Re: John Mahama Can Never be Trusted
Unbelievable…President Mahama’s Publishing Consultant is a Niece of Nana
Addo
“No lie can live forever”
--- Thomas Carlyle
“Truth crushed to the earth will rise again”
--- William C. Bryant
The writer of this article on Ghanaweb is very pitiful and pathetic with
his baseless and falsefool analysis. Just imagine, the mere fact that, the
President consulted the expertise of an international publisher for his own
private book, which he wrote even before he became the President, warrants
you guys to characterize him as some one devoid of nationalism.
As I iterated in the previous rebuttals to your myopic articles, I will
reiterate again that you guys, just like your Nana Addo, have become so
desperate and distrait for power, and because you do not have any pragmatic,
practical, smart and systematic solutions to our country’s socio-economic
malady, and your freebies campaign is not selling in the market place of the
electorate, you are resorting to character assassination, as well as
misinforming and misleading them to change their affectionate and loving attitude
toward the President to a hateful and vile one, without any persuasive
reason for them to believe you.
In fact the sort of articles the NPP communications team, both home and
abroad are writing these days, as we are getting nearer to the elections
leaves much to be desired. These guys really take Ghanaians, who are
discerning people for a ride. The title of the article seem to reveal very critical
and crucial issue of national concern, which will go a long way to place
Ghanaians private sectors operators at a great disadvantage. But lo and
behold, upon my quick perusal into this foolish and facetious article, I
realized that it was one of their daily-routine of; giving a dog a bad name into
order to hang it modus oprandi, just to please Nana Addo’s whimsical
desires.
Because the NPP communicators know that, it was the NDC first and second
regimes that had injected and infused real life into the economy, by virtue
of the ultimate and unlimited advantages that our government gave the
Ghanaian private sector, which is the engine of economic growth, this writer
decided to see fault into the President’s decision to publish his book abroad.
Take it or leave it, the President has the right to do so, because this is
his personal memoir, which has nothing to do with even his party, nor the
nation at large. But the writer should have done some research to know if
his party (NDC) has ever consulted foreign publishers to publish their
manifestoes and all other publications by the government.
Fact is that, the President, a gifted communicator (naturally and
professionally), is a journalist, aside of being an author. He is as well a
columnist in an international magazine, based in the US, called ROOT. And by
virtue of his diplomatic stature and even the subject matter itself, that
encapsulate and encompasses a broad repertoire of socio-economic, political and
historical narratives about Ghana at the micro level and Africa at large, it
is more expedient to publish abroad.
If you care to know, as an author of three books myself, the first one
entitled; “Paradise Under Mothers Feet.”, published in New York, in 2009 and
reviewed by the New York Beacon newspaper, for a book of that caliber to
get much publicity and marketability that it deserves, it has to be published
in an advanced world-where they have a full-fledge and Photo-finish
expertise in the publishing industry to subject the manuscript into a thorough
review.
The President, I think sees wisdom in the saying; “Think globally, but act
locally” to enable him showcase this historical narrative to the huge
global audience. That was why he chose to have another edition in America. I
happened to be on a business trip with two American investors to Kenya and
Central African Republic over the last weekend, and one of them, Jeremiah
sitting next to me, saw the title of the book I was reading inflight (for the
second time). He asked what was it about and I told him, it was the first
memoir written by Ghana’s current sitting President. Lo and behold, this guy
already infatuated with investing in Ghana (our next leg of the trip),
grabbed the book from me and started reading, and coincidentally, I was
sitting next to him, while he was still reading this book, (which has completely
arrested his attention) when we made a transit yesterday at the Paris
airport in France. I removed my laptop from my briefcase and log on to Ghanaweb
to read news and I saw this article, accusing the President of not using the
local publishers for his book.
I showed him this article on my laptop and he was shocked and said, “But
this is a personal initiative of the President, which has nothing to do with
nationalism, and besides I could see the exposure this book had, because
it was published abroad…” And I said to him, “you seemed to have taken
the wind out of my seal, because I just read the story and started this
rejoinder to the article and about to state these two points in it.” This
happened as we were sitting and whiling away time for our connecting flight back
to JF Kennedy Airport, in New York City.
Hardly would such a book, if published in Ghana attracts comments and
commendations from such literary luminaries and great think tanks, as Chinua
Achebe of “Things Fall Apart”, whose praise on the book partly reads, “A
much welcome work of immense relevance.” Andrew Solomon, a National Book
Award winner in the US and author of “The Noonday Demon” also wrote, “These
are stories…readers will be charmed by them. They brim with humanity.”
Ngugi Wa Thiongo, author of, “Weep Not, Child” stated that, “Mahama’s stories
lure the reader into unforgettable journey in which he interacts with
history as a living tissue.” Nuruddin Farah also wrote, “Mahama has given us
complex text. I ‘ve enjoyed reading these stories.” Aminata Forna, author of
the Commonwealth Book Prize, “The Memory of Love”, wrote “Warm and
engaging…The view of a complex world in a microcosm.” As you could see, these
catchy and captivating comments were facilitated by the publishers who have
great and good rapport with these highly distinguished authors.
One great advantage of publishing ones manuscript with Bloomsbury is that,
it is a giant global corporate publishing institution-headquartered in New
York, with branches in cosmopolitan and composite business cities like;
London in the UK, New Delhi in India, and Sydney in Australia.
It would interest you to know that, the publishing/communications
consultant, that His Excellency the President hired to work on the book is not only
an ordinary Ghanaian, but coincidentally, is a niece of the Nana Akufo
Addo, the presidential candidate of the NPP and her name is, Meri Nana Ama
Danquah, daughter of Dr. J. B Danquah, one of the founding fathers of the
nation, popular known as, “The Big Six”.
I don’t think you even saw the book, nor came to the book
launching/reading ceremony at the Schaumberg Center for Black History, a
state-of-the-art
library located opposite Harlem Hospital in New York City. Because if you
were a true Ghanaian, who thinks and acts beyond political expediency, than
our President, you would have come at least for the sake of “nationalism.”
Meri Nana Ama, one time lecturer at the school of Communication Studies of
the University of Ghana, Legon, is a niece of Nana Akufo Addo and the
publishing consultant of the President, who was the moderator of the event in
Harlem, and I believed she also moderated other book promotion tours by the
President across the United States.
It is interesting to know that, this book, “MY FIRST COUP D’TAT…AND OTHER
TRUE STORIES FROM THE LAST DECADE OF AFRICA” was first published in Ghana,
and the President came here in July to launch his “First US Edition”. In
his acknowledgment and appreciation to those who, overtly or covertly
contributed to the success of his first ever book, the President devoted the
last four paragraphs showering Meri Nana Ama with gratitude and gratefulness
for her dedication and commitment for the project to come to fruition. Part
of the acknowledgment reads as follows:
“…Meri Nana Ama Danquah, a warm and delightful person, blessed with
boundless energy and enthusiasm…She has been utterly inspirational, supportive
and instrumental in bringing this book together. It has been my privilege to
collaborate with her.”
So now tell me Mr. Spanash, is Meri Nana Ama, a daughter of our freedom
fighter, Dr. J. B. Danquah not a Ghanaian, even if she lives and works in the
US as you do, what difference does this make. If anything at all this is a
pointer to the fact that, His Excellency President Mahama, walked his talk
about utilizing the expertise of Ghanaian publishers, even before he
became the President. And it also exposed your sheer ignorance and stupidity of
wanting to score cheap political points with that fallacious and falsefool
article.
Next time you are writing on a highly sensitive topic like this, please do
your homework well, by making some indepth research, including borrowing
the book from a Ghanaian abroad in order to review especially, the
acknowledgement part if you don’t care to be “nationalistic enough” to purchase it.
This will enable you to present factual and truthful analysis to our
discerning Ghanaian readers. And I urge you and the NPP to render an apology to
His Excellency the President for this false allegation, especially having
to know that, he as a unifier went the extra mile to employ the service of a
family member of Nana Akufo Addo, (who is making thousands of dollars from
him, as she is still working on his second book) out of over hundred
Ghanaian publishers that you mentioned. And I believe Nana Addo would not hire
someone related to the President to work with him or for him.
As an educated resident or citizen of the United States (I cannot tell if
you have green card), you should know that, publishing industry in the US
is a huge business opportunity-Publishers enter into business deals with
authors based on percentages, and they draft agreements with their legal
consultants to cover themselves, and thereby make more money than the authors of
books they work on. They capitalize on the media publicity they render to
the authors’ books-with reviews from giant newspapers, such as; the New
York Times, Washington Post, etc. As well as radio and TV appearance, book
reading and signing ceremonies and above all, comments from such award winning
prolific authors mentioned above, who have blazed the trail and curved
enviable niche for themselves in the publishing field.
So please do not accuse the President of rejecting the Ghanaian
publishers, if you fail to do your homework well. This is a great shame and an
intellectual dishonesty to misinform and manipulate the mentality of our
electorate, who have vowed not to ‘hire’ Mr. “All die be die” with his “Yen
Akanfuo” ethnocentric mantra, since they resolved to renew the mandate of His
Excellency President Mahama come next week Friday to proceed with the ever
enviable and indelible socio-economic legacy left by the late President
Mills.
Husseini Y. Baba AlWaiz, Press Secretary, NDC New York
