Vote for NDC if you find President Kufuor on the ballot
If we don’t tell the next generation what we had to stomach and tolerate, they may mount a statue for Fifi Kwetey the way some academics have mounted a statue for Gandhi.
No offence to Gandhi campaigners but if Ghana does not learn to celebrate her own heroes, she will continue to import toothpick. This year’s election will be determined by angry wives and predicted by happy taxi drivers. Hell has no furry for a scorned woman.
That as an overly excited bridesmaid, the wedding was underwhelming because dumsor meant she couldn’t fix her hair on time. And as a storekeeper, her warm fridge put her profit on ice.
Taxis are think-tanks when the driver’s have a full tank. Taxi drivers are often happy to tell you what their passengers tell them about the December elections. Many say they knew John Evans Atta Mills would win the elections weeks before we all queued to vote. The taxi-driving profession is the IEA on wheels, the CDD on brakes and the IDEG in gears.
There are those who say they do not need new reasons to kick out this National Democratic Congress (NDC) government. The old ones used in 2008 are still fresh after all these years.
Whenever we sell off a national asset like Ghana Telecom or the Electricity Company of Ghana, we buy a national inferiority complex. It doesn’t matter what strides Vodafone (formerly One Touch) has made or a privatized ECG will make. When Ghana asks a United States or United Kingdom company to sit her ‘How-to-boost-your-economy 101’ paper, we still cannot celebrate a 99 percent pass. It is examination malpractice.
President John Mahama says he is the man to resurrect Kwame Nkrumah’s vision. But Nkrumah’s vision was that the ECG should not be privatised. If a leader truly resurrects Nkrumah’s vision, he will inadvertently bury Mahama’s legacy for Nkrumah would tell Mahama that for every privatised kilowatt that brightens a home, our Ghanaian brains grow dimmer.
Consider that 2008 New Patriotic Party (NPP) defeat. Despite a spirited 2001 promise to fight corruption, by 2008 it had become easier for an Ashanti NPP man to pronounce P-A-RR-ELL–LO-GR-AM than to pronounce ZE-RO TO-LE-RA-NCE FOR-COR-RUP-TION.
And so when in 2016, we hear President Mahama justify jaw-dropping mediocrity in his anti-corruption record you just go @$%^&*&::????&&*%$££”””%^&****??????$£”!!.
The president is blaming his lackluster record on the “paradox of fighting corruption”. But this is nothing more than a corruption of the word ‘paradox’.
Government is quick to hold on to a Transparency International report that says Ghana’s worldwide ranking has improved. Ghana may have done well because some others did worse.
But what government is essentially saying is that although Jacob Zuma was not on the Ghanaian ballot in 2012, we should compare President Mahama to Jacob Zuma before we can rate him; we should seek permission from South Africa before we feel miserable for his country.
This mentality of looking at the last person to feel good about your position is a wretched mentality. If Usain Bolt thought this way, he wouldn’t have set great records enough for President John Mahama to mimick his thunderbolt.
All the government’s frustration that it does not get enough credit for its massive infrastructural projects neglects one simple and stark reality. When we rise up at dawn to have a view of the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, a huge Greater Accra regional corruption is blocking our view the solar eclipse style.
The president would have to forgive us but we are suffering from a certain paranoia, a bi-polar optimi-phobia syndrome, a mental glaucoma that compromises our ability to see ‘massive infrastructure’ because past corruption scandals have tortured our ability to see things clearly. Ghana is a divorcee who is gripped by the fear of a repetition of past abuses whenever a new suitor says ‘I love you. Give me another chance’.
We are toddlers. Our doll has been taken from us. We want it back. We have been crying, shouting, wailing. But as a replacement, government gives us a HOUSING project to play with.
All we want was a doll of GYEEDA money back. But we have been given a much bigger doll like the world-class Kwame Nkrumah Interchange. But these Ghanaian toddlers have escalated their tantrums cry-me-river style. All this toddler wants is a simple doll called Give-me-back-my-GH¢1bn SADA-SUBAH cash. A simple doll.
And so the president runs off with another excuse that rule of law means he can’t just wear his military uniform and storm the house of thieves in government to just throw them in jail. He is blaming the slow legal process for low lazy project.
But E-Lab has used this excuse before. He blamed the traffic for getting to work late when it was really a terrific overdose of sleep. This rule of law excuse is nothing more than a late comer’s excuse.
Fifi Kwetey ‘Setting the records straight’ can be condensed into one point: That President Kufuor’s economic record is so bad we should not vote for the former president if we find his name on the ballot. That is why only one journalist asked a question from the press conference. They were bemused.
Fifi Kwetey must understand that while it is true that the NPP did not build a regional hospital, at least they designed a system of health insurance that meant people did not have to build coffins just because they have no money to pay hospital bills under the cash and carry system.
When Dr. Bawumia speaks, you get some humour. When Fifi Kwetey speaks you sense deep hatred. How the NDC government hopes to win with the hashtag #hate can’t win is lost on me.
That is why E-Lab is convinced that the password into this government is if you can crosswords. It is a path well traveled by many young politicians in this government with remarkable success rate.
And so here is the truth. Nearly all the problems this government has solved are problems it created. The IMF-supported economy, the 2012 budget deficit, this refund-the-money and go-and-sin-no-more attitude against corrupt officials.
If you can set and solve your own questions for three points then Toase SHS would have won the Brilliant Science and Maths Quiz. Forgive me TOSS, I just had to toss this in.
This government has failed. And those who believe this is a partisan conclusion, have not read the part of the national anthem which endorses fearless honesty.
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