If you have sailed before like I did in my heydays, you will realize that the work of a captain on board a ship is similar to that of a commander in an armed force. When things become hot at the war front and the army is about to lose a battle, the commander has two choices to make. He either orders the soldiers to retreat or surrender. In the heat of the battle, retreat is the best solution because the soldiers can regroup and fight back. After all, did they not say, he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day?
When a ship develops a fault or hits an iceberg and about to sink, the captain, again, has two options. He will assemble all the crew at the Captain’s Bridge and instruct the sailors to lower all the lifeboats and make them ready for evacuation. The first to enter the life boats are the sailors followed by the engineers. In maritime law, the captain should be the last person to abandon ship. That was why when the Italian Costa Concordia cruise ship was about to sink and the captain, Fransisco Schettino abandoned ship and left behind the crew and passengers he was jailed.
Mr. Jerry John Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings founded the NDC. In fact they did put their noses on the grindstone to nurture the party to become so formidable that for eight years the NDC ruled this country. Mr. Rawlings and Nana Konadu could be likened to a captain and his assistant on board a ship. When Mr. Rawlings left power in 2000, he kept on supporting the NDC and did not hesitate to mount political platform to campaign for the party during the 2004, 2008 and 2012 general elections. In the run-up to the 2012 general elections, the assistant captain of the ship, in the person of Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings abandoned ship because she was shabbily treated by the party she and her husband had founded. The lady went all out to form her own political party and named it National Democratic Party (NDP).
The sign which was bodily written on the wall that Mr. Rawlings, the captain would unceremoniously abandon ship was when the late Professor Evans Atta Mills was the president of Ghana. Rawlings told Ghanaians that about 60% of government functionaries under Mr. Mills were corrupt and that they have abandoned the ideals upon which the NDC was formed. He referred to some of them as babies with sharp teeth and kept the heat on Mills until he died. As supporters of the NDC started leaving the party in droves, Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the NDC assured them that they have chained the barking dog and so people should not fear to enter the house, in reference to Mr. Rawlings. The comment made by Asiedu Nketia pained Rawlings so much so that he increased the tempo and went haywire, calling the NDC all sort of names, including greedy bastards.
When the 2016 electioneering campaign started Ghanaians were expecting Mr. Rawlings to hit the road as usual to campaign for the NDC but that did not happen. The man is ‘sitting his somewhere’ minding his own business. After all, as a chained dog, what can he do but to stay where he has been chained. Because the man who chained him is not prepared to unchain him, Rawlings’ silence is understandable. Knowing very well that the crowd puller has been chained and has refused to be unchained to join the campaign trail, Mr. Mahama assembled his campaign team minus the chained dog.
Even the Chief of Staff, Mr. Julius Debrah who is supposed to be at the Flagstaff House managing the affairs at the seat of government on daily basis is out there campaigning and talking like a serial caller. It was this accomplished loser (Remember he contested on three occasions against Mr. Opare Ansah at the Suhum Constituency and lost) who went to the Brong Ahafo Region to tell the people there not to patronize Kalypo drinks because they will contract disease if they did. The guy did not know by saying that he was killing a local industry which produces the drinks.
ENTER KWAMENA AHWOI
The thirty six year-old man or woman, who is occupying senior positions in government, the military, police or who is a successful businessman or farmer was not born in 1981 when Kwamena Ahwoi, a senior member of the PNDC held the nation at ransom. Anytime I hear Kwamena Ahwoi on campaign platform castigating Nana Akufo Addo and trying to look like a good person, I always cast my mind back just to recollect what this man did to Ghanaians when the PNDC was in power.
I must admit that it is not worth reminding people of the pain they went through during the revolutionary days but for the sake of the younger generation it is only proper for some of us who witnessed the barbaric act to remind the younger generation so that they could know the type of person Kwamena Ahwoi is. At the peak of the revolution, the junta formed what was called Citizens Vetting Committee, (CVC) headed by Kwamena Ahwoi. The man’s beards were longer than that of Osama Bin Laden and he looked fearful. In those wish-to-forgotten crazy days, if an announcement was made on Radio Ghana that you were to appear before the CVC, you had to say your last prayers because you would either end up in jail or your hard won assets would be seized and your bank accounts frozen.
To Kwamena Ahwoi and his CVC, every rich man or woman in Ghana was a thief or criminal. Those who appeared before the CVC were not given any opportunity to hire lawyers and they in fact, did not spend much time there. Anytime Kwamena Ahwoi and his CVC sat, we had drugged and drunk soldiers fully armed and standing behind Kwamena Ahwoi and his CVC men who were always shabbily dressed to make it look as if they were working for poor Ghanaians. Today Kwamena Ahwoi, the man who seized people’s properties and froze their bank accounts is living in a luxurious mansion and enjoying the good things in life. Thirty five years down the line, Kwamena Ahwoi, the man who ordered and supervised this shameful game, this insidious farce is out there campaigning for John Dramani Mahama, another person who is supervising over naked corruption and thievery of our national coffers.
If Kwamena Ahwoi comes to your town to campaign do not believe him because all what he is doing is to throw dust into the eyes of the poor folks out there. So many Ghanaians whose assets were seized by Kwamena Ahwoi’s CVC died prematurely and their blood will sure continue to soil his hands. Kwamena Ahwoi knows he is living with disturbed conscience and posterity will write his name in bronze. Mr. Ahwoi should look around and see how the NDC ministers, MMDCEs and other functionaries have grown rich within a matter of eight years and compare it to those whose properties were seized and he will know that he treated people badly.
“I AM A NORTHERNER SO VOTE FOR ME”
The Akans say if you meet strong man in a fight, you forget that you have teeth in your mouth which you can use to bite your opponent. This election is about issues but sadly Mr. John Dramani Mahama has turned everything to pettiness. During the 2012 electioneering campaign, Mr. Mahama went to the Northern Region to tell the people there that they should vote for him because unlike Nana Akufo Addo, he is a Northerner and he will move in sympathy with them when he became the president of Ghana. Ghanaians kicked against those tribal comments and condemned the pronouncement without mincing words. The people of the Northern Region swallowed what candidate Mahama told them and voted for him.
It was the biggest mistake they ever did. The SADA, Asongtaba and other social interventions which were introduced to assuage the suffering of the people of the Northern Region ended up to be a create, loot and share project. The people of the Northern Region are still living in abstract poverty while Mahama, his children and wife, Lordina Mahama, who hails from the Brong Ahafo Region, are living in luxury. The man is at it again, believing that, as usual, the people of the Northern Region will buy his crap. Somebody should tell John Mahama that the human mind is dynamic and so the people of the Northern Region have wised up and will prove to him that once bitten twice shy. So Dr. Edward Nasigri Mahama should also go to the Northern Region and tell them that he hails from the Northern Region so they should vote for him? Habba, Mahama, what sort of desperation is this? Anyway, if he is a Northerner as he claims, why did he not marry a Gonja woman but chose to come down south to marry a Brong woman? Or, may be Gonja women are not beautiful. You see, tribalism has no room in Ghana today because we have intermarried. Rawlings is an Ewe and married to an Asante royal. Prof. Mills was a Fante and married a Ga, Nana Addo is an Akyem and married to a Ga, the late Prof Busia was a Brong man and married a Ga woman and Mr. Kufour, an Ashanti is married to a Brong woman. What is the big deal in these marriages? If Mr. Mahama has nothing to say, he should not say it here in Ghana. He can tell the marines. Yours sincerely is from the Northern Region and married to an Akyem royal.