Auntie Araba is a potential voter in the Presidential and Legislative elections in Ghana on December 7, 2020. The video clip in vogue shows her busily preparing the evening meal, when someone knocks on the main door.
“Woana Nyi No,” (Who is that?) she burst out in her impeccable Fanti dialect. The person at the door answers immediately. “I am John Mahama, and I am on door-to-door campaign,” the person at the door answers, hoping for the opportunity to engage the woman more meaningfully.
“Emi Mo Door No Onka Ho.” My door is not part…Without waiting for the man at the door, Auntie Araba shoots back. “Na Nkonmfem No Wo Hen?” Where are the guinea fowls? Obviously, the woman is referring to the GH¢15 million guinea fowl project under which the administration of Mr. John Dramani Mahama doled out public money for the rearing of guinea fowls across the length and breadth of the then three northern regions. We were told at the time that the guinea fowl project was to to make the delicacy available in all parts of the country.
When the project fizzled through without a penny accounted for, the official explanation given to Ghanaians was that all the birds had migrated to Burkina Faso.
The Akans would tell you. “Woenya Sika Ama Wo Asew A Yembo No Krono.” If you are unable to resource your in-law, you do not steal from her. In the Sahara Accelerated
Development Agency project, the Mahama administration, indeed, stole from the country and told us bullshit in response.
The person at Auntie Araba’s doorsteps mumbles something like he is working hard to get the birds re-routed from Burkina Faso to Ghana. The woman is not finished though. “Na SADA Ndua No So Wo Hen, Eastern Corridor Road No Nso E…” The questions keep multiplying, leaving the man at the gate confused,.
“Enye Awo Na Ese Free Education Orenye Yie Yi Bi?” Are you not the one who said Free Education would not work?” The man at the door mimicked something like “Well, I didn’t know.”
At that junction, Auntie Araba calls in her two rottweilers – Free Education and One District One Factory – to drive out the intruder. The dogs bark incessantly, and that drives the man at the door away.
As the lights in the house begin to flick, the woman of the house asks the campaigner to vacate her premises immediately. Sesiera Mpo, Woreye Wodzi Dum-so Aba.” Even with his presence, they want to bring Dum-so back.
This is a video put out there, obviously, by those who do not wish the former President well in the vote.
In my humble opinion, Mr. John Dramani Mahama signifies corruption on wheels and a bloody waste of national resources. I would never even bother my head about looking for his or his National Democratic Congress on the ballot paper.
Mahama is a waste of time and resources. When one takes cognisance of the various corrupt practices committed in the name of his administration last time around, one might need more than medical treatment. From One-lap top per child, under which the government of Ghana doled out one million dollars to Rlg through various contractual jobs which were shabbily executed, to lack of every resources at the time, the only conclusion is that the former President and his cronies deserve to be in prison and not on the campaign trail.
In Kumasi at the weekend, Mr. Mahama promised to prosecute all those involved in the Agyapa Deal. I clap for him because what this promise means is that we expect him to stop the business as usual attitude of himself and his cronies. What I do know is that the Agyapa Deal has never been implemented. It is still in Parliament House.
Mr. Mahama does not need to wait to win the elections before acting. He is not going to get any vote, but there is something he could do now. There are more than 100 Members of Parliament seeking protection under the umbrella. As leader of the political party Jerry Rawlings founded, Mr. Mahama could trigger the use of the whip system to get the entire NDC members of the House to vote against the passage of the deal.
There is one deal too I remember that ought to engage the attention of the NDC presidential candidate. Once upon a regime, the government of Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, with Mr. Mahama himself in tow as Vice-President, conceived an idea of housing the entire security services in the country.
The idea was sold that anybody who did not consent to the passage in Parliament of the US$10 billion project was an enemy of the security forces. On the day the issue hit Parliament House, virtually all the space in the House reserved for visitors was filled by members of the security forces. The police especially were intimidating with their huge presence.
The deal itself fell though. Apparently, the preparation did not match the huge publicity on it. As much as US$300 million was said to have been spent on it. But, as it turned out, the whole deal was a hoax. I would like to believe Mr. Mahama will interest himself in the large quantum of money that went down the drain in the pursuit of that wild goose chase.
There are many, many others – Isofoton, Waterville and many other dubious deals prosecuted under the Mahama regime that are still a drain on the national resources. It would be a great relief to the people of Ghana if the presidential candidate of the NDC would factor them in his wish list.
On Friday, my attention was drawn to a statement Mr. Mahama was quoted to have made in Kumasi. “Today, the world is changing; it is no more the same situation. Everyone is measuring what you have done to make decision on voting. So check your living standard before voting.”
That must be the most profound statement the leader of the NDC has ever made on the campaign trail. I intend to help address the wishes of Mr. John Dramani Mahama.
The Free Senior High School Education has run for three years. What this means is that parents and guardians have saved on school fees all this while. Can the presidential candidate of the NDC quantify how much the ordinary Ghanaian has saved?
The scheme has been so comprehensively impacted on society that it has put nearly half a million kids, who would have dropped out, in school. Mr. Mahama cannot deny this. I do not want to sound political, but the truth is that the flagship programme of Planting for Food and Jobs has addressed the issue of food security far better than the haphazard food policy Mahama’s administration pursued.
Education is driving the new society, and that has impacted negatively on the fortunes of the NDC, I am told. One of the most profound pronouncements of Mr. Prof. Joshua Alabi, the official campaign manager the NDC presidential candidate made not too long ago.
Mr. Mahama’s Campaign Manager told the political world of Ghana that many more Ghanaian children are benefitting from higher education. And that has been bad news for the NDC.
The former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Professional Studies, Accra, asked the party to reform itself because it was losing the educated youth in droves. According to Mr. Alabi, out of 72 tertiary institutions in the country, the NDC won only three in the 2016 elections.
We need no ghost to conclude that the New Patriotic Party won 69 out of the 72. We need no ghost to pronounce that education cannot be synonymous with the NDC as things stand at the moment. This clearly demonstrates that our livelihoods would be far worse under the NDC. It tells all Ghanaians that as far as tertiary education is concerned, Mr. Mahama and his NDC are not the option in this election, since we all clamour for higher education.
Food security is another reason why voting for Mr. Mahama and his NDC is disastrous. In early 2016, I conducted a research into sources of the little food available at the Kaneshie Market. I discovered that crabs were being delivered from Togo, Benin and our Western neighbouring countries like Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire, and Liberia etc.
Cocoyam and plantain had to be imported from Cote d’Ivoire at that point in time. Our market women were travelling on articulated trucks to Burkina Faso and Niger to bring in tomatoes. Now, food is in season all over the place.
In January 2014, I accompanied my good friend Mr. Kofi Dua-Adonteng to Bonwire in the Ashanti Region to mourn a sister who had passed away. On the way, we stopped over at the Ejisu Market to try and buy a few food items to help with the funeral. Plantain and cocoyam were in short supply at Ejisu of all places.
Ejisu is one of the food baskets of the Ashanti Region. We could not even get plantain to buy. Now, plantain and virtually all food items are all over the place like the Ejisu Market. If you raise a quarrel at Ejisu, I am sure you would be chased away with plantain.
All over the country at the moment, food is in abundance. Why should Ghanaians make a mistake of inviting the corrupt and inefficient administration of Mr. John Dramani Mahama into Jubilee House again? Tofiakwa.
Electricity has been stable all this while. The dreaded Dum-so is a thing of the past. This country endured a five-year spell of dreadful power outages about four years ago. During the lean period, many businesses folded up. The few that managed to circumvent the dreadful Dum-so had to pay through their noses to exist.
Why should the people of Ghana invite Mr. Mahama and his technocrats back on stage to ruin everything that the people of Ghana have done? Certainly, that would amount to stabbing ourselves in the foot.
Mahama’s administration was a disaster needlessly visited on this society by an electorate that failed to read the danger signals. Never again should Mr. John Dramani Mahama use his tongue to deceive the electorate.
Like the Akans would tell you: “Kwatrikwa Se Obema Wo Ntama A Tie Nidin.”
I shall return!
Ebo Quansah in Accra
The post Why I am not voting for Mahama! (Part One) appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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