Both Adongo And Akufo-Addo Got It Wrong On Kufuor And Atta-Mills

I perfectly appreciate where Nana Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo is coming from, because I am also coming from precisely the same place. There is absolutely no pun intended here, dear reader, for I perfectly know what you may be thinking about this statement of observation. And that is where you may completely veer off-tangent. Indeed, I don’t even suppose, or doubt, for a split-second that Nana Akufo-Addo would be comfortable with what I frankly have to say here, as my first and foremost bounden obligation is to the unvarnished truth, while, of course, letting the proverbial chips fall where they may.

I mean, it is perfectly in synch with the game of politics to flatter your ideological kinsmen and clansfolk, even when the subject of such well-calibrated encomium or adulation may not even half be deserving of the same. I am not hereby the least bit implying that former President John Agyekum-Kufuor does not deserve any of the praises heaped upon him, intermittently and, I hope, sincerely, by the last man that Mr. Kufuor had intended or wished to inherit the leadership mantle from his own political party, when the Manhyia and Atwima-Nwabiagya native son departed his significantly reconstructed Flagstaff House official residence on January 7, 2009.

What I am saying here, with absolutely no qualms or prejudice, is that President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo needs to quickly and promptly get away from this morbid tendency to elevate the man who publicly, albeit slyly, has thumbed his nose at him more than any other Ghanaian politician, opposition or internally, and, instead, be studiously focused on the need to making Ghana the nonesuch sort of development model for continental Africa that he has been preaching ever since anybody can recall. Yes, former President Agyekum-Kufuor left a legacy of remarkable achievements, largely in the form of quality-of-life improvements, in a way that cannot be said of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings. But it is also an open-secret that President Agyekum-Kufuor was adamantly prepared to let these noble and yeomanly achievements, literally, go to the dogs, as it were, if it meant that then-Candidate Akufo-Addo was poised to succeeding him at the Flagstaff House.

Also, lauding the late President John Evans Atta-Mills for initiating many remarkable development projects does not get the critic and the rest of us anywhere, especially when Nana Akufo-Addo cannot specifically point to how any of these so-called Atta-Mills-initiated projects have helped to significantly advance the development of the country. Even more important must be stressed the fact that it was President Atta-Mills who gave Ghanaians this certified scam-artist and pathologically payola-oriented monstrosity called Mr. John Dramani Mahama. In short, it cannot be politically savvy for President Akufo-Addo to presume to play Messrs. Atta-Mills, late, and Mahama against one another.

Ideologically and politically, these two men, that is, Messrs. Atta-Mills and Mahama, are one and the same. They are veritable political clones. Hand and glove, as it were. Both are Cash-and-Carry faux-socialist politicians; so I don’t see the need for this hair-splitting attempt to differentiate one man from his shadow, or miniature model, if the dear reader would. And this is also where Mr. Isaac Adongo, the National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga-Central, got it absolutely wrong, that is, this cynical idea that, somehow, an exiting government has absolutely no obligation to bequeath its successor a wiggle room of financial liquidity to enable the latter to readily proceed with the salutary process of the socioeconomic development of the country.

I mean, how do the likes of Mr. Adongo justify the $ 13 million Vice-Presidential Mansion boondoggle? Or SADA and AMERI-DEAL? But, of course, Ghanaians have ourselves to blame for electing Mr. Mahama our president, when the STX signal, for just one striking example, was all too clear for all to see and remember in the lead-up to Election 2012. When the unmistakable signal of a pathologically narcissistic John Mahama and his lurid and joyous celebration of the death of his former boss and immediate predecessor were boldly written across the nation’s political firmaments.

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