Former Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur
Former Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur is entitled to some courtesies such as obeisance because he served as the Number Two Gentleman of the nation. It does not matter whether he failed to leave a mark in his trail or even impact positively on the economy of the country.
To have unfettered access to the courtesies however, he must exhibit a high sense of dignity when speaking in public. In the case that he slips in arranging his thoughts in a manner as to expose his ignorance or mischief, he is bound to suffer the untold consequences in the peculiar Ghanaian political circumstance.
In his bid to be relevant in the Ghanaian political dispensation, he feels obliged to speak out on important national issues. In his every effort in that direction, however, he has largely ended up becoming a laughing stock; failing woefully.
Last week, he tried taking a swipe at the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ – the new mantra and failed humiliatingly. The refrain has within the short period that it was mooted by the President caused unrest in NDC quarters – another project whose success would deal them a long term blow as has the free SHS done.
Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur with the 107 questions posed by his successor Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia still outstanding, has jumped into the fray condemning the mantra as an undoable rhetoric.
Like the free SHS it is doable because the originator of it has a track record of making good his promises and visions.
Paa Kwesi clearly does not either understand the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ vision or he is just being politically mischievous – a new trait he appears to have acquired recently as he learns the rope of propaganda.
Trying to be relevant can be a difficult enterprise. Not even the capable hands in the NDC are making headway in these difficult times in the party’s history let alone the likes of the former Vice President whose place is certainly not in politics especially the propaganda-driven type.
He threw a bad analogy when he said a gift from Microsoft should be rejected if ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ should hold.
Clearly the Vice President makes many of us wonder how a person of his mould was able to hold the exalted office of Vice President for that long. Anyway the fallouts were obvious: a tattered economy which the new government tries hard to chart a new productive course away from.
Gifts differ from the aid we go seeking for our budgets and policies. The idea is to eventually use our resources to achieve our economic goals without recourse to foreign sources. This we can do by reducing to the barest minimum the incidence of corruption in our body politics and keeping away pessimists like Amissah Arthur from the throttles of governance.
It takes a visionary leadership to change the course of a country’s history. When such leaders are at the throttles, their ways daze those who when it was their turn failed to live up to expectation. Now that they are away from the helm, their stock-in-trade is throwing spanners into the works.
The Paa Amissah Arthurs of our time will fail as the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ comes to fruition for the benefit of all Ghanaians, a move worthy of emulation by other countries used to begging for aid.
The march towards an aidless Ghana has begun: notice has duly been served the players on the corruption field to steer clear lest they are caught and destroyed.