Ghanaians are patient species. They are so patient that, they can allow themselves to be bullied, intimidated and kicked like dogs but when the time comes for them to act, no one, including, even the great kings can stop them on their tracks. For eleven years a group of usurpers calling themselves Provisional National Defense Council held the nation at ransom and bulldozed their way to whatever they surveyed. Corporals could command generals; and a private army called 64 Battalion was set up to put fear into the hearts of the regular army. As for civilians, we were made to look like chickens before hawks. We bided our time and waited for deliverance from the Lord God of Host.
Then a Prophet of the Lord, like Joshua, the late Professor Albert Adu Boahene rose up in the land of Ghana and called Ghanaians to rise up because we were living in a Culture of Silence. He asked us to speak out because we were being cowed into unnecessary submission. That simple call to duty turned Ghana upside down. General Arnold Quanoo, a beneficiary of the revolution, threatened that there will be inferno if anyone tried anything funny. Because once bitten twice shy, Ghanaians recoiled into their shelves, living the poor old professor to carry his own cross. His house was raided by soldiers but by the Grace of God, they met his absence.
Then the World Bank did bare its teeth and forced Mr. Rawlings to go for Democracy else the loans will no more be coming. He obliged and did put down his military uniform and started wearing agbada and smock. Before the cock could crow twice he and his cohorts, led by Obed Asamoah formed a party called National Democratic Congress. The Commandoes, Rawlings private army still remained at post, brutalizing and maltreating Ghanaians even though we were supposed to be in a democratic dispensation. During the 1992 general election, these brutish forces called commandoes went on rampage and made sure Rawlings won the elections, hands down. The same thing was repeated in 1996 but still Ghanaians kept their silence with believe that no condition was permanent.
The NPP realized rather too late that for the 19 years that Rawlings ruled the nation he left behind a total mess. President Kufuor and his team who took over power from Rawlings worked beyond human endurance to fix the economy. He introduction poverty alleviations programmes like Free Maternal Care, The National Health Insurance Scheme, The Captivation grant, School Feeding Programme, built highways, schools, teachers’ bungalows, highly supervised fertilizers for farmers, the Kufuor buses which conveyed old men, women and school children free of charge, Cocoa Mass Spraying, LEAP, Community Police and a host of others to alleviate the suffering of Ghanaians. Kufuor left behind a solid foundation for a quantum leap of the economy to higher pedestals. The biggest mistake that Ghanaians did was when they voted back into power, the NDC. That is why sometimes I support Mr. Mahama when he told Ghanaians that they are forgetful and shortsighted.
The late Professor Fiifi Atta Mills and John Mahama came storming as if they had something extra to officer Ghanaians and things started moving backwards. Corruption which was unattractive during the Kufuor era became a state policy. Hard drugs which the ex-president tried to fight by introducing the operation Westgate was abandoned, thereby opening the floodgate for massive exportation of cocaine and other hard drugs to overseas market, it came to a point when a small girl called Nayele Ametepe or Ruby Adu Gyamfi and her girls were able to use the VVIP gate at the Kotoka International Airport to export the stuff to theUK. The machine which was installed at the Kotoka International Airport to track drug traffickers was quickly removed, allowing drug barons to do their thing and laugh their way to the banks. Mr. Yaw Akrasi Sarpong who was put in charge of NACOB became a toothless bulldog. He could be termed as the worst NACOB boss who ever manned that position.
ENTER MR. FIXER
Anytime I hear the NDC communicators saying Nana Akufo-Addo has not kept his promises to the good people of Ghana I begin to wonder if indeed they do understand the meaning of a promise. In the run-up to the 2012 and 2016 general election, candidate Nana Addo promised the people of Ghana that when voted into power, he will introduce free SHS so that every Ghanaian child will get the opportunity to attend Senior High School free of charge. I must admit that even those of us who were dye in the wool supporters of the NPP were skeptical of the pronouncement, because even Dr. Kwame Nkrumah who inherited some money from our colonial masters after independence could only implement free Secondary schools in only two regions out of the then nine regions in Ghana.
Almost three years after holding the reins of power, President Akufo-Addo and his able team of competent technocrats and ministers introduced the programme to the surprise of everybody. Today apart from attending SHS free of charge, students are given free hot meals a day. Because SHS was free, thousands of children who would have been roaming the streets aimlessly are in school, pursuing one course or the other. The Double Track system was introduced to accommodate the teaming number of students and the NDC got ants in their pants, pissing everywhere. Now that things are working according to plan, they have kept silent and scratching their testicles in public.
Then he promised that when voted into power, he would make sure teachers/nurses allowances would be restored and President Mahama told Ghanaians that what candidate Nana Addo said would happen over his dead body and that the teacher trainees and nursing trainees can decide to vote against him because he will never do that. When candidate Addo promised that he would give each constituency one million Dollars to embark on development projects, the NDC took him to the cleaners because according to them it was impossible. All the promises made by candidate Akufo-Addo were bastardized by the NDC because according to them it was not feasible. Weeks ago, the Minister of Finance announced that $275 million have been released to all the constituencies to embark on projects through the One Constituency One Million Dollar project. All these and many more promises came to reality in a matter of two and half years. I do not know whether the NDC apparatchiks have shame in their dictionaries. They spoiled it and Nana, the man of action is fixing it. One by one, we are all going to Canaan’s shore. All economic indicators are pointing to a positive direction. That means that fundamentals have been fixed and Ghana is ready for a take-off
By Eric Bawah