John Mahama
Losing an election after investing so much in it and receiving the assurance from ‘so-called’ pastors that victory was a done deal can be painful. Indeed, it can lead to the loser enduring bouts of hallucinations and augmented inebriation if he is not a known teetotaler.
We sympathise with the former President whose efforts to clinch a second go at the presidency has been dashed and perhaps for good.
Sulking the way he is doing however, does not address his predicament, especially as his aides are beginning to exude treasonable traits in their remarks.
It might take a long time before the former President comes to terms with the reality of his electoral loss. But before he does, he would continue to incite youth of the slums to go into the streets as he feeds them with mendacious figures and tales about the polls.
Encouraging children of other persons into the streets to face possible reaction from security agents should they for instance get violent is not what we expect of a former President.
The first election the former President encountered was the blemished one for which the NPP went to court clutching the relevant pink sheets.
This is the first time that the former President has fought an election from an opposition trench, hence his frustration and exhaustion.
It was an election he threw everything into, his demeanour in the post-declaration stage so pitiable.
The young men around him are not helping matters. They are doubtlessly feeding him with untruths which he appears to be consuming endlessly.
After believing that the 53 per cent he was told he garnered and his opponent President Akufo-Addo’s 52 per cent add up to 100 per cent, he has not been the same again.
They pushed him to address a press conference when he appeared disheveled, fatigued and even shivering.
Juxtapose his posture after the declaration with Nana Akufo-Addo’s when the election petition hearing endorsed his presidency and the contrast is loud. A confident Nana Akufo-Addo demanded peaceful conduct from his supporters with no trace of frustration on his countenance. That is how statesmen conduct themselves.
The former President has a lot to learn from President Akufo-Addo. The country should not go to pieces because one politician has lost an election. After all, in elections only one candidate wins and in this case President Akufo-Addo won.
If a week after the declaration of results the opposition is sweating to assemble its so-called evidence of rigging the 2020 polls, then it has lived up to its billing of incompetence.