Hajia Samira Bawumia, wife of Alhaji Dr. Bawumia
I now understand why they say appearance is deceptive. The first time I met Hajia Samira, the wife of the running mate of Nana Akufo Addo was at the Manifesto Launch of the New Patriotic Party at the Trade Fair Center in Accra. In fact, I had never heard her voice until that day. Of all the speakers at that function, Hajia Samira was the only one who kept me awake all night trying to figure the type of person I heard at the Manifesto Launch. The fair lady simply captivated me so much so that her soothing words kept coming and going through my sub-conscious mind.
I used to think Alhaji Dr. Bawumia is a good and perfect orator but I think I have to revise my notes. At first when she was invited to deliver her speech at the Manifesto Launch I became a little bit jittery because I thought the huge crowd could intimidate her. I was wrong. There she stood with her befitting dress, exuding purity and intelligence. She picked her words with care and mesmerized the crowd. Since that day, I had never hesitated to leave whatever I was doing, to listen to this lady. She is not the insulting type and her convictions are always politely stated, affably argued, and as firm and straight like the columns of St. Peter’s Cathedral.
Samira is new in the political turf but she has already proved to be a hard nut to crack. She matches an optimistic temperament with bold, persistent utterances. Samira possesses all the qualities of a perfect lady and I can’t wait to see the day that she will become the Second lady of Ghana. This is a woman who carries herself, even as the wife of a fine technocrat with decency and attention to small kindnesses that also define a good life. For now, nothing, absolutely nothing can stop this fair lady from firing from all cylinders. Listen to her at the Manifesto Launch: “I returned from the Northern Region three days ago. When I reached Bole, the home town of President Mahama, I saw huge billboards embossed with the pictures of Mr. Mahama. Meanwhile the people of Bole can’t get water to drink.” And listen to my lady at her oratory best at Tema recently: “We are saying to NDC that we see you alright. You want us to see you, we see you but we see incompetence, we see you but we see corruption, we see you but we see bad governance, we see you but we see bad management, we see you but we want change, we see you but we want Ghana to move forward.” That was Samira speaking in reference to the huge and costly NDC billboards erected across the length and breadth of Ghana.
I must admit that I really pity the NDC campaign team. They have met their march in Samira and her husband. While Dr. Bawumia consistently strikes like thunder, Hajia Samira takes the fight to the President directly. Meanwhile, instead of debating issues, the NDC attack dogs have mastered the art of personally attacking Dr. Bawumia and his beautiful wife. When Dr. Bawumia delivered his masterpiece the other day and Paa Kwasi Amissah-Arthur promised to reply him accordingly, little did we know that the man (Amissah-Arthur) will run from the battlefield. The NDC rather pushed a blockhead called Koku Anyidoho to take on Dr. Bawumia unduly. All what Anyidoho could say was to refer to Dr. Bawumia as “mutum banza”, (useless person) adding, Bawumia is a fake Muslim.
You see, the NDC people are rather making things worse for President Mahama but the man seems not to know. That was why he went outside the country to complain that a certain media cabal was blocking his campaign messages. If your people refuse to discuss issues and instead go on an insulting spree, how do you expect Ghanaians to understand your message? And if you as a president goes around dashing chiefs V8 vehicles how do you expect the common man on the street who cannot make ends meet understand your message if you promise heavens? You see, Mr. President, you have missed the boat and the end of your rule is in sight.
Let you and your wife continue to criss-cross the length and breadth of the country and distribute goodies to Ghanaians. They will receive them but surely they will vote against you and your party. Ghanaians are watching Lordina Mahama with wide eyes. When the right time comes she will have to tell Ghanaians where she got all the monies to buy votes for her husband who cannot answer a simple question as to whether he had received bribe or not. This woman should be told that the Indemnity Clause which has been enshrined in the Constitution of Ghana does not cover her as the wife of the president.
What the president has not realized is that people are really angry when they see him and his wife spending the taxpayers’ money lavishly, all in an attempt to buy votes. Because his ears are not on the grounds, he is always misled by his Regional Ministers and MMDCEs into thinking that his success as far as the December 7 election is concerned is a done deal. The president doesn’t ride in taxis and trotro buses so he doesn’t hear what people are saying about him and his government. People are keenly waiting for the D-Day to show the NDC that when the fool gets wiser, the game ends there. In 2004 when Mr. Kufour was going for his second term, he did not campaign vigorously like the way John Mahama and his desperate people are doing. Kufour knew he had done his best so there was no need for him to shout from the rooftop that he had done well the way President Mahama was doing today.
The other day when I heard the president telling his gullible listeners that he will give every district ten tractors if he gets a second term I nearly hit the screen of my black and white old Philips television set with a glass. Is this man serious? Here in my holy village about five maize farmers own five tractors each and some combine harvesters. The cost of one V8 vehicle can buy more than twenty tractors and yet the president is always happy to dash chiefs V8 cars while poor rural and subsistence farmers literally scratch the earth to make a living. Today if he is not promising one meter, one house, tomorrow he will promise restoration of nurses’ allowance while his Vice President also keeps telling whosoever cares to listen that the government will not restore the nurses’ allowances. Confused duo!!
THE SNARLING OF SAEED SINARE
I will not repeat the rot that Saeed Sinare spewed on Hajia Samira here because I am cultured, well trained and cosmopolitan enough. In fact, I have enough recognition and visibility in relevant quarters and so I will not go down the gutter like this man who calls himself an Ambassador. If such a person is representing Ghana in a foreign country you can understand why investors are not coming to do business in Ghana. Mr. Mahama has cheapened politics in Ghana by appointing such persons like Sinare to handle sensitive positions. Even a truck pusher will not stoop so low to insult a lady the way this Sinare guy did. And people call him “His Excellency,” TWEAA!!! Where I come from, children are taught, as they grow, to respect women because every woman is supposed to be your mother. I want to believe Sinare did not get the type of “home training” some of us had. Anyway, I will forgive him because if defeat is staring you in the face you act like a wounded lion and start playing buffoonery.
Hajia should take consolation in the fact that the difference between her husband and Sinare is like from Ghana to China. If Sinare had read the Curriculum Vitae of Dr. Bawumia that I published in this column a few weeks ago, he will not have misbehaved. What I have observed about the behavior of the NDC attack dogs is that Dr. Bawumia and Hajia Samira have become a thorn in the fresh of this group of corrupt and incompetent nation wreckers. They never had the slightest thought that Hajia Samira, a quiet and unassuming fine lady will rise up one day and sting like a bee. The truth is that we have more Samiras out there who are very angry about how things are going in this country under John Mahama. Such Samiras simply do not get the opportunity to voice out their disappointments and can only cross their fingers, waiting for the day of reckoning.
I believe Saeed Sinare has a wife and I wonder how he will react when somebody insults her the way he did to Hajia Samira. I am also happy Samira had treated him with ordinary contempt. Sinare is trying to distract the lady but sadly she won’t retreat nor surrender because the pitcher within her will not allow that until the battle is won by the grace of Allah, the most Compassionate. The lady is sure of herself and will never look back as she is doing her best for the change dream to become a reality so that Ghanaians will be relieved of the bad governance, corruption and incompetence she talked about in Tema. With the general election just around the corner, the likes of Sinare should go for their crash helmets because more will come their way. The battle is still the Lord’s (Help me say AMEN!!!)
By Eric Bawah