Prez Mahama Not Absolved From Mills' Failures

With barely less than five months to the 2012 election, Ghanaians are regrettably coming to terms that the many lofty promises of jobs and wealth made to them by what started as a Mills-Mahama government was nothing more than propaganda.

Now led by former vice president John Dramani Mahama as a result of former President Mills’ demise, the NDC still believes it can continue to fool everyone with yet another vain promise of changing and bettering the lots of Ghanaians with just five months to the end of their term as they tag their new leaders “the game changer”
What game is President Mahama going to change in a matter of five months that he could not do in the last three and half years of a government where he served as the Head of the Economic Management Team. Did he just acquire the skills and what it takes to effect the game change or he always had and hid it but hungered for this ‘golden opportunity’ for him to unleash it? Surely the NDC cannot take us for an audience in a magician’s theatre!

The new president should stop deceiving himself that he has a magic wand to transform the lives of Ghanaians within five months, a feat himself and his team have failed to achieve in over three and half years.

He certainly has a lot of work to do in tackling the numerous problems that the country is currently faced with and his competence is in doubt judging from how poorly the economy has performed since the inception on the NDC 3 government under his leadership. He should take lessons from the performances of Goosie Tanoh and Dr. Kwesi Nduom in Ghana’s recent elections.

These two made a lot of noise but at the end, they turned out to be all about media hypes and campaigns. President Mahama and the NDC should spare us their concert and focus on completing the tenure of his former boss. Ghanaians do not have to search hard to find evidence of the sufferings that this administration has brought on us all.

It is preposterous for Mr. Mahama to attempt exempting himself from all the poverty that his party and personal leadership of the economic management team have unleashed on Ghanaians. He was and has been part of the whole and as such should be liable and take full responsibility for whatever credit or shame that has come to be associated with the NDC 3 administration.

As head of the economic management team, what has Mahama done to stem joblessness and the increasing poverty? And as chairman of the Police Council, what has he done to stem armed robbery and the general insecurity?

It has become very clear to every keen observer that the late President was always sick and was hence not practically in charge of running the country. The question then is: who has been in charge all the while? Constitutionally and logically, that mandate fell on former Vice President Mahama. And if he is today having been sworn in as President, wants Ghanaians to believe that he has never been responsible and never in charge of running the state in the stead of his ill boss, then he is even a weaker leader and leaves the question who was then in charge?

The truth is that the NDC team has failed to improve on the lots of Ghanaians and rather engaged in propaganda. And these failures cannot be resolved by PR gimmicks like they have continued to deploy since the birth of this administration.

Mr. Mahama must by now know that PR and propaganda does not provide jobs. It does not put food on the table. It certainly does not pay for rent, health care, school fees and does not resolve the challenges faced by the Ghana Cedi.

Ghanaians are expecting President Mahama to keep focus and steady the ship just as the late President promised he would. We have been used to peaceful transitions and we cannot demand anything less of him in his short completion term as President before, during and after elections and hands over to the next government.

Source: Editorial (Thestatesmanonline)