President Nana Akufo-Addo is inordinately diplomatic and charitable to his predecessor John Mahama.
He appears to be too cautious in dealing with him, not wanting to be seen as unmindful about his pitiable state at the end of a fierce electoral duel in which he lost scathingly.
The diplomacy in him is showing too much now that he has switched off the campaign mode. Each time he is delivering a speech at a public function since he became a President, he has tried to sooth the pain of his predecessor who is still smarting from the electoral defeat he was too sure to win.
He has not stopped showering plaudits on former President John Mahama for conceding defeat. We did not expect him anyway to behave like Yahya Jammeh since, after all, Ghana is unlike the small West African country where voting is done primitively using pebbles. He could not have done otherwise, given the overwhelming number of Ghanaians who wanted his rein aborted just at the time.
We beg to differ on the premise that presents the former President as having conceded gracefully and without some external prompting.
We have forgotten so soon the mental torture we went through as we waited for both former President John Mahama to concede defeat and Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson Charlotte Osei to declare the winner of the general election. Those were tense moments as Ghanaians asked each other intermittently whether John has not conceded or Charlotte declared the obvious winner. It was a long and dangerous wait, the type we do not want to pass through again.
Both were not forthcoming and tormented Ghanaians for a long time; what hypertensive patients suffered as it lasted can best be imagined.
As for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) flag bearer and his running mate, the pain they endured was enormous.
After listening to his babies with sharp teeth and their insistence that he hold on, it is clear that the concession was done as a last painful resort.
How could he withhold such a crucial concession indefinitely as the political temperature inched towards boiling point and when Generals tell you that time was up?
We demur therefore when undeserved plaudits are showered upon the former President in President Nana Akufo-Addo’s quest to accord ample deference to his predecessor.
Many have questioned the rationale behind the diplomacy and want the President to switch off this mode.
We too agree when we especially recall the weeks and days before the elections, including the ‘Plan Bs’ and others put in place to ensure a particular outcome of the general elections by the NDC.
That did not come to pass and we shudder to read such volumes of praises to a man who would have rather he did not concede.
<<Print>>