John Mahama
Former President John Mahama’s claim of being the originator of the now operational and lifeline Free SHS programme across the country is the lead story in yesterday’s edition of this newspaper.
The story caused not only disaffection for the man who made the claim but also expected derision.
Some persons are worried that such volte face and being economical with the truth can be associated with a former First Gentleman of the country.
Using the appropriate word for untruth would be too harsh and blunt a description to use for a former President and so we would leave the deduction to our readers to make.
For a man whose aversion to the Free SHS policy is household knowledge in the country to turn round and claim ownership of the patent, as it were, triggers the question as to whether or not there is a cognitive drawback as they process the former President’s assertion.
We were asked by some persons about the veracity of the claim the story being too weird for them when juxtaposed to the known stance of the former President. Our affirmative response had the askers nodding in surprise.
There is no doubt the former President continues to believe in his assumption that Ghanaians suffer from amnesia and could, as he erroneously thinks, have forgotten his spirited fight against the Free SHS.
In a Google age where past remarks could easily be pulled out for public consumption such reversal in thoughts could only expose their sources to ridicule and opprobrium.
Even those in the rural areas with no access to the Internet have retentive memories and would easily recall the NDC at the helm days when a typical Bukom woman was paid to serve as the principal character in an anti-Free SHS commercial on television.
There can only be one reason why the former President is massaging the reality about the Free SHS policy. It has succeeded against all machinations put on its way by his remunerated killjoys.
He is sulking and resorted to making embarrassing remarks as observers are pushed to thinking that diminishing returns could be setting in about how he handles his thoughts on the campaign trail. For him to challenge President Akufo-Addo over the ownership of the Free SHS concept is, to state the least, just unfathomable.
Fourteen-year-old children unable to get places in boarding houses and now living in rented rooms outside schools was another thing he said during his recent campaign tour to some parts of the country.
Which parents would rent accommodation for teenaged kids because their schools have no places in the boarding facility? That is what is happening in the former President’s world not in our Ghana, anyway.
Campaign language should be devoid of such phantom remarks because they are verifiable. The preference for mendacious claims is a reliable way of losing deference.