John Dramani Mahama
“I hear the incompetent one says he wants to come back. He wants to come and do more damage, as if he didn’t do that damage. Well, we are waiting for him. We are waiting for him. We are waiting for him. Oh! My God” – ‘Prophet’ Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia,Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana.
“Managing economy is not the same as lecturing. If you do propaganda with the economy, the exchange rate will expose you. You can lecture on economy but reality will expose you. Ghanaians are facing economic challenges and the tide could only be resolved by experienced persons and not economic lecturers who merely engage in theories” – Mr. John Dramani Mahama, ex-President of the Republic of Ghana.
According to my old dusty lexicon, ‘incompetent’ means ‘not having the ability to do something as it should be done’. If I am to go by this definition, then when someone tells you that you are incompetent, the person has not insulted you. I am not a surgeon so if I decide to operate on a patient, it is wrong because I am incompetent to carry out the operation. In fact, I will definitely end up killing the patient because I do not have the ability to do so. This is very simple English language which I think our ex-president should not worry about. He shouldn’t continue to cry like a baby who has lost a toy anytime the Vice-President refers to him as incompetent. Being the Vice-President of Ghana, Mr. Mahama was the Chairman of the Economic Management Committee when the late Atta Mills was in power. Ex-President Kufuor left behind a buoyant economy but Mr. Mahama supervised the ruin of the economy simply because he was not an economist. Even though he did not have the ability to manage the economy, he did not assemble people who understood economics to help him out. The late Vice-President Aliu Mahama was not an economist but as the Chairman of the Economic Management Committee, he surrounded himself with economic ‘whiz-kids’ who helped him manage the economy very well. Our former president failed to manage the economy well. His attitude, when he was in power, was like one who was staring at an open door and did not realize its open, let alone its significance.
The sages say if you leave in a glass house make sure you don’t throw stones. The logic in this is that if you throw a stone at somebody and the person also throws one back, your glass house will be broken into pieces. Mr. Mahama went to Tatale to ridicule the Vice-President and his team, referring to them as inexperienced persons and economic lecturers who merely engage in theories. When the Vice-President too met MMDCEs and told them that an incompetent person wants to come back and rule the country again, Mahama started ‘pulling ants from his pants’. You don’t start a fight that you can’t finish. Mr. Mahama demeaned economic lecturers at our universities by telling them that they merely engage in theories, forgetting that theories are translated into practical. Mahama’s team of economic managers were not good at economic theories, hence they could not translate any theory into practical. That was why they failed miserably and left behind a tattered economy. Managing an economy of a nation is not about rhetoric and theatricals like the way Mahama did when the NDC was in power. It is serious business which demands serious thinking. If you build an economy on straws, it will not stand the test of time. This was exactly what the ex-president and his team did. The economy of a nation is built on rocks and that is exactly what Dr. Bawumia and his team are doing.
I listened to a statement issued by the office of the ex-president when Dr. Bawumia insinuated that “the incompetent one says he wants to come back” and I laughed. What is more insulting than to refer to accomplished economics gurus as “inexperienced persons”? And when these people also refer to you as “incompetent one”, you fly into tantrums. No wonder Socrates, the Greek philosopher, said: “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser”. Whether Mahama likes it or not, the word ‘incompetent’ will forever hang on his neck like an albatross because he deserves to be called so by his actions and inaction as far as the management of the economy under his watch was concerned. If the ex-president thinks he will have the leeway to insult people ‘by heart’, his handlers should have a word with him. This time round if he decides to go down the gutter like he did when he was the president, he should watch out because there are people out there who are ready to go down the gutter with him.
And whether the NDC likes it or not, Dr. Bawumia will continue to sneeze and they will continue to catch cold. Much as they try, they cannot get anything against the man except to lie through their teeth that the economy is being mismanaged. I have said on several occasions that it is very easy to demolish a building than to construct it. The NDC took eight years to destroy the economy and when the economic ‘whiz-kid’ and his team are picking the pieces and working so hard to remedy the situation, they make ugly noises. Dr. Bawumia recently went to China and returned with a mouth-watering MOU which shocked the NDC. When the issue went to Parliament for discussion, the NDC parliamentarians chose to call it a loan instead of barter. Out of jealousy, they went to the IMF to lobby for the deal to be cancelled. In response, the IMF literally threw their petition to the dogs and told them that what the Vice-President and his team negotiated with the Chinese was in good order. Nobody has heard of the challenge again. Shameless nation wreckers!
Speaking to MMDCEs recently, the good economist named Bawumia said wonders would happen in 2019 when the Chinese come storming with huge projects like bypasses, quality roads, schools, etc. Those of us who are optimistic know what $2billion can do for Mother Ghana. Indeed, we know what the Chinese can do for Ghana because they have done a lot to other third world countries. Left to the NDC alone, our bauxite deposit should be left to lie in the forests while the people suffer. Over the years, sages have told us not to go where the path may lead us; instead we should go to where there is no path, and you will leave a trail. Ghana has been exporting bauxite since we had independence but we cannot boast of anything that the export of bauxite has done for us. If somebody says he is coming to extract our bauxite, add value to it here in Ghana and export the value added mineral overseas and in turn do all these projects for us, the NDC says NO. If the Chinese come and build an overpass in Tamale and Haruna Iddrisu, the Minority Leader in Parliament, who led the ‘AGAINST TEAM” decides not to drive on it, so be it. If you are going to live in the river, better make friends with the crocodile. In other words, you can’t stay in Rome and ‘strike’ with the Pope.
There is an old saying that if you have no problems, then you don’t have a job. Problems come with the territory of any endeavour. So it is good to know how to deal with the inevitable. The President has recognized the problems confronting the nation and he is tackling them head on. If the sun rises and the sun sets, there will be problems to deal with. I know people who see problems as a game to be won. In fact, there are others who see problems as burdens. That is just giving yourself another problem to deal with. In all our endeavours, we meet obstacles on our way to success. You don’t fight the current but you let it have its way with you. You see, if you follow your bliss, the universe will open doors where there were only walls. We shall overcome.
Those who are sitting on the fence and wish the President fails in his efforts to steer ‘the ship of state’ ashore are doing harm to themselves. Success is often a matter of patience. From where I sit and how I see things, I believe the good old Lord is in full control. The President knows he cannot fail Ghanaians because we have put our trust in him.