It is now clear the President John Dramani Mahama and his National Democratic Congress government are not convinced they have achieved enough in the last eight years in office, for which they can ask the electorate to give them another 4-year mandate.
Indeed, their record of toxic mix of corruption and gross economic mismanagement that has created untold hardship for the people cannot be anything attractive to be presented to the electorate as the basis for re-election.
That is why they have made it a key campaign strategy to move this year’s campaign from a contest of ideas to attacks on the personality of the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
And unfortunately, the attacks are now being led by the president himself, whose sycophants want Ghanaians to believe that he represents the best when it comes to decency in public discourse.
We at the Daily Statesman find it extremely preposterous to hear President Mahama tell the electorate not to vote for Nana Akufo-Addo to become the president of Ghana because that will be dangerous for the country.
And the president refers to Nana Addo as a ‘divisive’ person and a ‘dictator’ who has been sacking from the NPP, people who disagree with him. He even doesn’t care about the fact that the decision by the NPP to suspend some executives of the party has been upheld by the courts of the land, an indication that the NPP runs its affairs based on the rule of law.
We understand why President Mahama and his NDC functionaries, including former Transport Minister Dziffa Ativor, want to consider Akufo-Addo as a dangerous person, and are so much terrified by the prospects of him becoming the next president.
The fact of the matter is that they have wrecked so much economic havoc on the nation through their unbridled corrupt acts and naked looting of the national coffers that they find it extremely scaring to imagine the situation where Nana Akufo-Addo will be declared the winner of the upcoming elections.
But, President Mahama and his cabal of ‘greedy bastards’ can rest assured that the adherent of the rule of law will only allow the laws to work, to safeguard the resources of the nation. That is the kind of leader Ghana needs now.
A person like Nana Akufo-Addo who readily accepted the bizarre outcome of the 2012 Presidential Election Petition can never be said to be dangerous; and this is a fact Ghanaians are convinced about. Therefore, for Ghanaians to elect him as the next president will certainly not be dangerous for the nation.
On the other hand, the most dangerous thing that can ever happen to the country is for the electorate to extend the mandate of President Mahama for another term. Who is more dangerous than a president who makes systematic effort to create opportunities for family members and friends to loot the nation’s resources as if there is no tomorrow?
What is more dangerous than having a President who presides over a corrupt cabal that siphons state monies which could have been used to resuscitate the National Health Insurance Scheme, the School Feeding Programme and the free Maternal healthcare which were all introduced by former President Kufuor?
President Mahama has claimed before in this country that he considers corruption as ‘mass murder’. Yet, he has been doing nothing to tackle it, and rather creating the enabling environment for the canker to flourish. Who can be more dangerous than such a person?