Samira Bawumia
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”
– Eleanor Roosevelt.
Where I come from, women hunt with bows and arrows alongside their male counterparts. The only difference is that whenever a woman hunter kills a big animal, it is the man who helps to carry the carcass home. After all, the woman too will be the one to cook the meal. Economists call it Division of Labour. Probably the saying that what men can do, women can also do originated from my holy village.
I have been following the exploits of Madam Samira Bawumia since the 2016 electioneering campaign, and have come to the conclusion that she is mercurial, unrelenting, witty, fearless and above all, unbreakable. I came to admire her more when she held the microphone to speak at the Trade Fair Centre in Accra where the NPP had their last rally in 2016. She mesmerised the teaming crowd with her unique style of delivering her message and her trademark infectious smile.
She freely interacts with female students and dances along with them as they sing their “soloku” songs before delivering her message of hope. After all, is she not a product of Mfantsiman Girls Secondary School where only the tough survives? She tells whosoever cares to listen that her husband can change things for the better.
She is not the insulting type and like her husband, she consistently tells the crowd that the campaign should be based on what one can do to move the nation forward but not insults. She continues to treat her critics with ordinary contempt as she focuses on her message to the people. That is the mark of a lady. In fact, there is no difference between Samira and Madam Rebecca Akufo-Addo. Call them two of a kind and you will not be far from the right.
Whereas her husband, Dr. Bawumia, mashes it up in the five northern regions, Hajia Samira does what she knows best down south.
In the years gone by, the NDC misled the people of the zongo with the naked lies that the NPP was against them, and that if they voted for the NPP, the party will revisit the Aliens Compliance Order, introduced by the late Prime Minister of Ghana, Professor Kofi Abrefa Busia. Those lies have hit the rock now that the flagbearer of the NPP is a Muslim from the north.
Interestingly, both Samira and Dr. Bawumia speak fluent Hausa and other northern languages in addition to Twi so their massages at the zongos sink in perfectly well. Today, the people of the zongo have seen the light and they have uncoiled themselves from the grip of deliberate lies of the NDC. That is why you see the zongos and the people of the northern regions for that matter falling head over heels anytime they see Dr. Bawumia and Samira.
And that is why you see people trooping out in their numbers to welcome Dr. Bawumia and his beautiful wife.
I can’t wait to see Hajia Samira campaigning in the northern regions. The people in the northern regions should bear in mind that opportunity is knocking on their doors and as such, they should grab it with two hands. Mr. Mahama told Ghanaians that because Dr. Bawumia is not an Akan, when the time came for their presidential primaries, NPP Delegates will vote against Bawumia. What happened during the NPP presidential primaries is history and Mr. Mahama who has no shame has kept silent.
Since we started our journey of democratic dispensation, northerners have not gotten a first lady. Unto us is come the time and season for a first lady to come from the north. This has nothing to do with tribalism but a simple matter of one of the maxims of equity which says equality is equity. The way Delegates voted massively for Bawumia during the presidential primaries should be a wakeup call to all northerners that their time has come.
One good turn deserves another. The Akans and other tribes down south are watching with eagle eyes. A word to the wise is in the North. Don’t laugh!!! Full stop.
By Eric Bawah