It would be just another Zuma Circus Act. And on the latter count, I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, the Chief Majority Whip and notorious statutory rapist, that it would be a total waste of time for Parliament to be recalled for the express, albeit decidedly ineffectual, purpose of considering a motion tabled by some one-hundred members of the New Patriotic Party’s parliamentary minority for the impeachment of President John Dramani Mahama, for allegedly accepting a payola in the form of a 2010 edition of a Ford Expedition SUV worth the sum of $100,000 from Mr. Djibril Kanazoe, the infamous Burkinabe contractor and bosom friend of the then-Vice-President Mahama (See “Parliament Recalled to Consider Mahama’s Impeachment Motion” Ghanaweb.com / MyJoyonline.com 8/27/16).
The movers of the motion need not to have followed the proceedings of the recent attempt to impeach South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma in order to arrive at the definitive conclusion that this emergency parliamentary recall by Speaker Edward Doe Adjaho will amount to naught. Indeed, were Ghana’s parliament composed of honest and accountable men and women, moral and legal reprobates like Mr. Muntaka Mubarak would never have become bona fide members of the august House, much less be conferred with the quite significant authority of a Parliamentary Majority Chief Whip.
In the Zuma situation, which entailed the criminal misappropriation of millions of dollars in the renovation and reconstruction of President Zuma’s private palatial residence and his tribal neighborhood, the members of the South African parliament, predictably, voted strictly along party lines, thus enabling perhaps the most corrupt democratically elected leader on the African continent to literally walk on the Sea of Galilee. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) currently holds roughly two-thirds of South Africa’s parliamentary seats, but the other minority parties, especially those led by Black South Africans, are fast closing in; and it is only a matter of time, even if it takes another generation or two, for the ANC to become just another one of those parliamentary minority parties, unless drastic steps are taken to raise the moral standards of its leadership.
At any rate, the one benefit of the Zuma impeachment proceedings inheres in the fact that the ANC recently suffered massive losses in metropolitan and municipal elections, including heavy losses in towns and cities that not too long ago used to be the hermetic strongholds of the African National Congress. This is what the Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu-led New Patriotic Party ought to be scheming for, by strategizing along the lines of ensuring that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) suffer heavy casualties in the upcoming December 2016 parliamentary election, so as to enable an Akufo-Addo presidency to enjoy a comfortable parliamentary majority and be able to carry out most of its progressive campaign promises and policies without having to be heavily compromised by an NDC parliamentary majority.
The likely ineffectuality of the Mahama impeachment process notwithstanding, there is still a morally edifying aspect to this impeachment attempt, if also because it is likely to make it into the great history books on the country’s political culture for the long-term benefit of posterity and our enduring collective national memory. Needless to say, the Mahama-Kanazoe Scandal far transcends the mere offer and acceptance of a bribe; it also tragically reflects the insufferable promiscuity of Ghanaian and African politicians at large. For Mr. Kanazoe’s relatively negligible sum of “investment money” would enable the payola giver to earn undeserved and non-competitive contractual awards that may very well have been exploitatively inflated at the expense of the Ghanaian taxpayer, and thus regressing both the short- and long-term material development of the country.
This is the gist, or essence, of the treasonable criminality of the entire Mahama-Kanazoe Affair. As far as many of us avid students and observers of Ghanaian political culture are concerned, the best route to the impeachment of President Mahama is to first boot him out of the Flagstaff House and then initiate criminal proceedings against the Bole-Bamboi petty chieftain. Of course, the former Rawlings Communications Minister and Gonja-West NDC-MP fully appreciates this political gambit, thus his desperate attempts to rigging Election 2016 to ensure that those fearless and best qualified to deliver him his comeuppance are retired from the scene.
Whether he peaceably recedes from the political scene to relish his pelf with impunity or no possibility of sanctions, pretty much depends on how deftly and effectively the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party strategizes for an Election 2016 victory. So far, all indications point unnervingly towards an electoral tossup. Which couldn’t be all that bad for the NDC’s Abongo Boys and Girls. Of course, there is also the certain possibility of a preemptive issuance of a presidential pardon, irrespective of ideological divide, thus permitting the most criminal and culpable elements of Ghanaian society to get away with capital crimes. Trust me, dear reader, our leaders are this scandalously promiscuous and irresponsible.