“I Don’t Like American Cars. I prefer Japanese cars” – John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana
The Akans have an adage I love to quote. They say when you feel cornered in a fight, you resort to using your teeth to defend yourself (Se ntokwa fono wo a na ato wo ne akeka akeka) I had cause to write some time ago in this column that President John Mahama lacks useful presidential habits. Presidents do not speak too much but they rather listen much. They don’t insult the citizenry and respect divergence views as well as take constructive criticisms in good faith.
A democratically elected president must be polite to his people because but for the votes of the people, he would not have been where he is. After all, is he not the number one servant of the people? Presidents aspire to be efficient, meticulous and focused on the art of governance. Indeed, a president must have the belief that people are a mass to be shaped and formed for their own best interests. Unlike revolutionaries who shout and look down on the people they rule, a democratically elected president should learn to speak in the urbane, cosmopolitan voice of an equal knowing that he needs good relations with the masses. A democratically elected president must put premium on diplomatic finesse because any slip could lead him to the act of diplomatic summersault and put the name of the country he rules into disrepute. Surely President Mahama lacks all these useful habits of a democratically elected president. The man speaks as if one day he will not be a president of this country again.
In a rapidly changing world, a president of any nation will bear in mind that times could change and as the number one citizen, his pronouncement could put generation yet unborn into a tight corner. A private contractor from Burkina Faso, Mr. Kanazoe wins juicy contracts in Ghana with a suspicious high contract sums. He bids for another contract and before the bidding process could go through, the guy imports a brand new made in America Ford Explorer through the Tema harbor, paid duty on the car as second hand car. The private contractor drove the car to his country and presents it to the Ambassador of Ghana to Burkina Faso to be driven back to Ghana and presented to the president of Ghana as a gift. Just imagine the circumlocution!
All these took place about four years ago and a journalist scooped the deal and published the story. When the journalist contacted the private contractor and shown him the necessary documents on the car, the man confessed that indeed, he was the one who imported the car and instructed the ambassador of Ghana to Burkina Faso to give the car to the president of Ghana as a gift. He further revealed that when the president of Ghana received the gift, he (the president) personally called him on his cell phone to thank him for the gift. When the Communication Minister of Ghana was contacted, he confirmed that indeed, the president received that gift but it has been added to the presidential pool of cars. What the Communication Minister failed to appreciate is that the noise we are making about the gift is not whether it has been added to the presidential pool of cars or the president personal pool of cars. The guy goofed badly. We are saying what the president did boarders on conflict of interest or bribery. Simple!
The questions we are asking are: Does the Flagstaff House pay duties on cars they import for use at the presidency? Why should it take four years before we were told of the so-called gift? If there was no secrecy surrounding the gift, couldn’t the giver have easily driven the car to the Flagstaff House from Tema and presented it to the president? In fact, if the car is a gift to the state why is it that the citizenry were not told until the cat came out of the bag? What did Mr. Mahama do for the man to warrant a $100,000 luxurious Ford Expedition? Has Mr. Kanazoe ever presented a car to the President of Burkina Faso as a gift before? When Mr. Mahama was representing the people of Bole/Bamboi in Parliament did he receive any gift from Mr. Kanazoe?
I don’t think the president has good handlers and surely he is not constantly briefed about issues. When the CPP had filed a petition with CHRAJ, the president told Ghanaians that those who think he had done anything wrong when he received the gift should go to court. Is the president, a former law maker aware that the CHRAJ has the powers of a High Court? Ah, what are we seeing and hearing in this country of twenty five million souls? This is a president who was interviewed by the BBC and when the interviewer asked him whether he had received bribe before, he denied flatly. It seems the interviewer knew of the car gift and so when the journalist leaked the story, the BBC carried the story extensively to the embarrassment of the good people of this country.
What is most serious about this Ford Expedition issue is what is quoted above. Since we have trade and other links with the United States, I am sure by now Uncle Sam is revising his notes as far as trade with Ghana is concerned. Yes of course, I do agree that people have their different tastes but as a president leading a nation, you don’t make such statements knowing very well that the US has an Ambassador in Ghana. And in this IT world by now the White House has heard what the president has said. The implication is very serious. The president has made a PR job for the car makers in Japan and that to me is very dangerous. I don’t believe the presidential many Mercedes Benz cars in the Flagstaff House which are always used by the president are made in Japan.
What the president said in defense of the gift has rather exposed him more in the scandal. Is he saying that because he doesn’t like America cars, he decided to give it to the state even though it was a gift given to him personally? Mr. President, the issue is not whether you like America cars or not. The person who gave you the made in America Ford Expedition might not know that after all, you don’t like America cars. You helped Kanazoe to win contracts and he was about to win a new one so he felt it was proper for him to give you a car and did just that. In fact, you also received the car and called to thank him. Those of us who are making the noise are of the view that what you did was bad. Period.
Did I hear somebody saying the president should return the car to the sender? If you steal my goat and you are caught by my neighbor and somebody advises you to return that goat, how will you do it? The president is already in the trap so whether he returns it or not he will have to defend the issue. The noises that he is making out there on the “car gift” anytime he was on his “Accounting to the people tour” cannot disabuse the minds of the good people of Ghana. When the president was in the Ashanti Region recently, he met the chiefs and people of Kumawu. At the durbar grounds, the Kumawuhene Barima Tweneboa Kodua presented a fat cow to him in the full glare of the cameras. Eyebrows were not raised because there was no secrecy.
I am beginning to think the president has no good advisers and the Council of State and his party are not doing him any good. Instead of his handlers advising him to adopt the “Clintonian approach” to the issue, they are pushing him deeper into the pit. When Bill Clinton, former President of the US faced impeachment for having inappropriate sexual relation with Monica Lewinsky, an intern at the White House, he flatly denied the act. But when a DNA test proved that indeed the president committed the act, he quickly apologized before the cameras on television which was watched by millions of people all over the world. When Americans realized that their president was remorseful, the impeachment process was seized and the man completed his term of office.
What president Mahama can do to save his face is to come out boldly to tell Ghanaians that what he did was inappropriate and that he begs for forgiveness because he did not know that what he did contravenes the supreme laws of the land. If he waits for this albatross to hang on his neck till he leaves office, posterity will write his name in bronze. And you know what? We ain’t going to stop commenting on this mess called “gift”
Eric Bawah