Opinion: Akufo-Addo Does Not March According to Mahama’s Clock of Overambition By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

The writer, Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jnr., Ph.D.

I tried to read Mr. Abdur Rahman Odoi Anum Pobee’s article titled “Mahama’s Return May Lead to Nana Addo’s Aggrandizement,” but could not even complete the very first sentence. But I shall, nevertheless, try to rejoin what I presume to be the author’s thesis, which appears to be that, somehow, the rather comical announcement by former President John Dramani Mahama that he intends to wrestle with his successor to win back his old job would force Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to embark on vote-seeking grandiose projects, rather than meaningful projects of substance. Now, this is rather laughable because if Nana Akufo-Addo had not even been voted President of the Democratic Republic of Ghana, after three admittedly difficult tries, he would still have left a lasting legacy that Mr. Mahama would not have been able to surpass, even if the latter were afforded 8-and-half years at the Jubilee-Flagstaff House.

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I challenge any of the National Democratic Congress’ apparatchiks to name one significant project undertaken by the former Rawlings’ Communication Minister that comes anywhere near the landmark Akufo-Addo crafted Repeal of the Criminal Libel Law, which officially and/or effectively created the country’s present robust democratic culture, especially in the capstone area of free speech. Then also must be significantly taken into account the fact that the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice has been preaching the imperative need for the implementation of a fee-free Senior High School regime for at least a decade now, well before the recent announcement by a thoroughly defeated Mr. Mahama that he intended to, once again, defy the sacred and definitive mandate of the Ghanaian electorate which showed him the exit door out of the erstwhile Flagstaff House. I really don’t see how a Candidate Mahama intends to explain to the very voters whom he royally disparaged in the leadup to the 2016 Presidential Election that now, somehow, they qualify to criticize his job performance, since other than the now-President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and, of course, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, the overwhelming majority of these same voters have yet to have a practical and exceptionally privileged taste of the Presidency.

I personally don’t think for a split-second that the former Atta-Mills’ arch-lieutenant seriously thought about the implications of his rather emotionally unbalanced decision to gun up for the Presidency for the second nonconsecutive time around, after having performed as badly as being virtually nonexistent. Who has so soon forgotten then-Interim President Mahama’s adamant insistence that a fee-free Senior High School education was not a practical possibility in our day and age, and that such a scandalously extravagant project belonged to the generation of his own children and grandchildren?

The stark fact of the matter is that it is not just Mr. Mahama, but arguably none of the leaders of Ghana’s Fourth Republic is endowed with both the level of visionary zeal and flair for getting things done to keep our country afloat around the clock than our current presidential incumbent. Bar none! And here, also, I have at the back of my mind the leader who has best preserved former President J. A. Kufuor’s signature legacy of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). I bet Mr. Mahama would be tongue-tied if he were asked on the campaign trail, in the leadup to Election 2020, to give an account of his fiscal management of the NHIS.

Here you have a naked man promising each and every Ghanaian a bolt of cotton print or Kente-cloth in the name of his Dubai-oriented Christian God. Indeed, as I have often said, fully recognizing the deep unpopularity of such assertion, about the only postcolonial Ghanaian leader whose enviable national development record, within the span of an evanescent six-year period, has yet to be either equaled or bested is the slain Gen. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong. And I bet the Bole petty chieftain was one of the Legon Abongo Boys who called for the blood of Uncle Kwasi Kutu to flood our streets and courtyards.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com  Ghanaffairs

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