An Act of Kindness from the President

One significant feature of a well-meaning government is that which ensures the proper, unbiased execution of its mandate as a government in power. Governments the world over should aim at leading their people, whether they voted for them or not, through a carefully planned action engineered by their constitutions.

Indeed, the decisions of most voters are largely based on the character of their political leaders, and the actions that such leaders take. I believe that the kind gesture bestowed on Mr Adamu Daramani Sakande by the President of Ghana will surely stay indelible in his blood, and that of his entire family and well-wishers. No doubt he has not been an ingrate to the President ever since his penalty was cancelled.

His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama last week granted the physically feeble Adamu Daramani, former MP for Bawku Central, Presidential Pardon on medical grounds after the incarcerated MP had served only four months of his two- year jail term.

The President's forgiveness of the crime the court found Mr Adamu Daramani guilty of establishes the fact that good leadership should not be about paying back in the same coin what our opponents once did to us. Those who stand by this form of ''you-do-me-I-do-you leadership do not make any headway in their political lives.

In August this year, an Accra High Court found Mr Adamu Daramani Sakande guilty of false declaration of office, perjury and deceiving a public officer.

One thing we should not lose sight of is that it is important for us to express gratitude to the people who take active part in the cancellation of our penalties, but it is very expedient for us to go and sin no more. Presidential Pardons, we know, restore people to the state of innocence they had before they committed their crimes, but the scars of such crimes linger on throughout their life time.

In life it is good to hold a high office, but it is better to stand to the truth and remain blameless, and avoid being desperate in our search for political power. Being desperate to get hold to any political office will make us do things out of our emotions, instead of our conscience and the application of our Constitution, and in so doing , we disappoint the very people under whose leadership we serve, and the general public as a whole.