with gratitude and gratefulness for her dedication and commitment for the project to come to fruition. Part of the acknowledgment reads as follows:

“…Meri Nana Ama Danquah, a warm and delightful person, blessed with boundless energy and enthusiasm…She has been utterly inspirational, supportive and instrumental in bringing this book together. It has been my privilege to collaborate with her.”

So now tell me Mr. Spanash, is Meri Nana Ama, a daughter of our freedom fighter, Dr. J. B. Danquah not a Ghanaian, even if she lives and works in the US as you do, what difference does this make. If anything at all this is a pointer to the fact that, His Excellency President Mahama, walked his talk about utilizing the expertise of Ghanaian publishers, even before he became the President. And it also exposed your sheer ignorance and stupidity of wanting to score cheap political points with that fallacious and falsefool article.

Next time you are writing on a highly sensitive topic like this, please do your homework well, by making some indepth research, including borrowing the book from a Ghanaian abroad in order to review especially, the acknowledgement part if you don't care to be “nationalistic enough” to purchase it. This will enable you to present factual and truthful analysis to our discerning Ghanaian readers. And I urge you and the NPP to render an apology to His Excellency the President for this false allegation, especially having to know that, he as a unifier went the extra mile to employ the service of a family member of Nana Akufo Addo, (who is making thousands of dollars from him, as she is still working on his second book) out of over hundred Ghanaian publishers that you mentioned. And I believe Nana Addo would not hire someone related to the President to work with him or for him.

As an educated resident or citizen of the United States (I cannot tell if you have green card), you should know that, publishing industry in the US, is a huge business opportunity-Publishers enter into business deals with authors based on percentages, and they draft agreements with their legal consultants to cover themselves, and thereby make more money than the authors of books the themselves. They capitalize on the media publicity they render to the authors' books-with reviews from giant newspapers, such as; the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. As well as radio and TV appearance, book reading and signing ceremonies and above all, comments from such award winning and prolific authors mentioned above, who have blazed the trail and curved enviable niche for themselves in the publishing field.

So please do not accuse the President of rejecting the Ghanaian publishers, if you fail to do your homework well. This is a great shame and an intellectual dishonesty to misinform and manipulate the mentality of our electorate, who have vowed not to 'hire' Mr. “All die be die” with his “Yen Akanfuo” ethnocentric mantra, since they resolved to renew the mandate of His Excellency President Mahama come next week Friday to proceed with the ever enviable and indelible socio-economic legacy left by the late President Mills.

Husseini Y. Baba AlWaiz, Press Secretary, NDC New York

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