President Mahama to make history

No 2nd term For JM?

-But can the opposition NPP take advantage?

Mr. John Dramani Mahama is on the verge of making history as the only Ghanaian President not to take advantage of the constitutional mandate that allows a sitting president to avail himself for another four year term in office.

The aL-hAJJ can report today that all available signs intensely backed by the actions and or, inactions of the Mahama administration most especially, the president’s own disposition leads to only one conclusion; that President John Mahama is not desirous of going for a second term.

On the blind side of most Ghanaians some five months ago, President John Mahama may have given the strongest indications yet when he said he is not just ‘another African politician’, hell bent on clinching on to power.

The president gave this hint when he responded to public criticisms from some senior members of his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) amongst who include; former Head of Policy Monitoring and Evaluation at the Presidency and now Ghana’s Ambassador to The Netherlands, Dr Tony Aidoo, former Majority Leader and ex-minister of Health, Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin and comments by the NDC party General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketsia.

Reacting to the NDC kingpins and other party members sharing similar sentiments, President Mahama told an orientation Workshop for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives at the Local Government Training Institute in Accra that: “Recently a few of my comrades have questioned my commitment to fight corruption. I dare say they don’t know me”.

“For those who disagree with me and are anxious to see my back, (they are) not to worry, 2016 is not too far away. I will urge them to be patient and this difficult job; the least one expects is loyalty and comradeship”.

While many Ghanaians could not decipher what exactly the president meant at the time, history has it that this will not be the first time President John Mahama would be disappointing many when his service was needed most; perhaps to prove to the world that he, unlike other politicians does not believe in grabbing or being in power at-all-cost.

Indeed, in the run up to the 2004 elections in Ghana when the whole NDC family including the “almighty” party Founder, Rawlings and wife, Nana Konadu were ‘shedding’ tears for John Mahama to partner the late Candidate John Mills as his running mate, the then Bole Bamboi MP did the unthinkable which stunned everyone, by turning down the offer in pursuit of academic laurels.

Even though the President is as yet to formally declare his intension whether to seek a second term as guaranteed by the 1992 constitution, his body language and orientation nonetheless, depicts him as someone not afraid to jump ship when his first term comes to an end.

Painstaking examination of the happenings in the Mahama government since the president was sworn into office on January 7, 2012 has provoked some political watchers to be positing that President Mahama may just not be interested in the renewal of his mandate as part of his wider plans.

Perhaps, the President Achilles heel; his eagerness to please all and not good enough to even hurt a fly, are also turning out to be his waterloo.

Recent assertions by his former boss, mentor and the man who unearthed his political career, Jerry John Rawlings’ that perhaps Mahama was too “nice a President” for an African country such as Ghana; appears to hold.

Incredibly, party officials and political pundits are yet to come to terms as to why almost halfway into President John Mahama’s four year tenure in office, the president is unable to have the full complements of his government.

This is against the backdrop of the fact that the NDC’s archrival and main opposition, the New Patriotic Party has heated the country’s political skies even when the next presidential election is two years away.

In the last few weeks, President Mahama and his administration have come under intense public censure for their poor handling of a number of issues that could have better been managed not to generate the needless raging public anger which invariably, demoralize its teeming supporters.

Aside the intrigues, the ongoing high stakes politicking amongst the various political gladiators in the NDC ahead of the party’s national congress to elect national officers, most of the problems diluting the chances of the ruling party under Mahama’s leadership are self-imposed.

The long-overdue ministerial reshuffle expected to reinvigorate government, the frequent upward adjustment in fuel and utility tariffs as a result of so-called automatic adjustment formula and the president’s recent acquired taste for foreign travels even when his backyard is boiling, political pundits have observed are enough pointers to surmise the President may have lost interest going for a second term.

Government’s handling of the yet-to-be enforced 17.5% VAT imposed on some bank charges and the confusion in the advertised but now cancelled introduction of GYEEDA ICT module leaves much to be desired.

Compounding government’s woes was the presidency’s handling of the Ghanaian US-flagged plane sighted in Iran, the SADA/Mango rot and the buffoonery of former SADA CEO.

Delayed Ministerial Reshuffle

Following the inertia generated as a result of the eight long months of the novel election petition engineered by three leading members of opposition NPP, it was widely expected that President Mahama would introduce some changes after the verdict of August 29, 2013 in order to bring freshness into his administration.

But alas, that was not to be, almost eight months after the Supreme Court gave legality to his election as President. This is in spite of the fact it has become glaring to Ghanaians that some of the president’s appointees don’t qualify to be where they are.

Not even an indictment of some of his functionaries by no mean a person than his party’s founder and former president, Jerry John Rawlings will make president Mahama budge.

Indeed, the media has since the election petition judgment reported on several occasions about the dates of the impending reshuffle and names of appointees likely to go home and those to make their way into government; yet it never happened.

Amazingly, almost a year and half into the Mahama government only two out of the about 40 expected ambassadors have duly been posted whiles some district Assemblies are still without substantive Chief Executives.

Ominously, a considerable number of public corporations and institutions are without board of directors and is some cases; some are without substantive Chief Executives.

And this has left tongues wagging, wondering if a President so desirous of another opportunity will allow critical state institutions and government agencies to operate for such a long period without boards or chief executives.