We appear too serious with politics in a campaign season mode that we lose the fun in the remarks of the main actors.
Some of the jokes are too costly and they take away points from the originators, a fact overshadowed by their sense of accomplishment when they finish delivering their messages.
With each of the two main political parties campaigning in varied ways to win the hearts of the electorate one faux pas can be harmful, especially when there are many odds against one of the two sparring flagbearers in the ring.
When many untruths are credited to a flagbearer, these have the tendency of putting off prospective voters when the bearer of the integrity baggage comes seeking votes.
Former President John Mahama’s last week goof trended on social media shortly after he committed the blunder of numbers. His opponents made mincemeat of it, and why not? Even when his social media operatives sought to undo the damage that did not fly at all, allowing the goof to stick on his image.
We are excited about the fun that gaffe injected into an otherwise too serious political ambience on a new normal campaign trail. Full of derision, it took away the stress of modern urban society.
Some of the NDC flagbearer’s remarks are intended to be jokes in our estimation. The NDC flagbearer’s quickness at jumping from one stance to the other without thinking that his listeners can recall his previous remarks with ease is a major source of mirth.
Those who think that the former President is suffering from amnesia of sorts might not be wrong.
He nearly invoked the name of a Gonja deity to support his denial that he ever condemned the Free SHS policy, but the Internet archives are ready to vindicate us when we say he derided it. We have not forgotten the woman who was paid to partake in an anti-Free SHS campaign on television.
For a personality who fought tooth and nail to stop the voter registration exercise now turning round to project it, with his volte-face on issues he was antagonistic to earlier, should not surprise us.
Is the media intimidated in the country? ‘No’ but the former President said ‘yes’. Is the military being misused? He said ‘yes’. Deployment soldiers for a national assignment on our borders cannot be a misuse of a protective institution. These, alongside his description of the judiciary as not being independent, prompt us to conclude that the NDC flagbearer is only providing us with fun in an otherwise too serious political climate in a scary Covid-19 era.
He says he would have managed the pandemic better than what President Akufo-Addo is doing currently.
He failed woefully to stop a cholera epidemic in 2013 or so leading to close to 200 deaths. Must we believe this man who could not manage an epidemic telling us he can manage a pandemic?
Laughter is good for health; let us laugh.