Feature: Hollow Belated Challenge of a Coward – By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

President Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia
President Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia
What happened to the 22-year-old dictatorship of Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh a couple, or so, days ago is inevitably bound to be repeated in Ghana on December 7 when Ghanaians go to the polls, once again, to decide who should run their beloved nation and its socioeconomic, political and cultural affairs for the next four years. Already, the executive incumbent, President John Dramani Mahama, has publicly acknowledged that under his lackluster stewardship, the country’s public educational institutions have not been graduating young minds that are ready to fully assume the mantle of professional and occupational leadership.

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Simply put, what Mr. Mahama is clearly, albeit disturbingly, saying is that the government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has miserably failed to appreciably advance the country to its next most logical stage of development. This, of course, means that Ghanaian voters would be making a great and unpardonable mistake if they entrust the destiny of their country into the hands of President Mahama and his thoroughgoing corrupt posse of cabinet appointees and the largely self-serving mess of movers and shakers of the ruling party (See “Schools Not Fully Churning Out What Industries Need – Mahama Admits” 3News.com / Ghanaweb.com 11/30/16).

We shall make time in due course to further expatiate on the dire implications of the foregoing observation, as well as the very bad manner in which the NDC government has managed the New Patriotic Party-designed and implemented National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which these cynical and impudent NDC Abongo Boys and Girls, too, of course, have deviously been attempting to reckon among their woefully marginal policy achievements, for lack of a better term. Presently, however, I prefer to draw the reader’s attention to an article that I wrote and published exactly two years ago, come January 1, 2017, in which I predicted, to the amusement of his staunch and fanatical supporters and sympathizers, that his bluster and theatrical grandstanding and all, the days of the government of Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh were numbered.

That article was captioned “Beginning of the De-Jammefication of The Gambia.” It appeared on quite a number of media websites, including the very colorful Vibeghana.com, that has since ceased publishing my articles for reasons best known to the managers and proprietors of that website. In the same spirit of democratic progress and electoral justice, I hereby predict that December 7 marks the effective “De-Mahamization” of Fourth-Republican Ghana and the ultimate democratic collapse and near-permanent recession of the Rawlings onto the gray and arid margins of the sort of oppositional “penance” being endured by the Nkrumah-leaning splinter political parties.

I am not yet ready to predict the likely replacement for the hopelessly left-leaning National Democratic Congress, although the Nduom-fangled Progressive People’s Party (PPP) may very well have a shot at imminently replacing the National Democratic Congress for, like space, the political arena also abhors a vacuum. We shall in due course make time for this subject also.

At any rate, I simply don’t understand why President Mahama adamantly persists with his bogus attempt to hoodwink Ghanaians into believing that, somehow, it is he who has always wanted to debate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo one-on-one and not vice-versa. Well, after fleeing the traditionally IEA-sponsored presidential debates, the gangster-like Mr. Mahama decided only to participate in one that was co-hosted by his own handpicked minions from the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). Here again, the Bole-Bamboi street toughie decided to debate those pathetic lightweights who have yet to learn how to correctly fill their presidential candidacy-filing forms.

I bet my bottom-dollar that had Nana Akufo-Addo repeated his 2012 mistake of joining a debate in which at least two of the other four candidates were certified NDC payola recipients, these strategically planted hustlers would have been coughing and muffing up the NPP flagbearer’s presentation like hailstones. You see, Mahama thrives on the anti-intellectual culture of gangster politics. Then again, isn’t his abysmal performance enough of the argument of a loser? And then, to talk of a November 29 presidential debate with an election scheduled for December 7. I thought the guy had moxie.

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

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