John Mahama
During the days of the Roman Empire when they set out to conquer every nation, they never went to battle without preparing their horses so well. They fed them well, mended their wounds and daily rode the horses around to practice how to control them and examine their fitness. Saddles of the horses were as well mended and old saddles were discarded and placed with new ones. That was why the Romans were unconquerable.
In 2008, the NPP went to battle without preparing their horses. They thought because of the sterling performance of Mr. John Kufuor, the election was a done deal. Illiterates, old and over used polling agents were put at the polling stations to supervise the election for the party. In fact, some of the polling agents compromised after they were bribed by the NDC. Some of them were met on the road from their villages to present their pink sheets at the constituency offices, given money and they handed over the Pink Sheets to NDC tricksters and returned to the villages.
The sad aspect of the case is that many voters at the NPP strongholds like the Ashanti Region played apathy and indifference. They simply failed to vote because they thought NPP had won in advance. It was when the election went to the runoff that they decided to go out there to vote. Sadly, the harm had already been done and the late Prof. Atta Mills won by a margin of just forty eight thousand votes.
During the run up to the 2012 General Election, Mr. Kufuor admonished the NPP to keep an eye at the polling stations because that was where elections are won or lost. As a result, undergraduates, well educated ladies and gentlemen, seasoned NPP politicians were put in charge of the polling stations. The NDC on the other hand oiled their rigging machine and outwitted the NPP. That was how come the case had to end up at the Supreme Court where a split decision declared Mr. Mahama the winner. Mahama never complained about the Supreme Court neither did he insult them the way he is doing today.
On the other hand, Nana Addo said even though he was not satisfied with the decision of the Supreme Court, he accepted the decision for the sake of peace. He went on to congratulate Mr. Mahama. Sadly, after losing the 2020 Presidential Election, Mr. Mahama has refused to accept defeat and also refused to congratulate Nana Addo. And he wants to be called a statesman!
Having learnt their lessons well, the NPP in 2016 selected more well qualified ladies and gentlemen made up of university graduates, former constituency executive members, lawyers, top gurus etc to man the polling station. That was why the rigging machine of the NDC could not operate. At the end of the day, John Mahama lost by a hooping one million votes. He never coughed and started growing lean.
In the beginning or at the beginning, the NDC thought because of the economic recession that the nation is experiencing, Ghanaians will use that as a yard stick to vote against the NPP. When Dr. Bawumia and his team hit the grounds running and explaining the good deeds of the Nana Addo-led administration, the NDC recoiled into their shelves and chose the path of propaganda.
Somebody should have told them that the era of propaganda is gone with the win. Ghanaians have wised up. They know in the face of the economic hardships, development is going on. Roads, bridges, school blocks, free school feeding, dormitories, salaries of public workers, the almighty free SHS, the recent DRIP programme etc are going on unabated. When John Dramani Mahama, the man who told us that if he had eight billion Ghana cedis he will not use it for free SHS, turned around to tell us not long ago that when he came back to power he will add private schools to the programme.
He even insulted Ghanaian parents that food being given to students enjoying the free SHS was not fit for his dogs to eat. I don’t blame him because he has received his End of Service Benefit and continues to draw his monthly salaries. If a man who has thirteen children vomits out such a rot, then you can tell that he is rich and corrupt. Was he having a dog in his rented room when he was working at the Japanese Embassy before he entered into politics?
When the government dreamt of buying road construction equipment and imported large number of machines and distributed them to all the MMDAs to embark on the construction of roads in their respective districts, Mahama shamelessly and childishly said the way the equipment were transported to the MMDAs was not the best. Monkey talk! Has the equipment not reached their destination? He went on to convince his gullible followers to attack any gathering meant to outdoor the equipment in all the MMDAs. The guy is dazed because he can see defeat staring him in his face.
For now, the only trump card left for the NDC which is also their ace is violence. They have served notice through their flagbearer and continue to blow the alarm bell that the 2024 General Election is a “do or die” affair. The chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has told Ghanaians that the NDC will never sign any peace pack. It, therefore, stands to reason that they are ready to drag the country into chaos if they lose the election. The NDC has also said that they will not go to any court if they lose the elections. That also means they have many weapons under their ambit to solve the problem in case they lose the election.
Should we fold our arms and sit down unconcerned for a political party which has its roots in a bloody revolution to re-enact what they did to Ghanaians in the revolutionary days by splitting the blood of innocent Ghanaians? Anybody who thinks the NDC is just bluffing is a dreamer. Such persons may not have been born when Rawlings, the founder of the NDC launched his wish-to-be forgotten bloody revolution or was too young to experience our pain and woes. I have written in this column that the person who has eaten crab before tells you that he could eat calabash, you don’t have to doubt him.
But the NDC should be told that they do not have monopoly over violence. They should also know that when the rain falls, it won’t fall on one man’s house. Ghanaians should cast their minds back to what happened in Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and other countries where violence brought them to their knees. The signals being brandished by the NDC is another way of telling the NPP to arm themselves for a showdown which will not augur well for anyone.
As for me, your irrepressible and unbreakable Earth Angel Gabriel, I will have nothing to lose when Rome starts to burn since I will be hovering in the firmament where Angels dwell. Full stop!!!
By Eric Bawah