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Travelling from Accra to Kejeji, capital of the Sene East District in the Brong-Ahafo Region, one of the new districts created in 2012, takes more than nine hours, using a V8.

Accra to Atebubu is a smooth journey, but it is very uncomfortable continuing the journey from Atebubu to Kwame Danso, capital of the Sene West district, because the road is rough, untarred and very dusty.

It even turns out to be a near-hell of experience travelling further from Kwame Danso to Kejeji, the capital of a district with no single tarred road. But now, the Mahama government has commissioned a vote-inducing surfacing work to be carried out on the road. Contractors were on site at the time of our visit.

Premuase is a very popular village in the area, not just because the next town ahead of it is Kejeji, the district capital, but it is because a very important person is languishing there, living virtually as a beggar, thus becoming an object of scorn to her fellow villagers.

The first thing one is greeted with upon entering the Premuase village is extreme poverty and deprivation. But that is not more of an issue to many of the villagers. The major issue which is a constant talk in the town is the pathetic living conditions of a particular woman at the village.

The villagers find it difficult to understand why this woman should be living like a virtual beggar even though she is ‘the president’s mother.’

President John Dramani Mahama calls this woman Maame Dansoa because that was how his late father, E.A. Mahama, a Northern Regional Commissioner in the government of Kwame Nkrumah, used to call her.

According to Maame Akosua Dansoa, she took care of President Mahama and the rest of his siblings during their childhood, bathing them, washing their clothes, cooking for them and sending them to school.

Maame Dansoa’s younger mother, Auntie Grace, was married to President Mahama’s father. She was brought into the late Mr Mahama’s household to take care of the domestic affairs.

Little John Mahama and his siblings from the same mother had to be made a part of their father’s household, to live with their other siblings from a different mother, Auntie Grace, under the care of Maame Dansoa.

Maame Dansoa stayed with the Mahama family in Tamale and Accra for almost twenty four years, during which the late E. A Mahama showed her much affection because she was a humble girl and a very good cook, whose meals the family would not sacrifice for any other person’s meals.

One very important moment she still cherishes was when President Mahama’s late father showed her Queen Elizabeth, from England, when the British Monarch visited Ghana.

Maame Dansoa parted company with the Mahama family after the death of President Mahama’s father, and life has never been easy since then.

Maame Dansoa now lives with her partially blind husband, Opanyin Akwasi Desi, at the Premuase village, where a ramshackle, mud structure, with no door and comparable to a hen coop, serves as their house.

All her male children are dead, and so she does not have anyone to put up a more decent building where she can comfortably lay her head, especially during the rainy season.

Maame Dansoa says she has told President Mahama about this issue, at least on three occasions. First was when he visited her at the village as NDC Running Mate during the 2008 electioneering campaign; also when he visited her as President and NDC Presidential Candidate during the 2012 electioneering campaign; and finally when she visited President Mahama in Accra during the 2012 Presidential Election Petition trial.

“He told me everything will be fine after the court case but up till now I have not seen anything. I don’t know whether it is somebody’s doing or his own decision,” Maame Dansoa said in Twi.

With dislocated waist, which makes it impossible to do any farming activity, Maame Dansoa and her partially blind husband now virtually live like beggars, surviving on the generosity of others who once a while offer them some tubers of yam, and also give them rubbers to serve as a roof for their hen coop-like house.

This is what has made ‘the president’s mother’ an object of scorn among the people at the Premuase village. ‘You call yourself the president’s mother, but look at you. We are all suffering but we are even better off.’ This is how Maame Dansoa is ridiculed by the villagers.

According to her husband, Opanyin Akwasi Desi, even when somebody has provided some tubers of yam for them, how to get money to buy some fish is even a major problem.

Maame Danso only gets occasional financial help from President Mahama, as and when duty sends him to the area, and she is lucky to meander her way through the crowd to catch the eye of her son. “I once met him at Bassa and the last time, I met him at Kejeji. He gave me money and said Maame Dansoa, take this to buy some ‘koko.’ I took it and thanked him,” she narrated.

According to her husband, each occasional financial help from the president is able to sustain the family for about two weeks. Opanyin Akwasi Desi feels a bit embittered when he hears reports like ‘President Mahama has bought a house and cars for Akua Donkor.’

But, Maame Dansoa is not embittered about President Mahama, even though he visited her at the village, took pictures of her and promised to assist her find a place to lay her head.

She is happy that she had been able to provide care for somebody who is now the president of the country. “I am happy I was able to raise Mahama. At least, I did not use my ‘witchcraft’ to destroy him and he is now the president,” she said.

But, Maame Dansoa has been wondering if her neglect by the president is somebody’s orchestration or the president’s own decision.

As it stands now, she is only praying that President Mahama will remember her and come to her aid in this trying moment of her life. She, at least, wants to sleep in a bit of a decent house before she joins her Maker.

Maame Dansoa says even though she is suffering, she can’t force the president to support her. “If you want help from somebody and its not coming, you only have to wait and pray. But now things are hard for me; I’m suffering; I need help,” she begged.