Ever since the results of the 2016 elections were declared, I expected President John Mahama would have been rushing and doing or trying to do his best to improve his position and to regain some credibility and some of the trust and standing or ground that he and his party have lost in his worst possible nightmare election scenario by showing some remorse and some contrite regret for disappointing most Ghanaians by apologising to them for the broken promises and for the lost opportunities and for the mismanagement of the economy during the 8 years of NDC government.
But instead I was puzzled as we have been learning from the media that JM was still making new last minute deals and even new last minute public appointments after he has been massively defeated and has been shown the Red card to leave the ground by the disappointed significant majority of our electorate!
We have also learned from the media that JM was even considering going on a thank you tour round the country and wasting even more money and more valuable time in such a pointless unwise exercise! I don’t get his logic! Thank you for what exactly? Can any sensible person tell me please? For the majority of Ghanaians giving him a bloody nose or a big slap or for showing him the Red card to get off in a hurry to be replaced by his main opposition leader in hope for a real change for the better? Or for being publicly humiliated in front of the whole world media watching us? Come on, for God sake please TRY to learn to CARE and please begin to RESPECT our people’s intelligence! Ignore their wisdom and their long suffering and despair only at your own peril. This I sincerely say to advise ALL who aspire to offer themselves for public and for political service not just for the outgoing government but equally for the incoming one and for any future governments and for all who aspire to serve the public in any area or arena or sector of our society. In other words we must be as SELFLESS as humanly possible if we really wanted to truly serve others and NOT to USE them for our own SELFISH ends under false pretences.
THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM IS THE FEAR OF GOD. SO EVERYBODY MUST HONOUR AND LOVE GOD AND LOVE OTHERS MORE THAN SELF TO BE OF ANY USE TO OTHERS. THIS IS AN AGE OLD UNDISPUTED GODLY BIBLICAL TIMELESS WISDOM. We ignore it ONLY at our own peril. We must NEVER ignore it.
But we must thank God at least democracy is now well established in Ghana and all Ghanaians have now realised that they have the real power not only to vote in but more importantly to vote out anybody who dares to take us for granted or for fools ever again or who does not live up to our reasonable expectation and who fails to keep their own promises or who fails to connect and to stay connected after elections time and to stay really close to the masses while genuinely engaging us in real dialogue and actually LISTENING to us and truly CARING about our suffering NOT just pretending or using our masses for photo opportunities under false pretences or as occasions for shouting false slogans and dashing the public few goodies to keep them sweet for next time.
Our democracy in Ghana is slowly but surely maturing and is really taking hold so there will be NO opportunity for schemers and dreamers or for anarchist rebels or for criminal opportunists in any uniform or for armed robbers of any kind to come again to plot any more military coups or to hijack power at gun point in future in Ghana just because they or their pay masters have decided to do so, which is something to be really grateful for. For one, I am extremely grateful for that development, I wish this was the case back in 1966 and on few subsequent occasions in Ghana. But for nations it is NEVER too late to learn and to develop and to resume progressing from where we left off. We may be late developers after being derailed for long enough years, but we can rightly say; Better late than Never. GHANA WILL NEVER DIE but we need to hurry up and make up for lost time. So help us God to do better in the near future and to make up for lost time and for lost opportunities for millions of our long suffering people over few generations since 1966 illegal foreign financed overthrow of our first democratically elected republic.
Unfortunately JM and his team seem to have chosen to isolate themselves further away from the Ghanaian public by living in their own short lived bubble and continuing doing business as usual in total disregard of the verdict of the majority of Ghanaians and in total denial of reality and total indifference to common sense and common decency by trying to bury their heads in the sand.
All the advice of some senior and respected learned friends from the legal profession, most reported and most notable of them came from the very credible and very disappointed former NDC Attorney General Martin Amidu unfortunately seemed to have fallen on deaf ears of JM and his outgoing team, something they may come to regret as soon as they would come to their senses which I hope would be before the 7th of January hand over date for their own good and for the good of our long suffering Ghana.
I have every confidence that the incoming president Nana Akofo Addo with his legal background would hand over our CPP properties back to us promptly together with a fair compensation settlement for the loss of use and unpaid rent for the material period of the wrongful occupation by successive governments. But it would be another failure and a further condemnation of the outgoing NDC government’s incompetence and hypocrisy for making un-kept empty promises and only paying lip service to Kwame Nkrumah and failing to settle this urgent matter for the 8 years they were in office despite promising our CPP party to do so amicably to avoid taking the matter to court.
So my best advice to JM now would be instead of busying himself with creating new last minute controversial contractual obligations for the new government and new appointments; that he should rather make good use of his few remaining days in office to conclude some urgent outstanding business starting with the well overdue return of our party’s properties back to us as a matter of immediate urgency and the new incoming government can conclude the terms of the restitution package soon afterwards if all terms of our compensation could not be finalised by 7 January 2017.
I prefer to respectfully advise JM although I believe that I have every right to demand that he and his outgoing government should do the right thing forthwith and use their little remaining time in office to correct some of the wrongs they may have been party to or may have administered or may have caused themselves entirely or in part, directly or indirectly by commission or by omission, by acting wrongly or by failing to act correctly or promptly, by intention or by mistake as it would all come to the same point of adding more insult to injury by creating more injustice and more inequity to an already aggrieved part of our society, as we all know and believe that justice delayed is justice denied.
To do the right thing is always good and is always right if not righteous, and it is not only in the interest of justice and equity for the aggrieved party but it is also in their own interest to try to regain some of their lost credibility and trust by Ghanaians or by most Ghanaians at the very least.
I rest my case and wait for the response of the outgoing government.