The naysayers of our generation in collaboration with their allies in the media, civil society and academia are on the prowl seeking to undermine the philosophy and achievements of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition.
That is why these collaborators would not interrogate John Mahama’s organised waste of time with the media. John Mahama and his NDC did not deem it appropriate to use the media engagement to tell us about what he used his tenure as President to do for Ghana and for which reason we should vote for him again.
The assemblage of the media at John Mahama’s “jamboree” last Sunday disappointed some Ghanaians when the journalists clapped for the NDC flagbearer against the convention of the journalism profession.
Now a section of this partisan media has turned the heat rather on Matthew Opoku Prempeh alias Napo, the running mate of the flagbearer of the NPP, for daring to say that President Akufo-Addo’s developmental impact in the country surpasses that of Kwame Nkrumah. These elements mostly sympathisers of the NDC are using that remark to buttress the perception that Napo is arrogant.
There are many Ghanaians who hold the view that although Kwame Nkrumah led the agitation for independence and post-independence development, including the Akosombo Dam, the pain our first President caused some people in Ghana is unprecedented. At the time of his overthrow in 1966, there were thousands of political detainees who languished in jail without trial for no cause.
To the critics of Napo, we say Kwame Nkrumah is not God who is above criticism. We reiterate that all our heads of state, have contributed to the country’s development, but none equals President Akufo-Addo’s free SHS. These days, development is no longer about brick and mortar and many physical structures, but development is about the people. That is the essence of the free SHS, and that is to impact lives regardless of the person’s standing in the society.
And to the NDC leaders and allies making the ugly noises, we remind them of 2 Timothy 4:4 which says, “And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables”. We are excited about this year’s electioneering, but we encourage John Mahama, Grandma Jane Naana and the NDC to focus on how to re-engineer their campaign in order to convince Ghanaians that under the next NDC government, dumsor for instance would be a thing of the past.
With the same vim with which John Mahama told the journalists that “free SHS has come to stay,” he will with the same strength not blame dumsor on our use of mobile phones and television sets. John Mahama, Ghanaians are waiting for the policy interventions to overturn what you call the mismanagement of the economy by President Akufo-Addo.
We think John Mahama’s rescue now is to reset his campaign agenda to give hope to the people that something new is “gonna happen in their life” under the so-called new NDC. To borrow this cliché from John Mahama’s General Secretary, Fifi Kwetey, the media engagement last Sunday can only be “419”.
Here we ask John Mahama to look Ghanaians straight in the face and tell them what he used his mandate to do for the people from 2012 to 2016? By his presentation at the media engagement, John Mahama claimed he created “heaven in Ghana” during the erstwhile NDC government under his watch as honey and milk were on the dining tables of all families.
By his inference, the Akufo-Addo administration has through its policies made life unbearable for all. To buttress his point of destruction caused to the economy by President Akufo-Addo and his government, the NDC flagbearer said the government has supervised the collapse of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), promising to look for a strategic investor to revamp it.
We are not amused about the position of John Mahama over TOR, because when the sitting president presented plans to seek a strategic investor for TOR, the NDC apparatchiks hiding behind the workers kicked against the deal, claiming President Akufo-Addo wanted to sell the refinery to his cronies.
As if that is not enough, John Mahama said as part of the strategy to revive TOR, the refinery was supplied with crude from the very first oil pour but this government refused to help TOR to refine it when it came to power and had to sell it off.
But if we are to go by John Mahama’s argument, then something does not add up. First oil pour was in 2010, so in between that until 2017 when President Akufo-Addo assumed office, the “competent Mahama” could not revive TOR.