Mahama Can’t Secure Ghana’s Future

President John Dramani Mahama

During the 2012 electioneering campaign, President John Dramani Mahama told the nation that he and the late President John Evans Atta Mills had led the National Democratic Congress government in its first term in office to build a solid infrastructural base for the country.

He added that the period had also seen a ‘repair’ of the economy left behind by the previous Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party government.

As the immediate past Chairman of the Economic Management Team at the time, he boasted about the economic ‘achievements’ of correcting the fundamentals of the economy, with the nation made to believe that the highest score point was the existence of single-digit inflation.

Against the background of that so-called achievement, President Mahama promised the nation that the second term of the government would witness an economic take-off that would deliver prosperity to the good people of Ghana. But, he has woefully failed in delivering on that promise to the nation.

Interestingly, some members of the NDC have been going about predicting a one-touch victory for President Mahama, forgetting that elections are decided on issues and not propaganda.

Majority leader in Parliament and MP for Nawdoli, Alban Bagbin, is one person who has predicted a resounding victory for the president in the November polls. According to Mr Bagbin, President Mahama has shown enough competence in the socio-economic and political management of the country.

What has changed now for Alban Bagbin? When did he realize President John Dramani is competent and deserve another term? Or just because his bread is now buttered, he thinks Ghanaians should do the unthinkable by retaining President?

Mr Bagbin had previously accused President Mahama of being “naked” if he was being managed by people like Stan Dogbe. “If such characters as Stan Dogbe are those managing the President, then our President is naked, very naked,” he stressed.

Just because Alban Bagbin now feels comfortable, he wants Ghanaians to entrust another four years into the hands of an incompetent president, still surrounded by the Stan Dogbes. Would Mr Bagbin entrust Ghana into the hands of Mahama if it were a company he owes?

We all remember how at the start of the second term of the government, President Mahama urged Ghanaians to keep faith with the government because better times were ahead of them.

Now, in the last year of the two terms of the government, one would have expected to at least see a semblance of prosperity being delivered to the people by now.

But this has not been the case, as Ghanaians are currently going through an awful economic hardship foisted on them by the Mahama-led government that has been characterized by gross mismanagement, incompetence and naked corruption.

Now, President Mahama wants the electorate to give him and his government another term, for them to deliver the prosperity he promised during the first term of the government. And he thinks because ‘Ghanaians have short memories’, they will do that.

We at the New Statesman wonder how President Mahama expects the people to take him serious when he gives them promises again, especially having given many promises that have not been fulfilled. Ghanaians have lost complete trust in the leadership of President Mahama and they are determined to say ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ when they go to the polls in November.

The verdict out there, supported by the available evidence, is that the Mahama government has been the most incompetent since the nation returned to multi-party democratic dispensation in 1992.

And the crux of the matter is that he has wasted the vast opportunities made available to him to move the development agenda of the nation to the next level, as a result of gross ineptitude and unprecedented corruption. Ghanaians therefore cannot trust President Mahama and his government with another term. That will certainly be a bad ‘omen’ for the country.

Ghana must work again for the benefit of the suffering masses and the people are convinced the first step is to kick out the incompetent Mahama government from the corridors of power. That is certainly a divine responsibility that must be accepted by all well-meaning Ghanaians who are concerned about the future development of the nation.