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14.07.2019 Feature Article

Nyaho Tamakloe Is a Failed Politician of Marginal Relevance – Part 2

Nyaho TamakloeNyaho Tamakloe
14.07.2019 LISTEN

Maybe instead of so casually presuming to insult the intelligence and common sense of Ghanaians by telling us that President Akufo-Addo has fallen far short of his electioneering campaign promises, the former Kufuor-appointed Ambassador to Bosnia and Croatia ought to tell us what his ideological and political hero and Dr. Tamakloe’s military fatigues-sporting nephew-in-law, former President John Dramani Mahama, did so remarkably better than his successor as Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces (See “Nyaho Tamakloe Predicted Akufo-Addo’s Abysmal Performance” GhanaCrusader.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/13/19).

On the preceding count, of course, I am thinking about Nana Akufo-Addo’s heroic and definitive resolution of the hitherto protracted and seemingly intractable resolution of the Dagbon Chieftaincy Crisis – also known as the Yendi Skin Affair – of which credit a morally shameless and culturally uncouth and gauche former President Mahama falsely and unwisely attempted to claim a lion’s share, and of which the longest-serving National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament, Mr. Alban SK Bagbin, mischievously and unconscionably attempted to divert the due credit from the widely acclaimed supervising midwife of the same.

You see, fatuously claiming that the Akufo-Addo “administration is currently undergoing [sic] criticisms for borrowing over $ 40 billion [USD) in two years and having no viable infrastructure [sic] projects to show for it,” clearly exposes the editors and publishers of the GhanaCrusader.com media portal for their inexcusably shameful lack of appreciation for the far more significant investment in Ghana’s Human Capital Resources by the Akufo-Addo Administration, the most notable of which investment projects is typified by the globally celebrated fee-free Senior High School System.

You see, as may be predictably expected, Dr. Tamakloe could knee-jerkily cite the so-called Dubai flyover interchange at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle as Mr. Mahama’s most significant infrastructural project, until a much smarter Ghanaian toddler steps out of the proverbial shadows to swiftly and sharply put him in his place, by educating the former Ghana Football Association (GFA) administrator that, after all, the Mahama-constructed Kwame Nkrumah Circle Flyover is a veritable death trap in a flood zone that woefully lacks the requisite drainage system to make it passable in a rainstorm to qualify it to be classified as one of the architectural wonders of Ghana, let alone an architectural wonder or major landmark of the West African sub-region.

Even more significant must be pointed out what Dr. JB Danquah, the globally acclaimed Doyen of Gold Coast and Modern Ghanaian Politics is widely reported to have told then-President Kwame Nkrumah more than a half-century ago, that physical or architectural landmarks may look very impressive and pleasing to the eye as to make the citizenry of an entire nation beam with pride. On the other hand, Danquah is reported to have told the much younger and less morally and intellectually acute Mr. Nkrumah that the tried and tested and true measure of measure of any nation’s development inescapably inhered in how adequately prepared Ghana’s human resources were, in terms of skills and vocational and intellectual development of the average Ghanaian citizen or resident.

It stands to reason that the pathologically materialistic outlook of Left-leaning Ghanaian politicians and their followers accounts for the abject neglect by the likes of former President Mahama of the most critical aspects of the country’s development. Which is also why under the leadership of the Rawlings-founded National Democratic Congress, the quality of Ghana’s public-education system has hit an all-time low and has yet to fully recover. It is also inexcusably preposterous for any critic of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to assert that the cleaning up of the thoroughly corrupted banking industry was one of the most serious unemployment-worsening blunders committed by President Akufo-Addo and his minions of cabinet and other executive appointees.

To be certain, it was the wantonly criminal lack of fiscal discipline on the part of the previous Mahama-led National Democratic Congress’ regime that effectively bankrupted the country’s economy and necessitated the prompt and radical rationalization of the same. Indeed, nearly every Ghanaian citizen who craves the imminent return of former President Mahama and his kleptocratic NDC minions and associates are so oriented because they were the prime beneficiaries of the old neocolonialist way of doing politics. Fortunately, and quite refreshingly, under the very competent and efficient tutelage of Nana Akufo-Addo, Ghana healthily and nobly is being weaned from the vampirically regressive economic policies of the twin Bretton-Woods establishment, namely, the IMF and the World Bank.

Is this laudable fiscal policy initiative, which is only equaled in Ghana’s Fourth Republic by another New Patriotic Party leader, to wit, former President John Agyekum-Kufuor, what Dr. Tamakloe weirdly perceives to be woefully misguided? Is this also primarily the reason why in the leadup to the 2016 presidential election, Dr. Tamakloe called for the immediate return of our former British colonial rulers?

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
July 13, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]

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