John Mahama
Foulmouthed Mahama hangers-on like Mr. Abraham Amaliba, the so-called National Democratic Congress’ legal-team member, can throw all the insults in his vocabulary arsenal, as well as the proverbial kitchen sink, against Nana Akufo-Addo, the thee-time presidential candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), in a bid to having the former Justice Minister docilely consent to debating the man who earlier on in June this year chickened out of an Institute of Economic Affairs-sponsored presidential debating forum, on the cynical grounds that the Jean Mensa-led think-tank was smack in the pocket of the NPP leadership, but it won’t work.
At any rate, Nana Akufo-Addo should insist that any debate he decides to participate in will be only a two-person debate between him and President Mahama. No presidential candidate of any party with less than 5 parliamentary seats should be allowed to sidetrack such a debating forum. The IEA or any other think-tank can decide to organize a separate debating forum for the rest of the minor candidates.
Mr. Amaliba’s invective bait will not work because the NDC operatives cannot facilely presume to rudely and cavalierly pick and choose when to have their presidential candidate debate their most formidable political opponent. By tradition and consensus, that privilege belongs to the IEA; and it has been ceded to the IEA at least since 2008.
If the NDC apparatchiks do not like the way that Mrs. Mensa and her associates are presently handling affairs pertaining to the presidential debates, they are free to suggest a hosting collaborative between the IEA and any other reputable think-tank of their choice. So far, the Mahama Posse has demonstrated bad faith with virtually every reputable think-tank in the country. And so it is not clear why they want their candidate and presidential incumbent, Mr. John Dramani Mahama, to participate in the very process which they loudly and clearly informed the Ghanaian electorate as far back as June that they had absolutely no intention of having Candidate Mahama become a part of.
But what is even more risible, we have just learned, is that President Mahama decided to reconsider his decision not to debate Nana Akufo-Addo only after watching the third and final debate between the two main contenders of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, namely, Mrs. Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, the Democratic Party’s nominee, and Mr. Donald John Trump, Mrs. Clinton’s main opponent and the Republican Party’s nominee for Election 2016 (See “Akufo-Addo’s Poor Performance Makes Him Run Away from Debate – Amaliba” MyJoyOnline.com/Ghanaweb.com 10/22/16).
Whatever inspired Mr. Mahama about the third U.S. presidential debate to make him decide to throw his proverbial hat in the ring is beside the point.
The fact of the matter is that the people’s business is too important to be left to the whims and caprices of any individual presidential candidate, regardless of whether that individual candidate is the substantive or incumbent president of the Republic of Ghana.
We need to also vividly recall that not too long ago, Mr. Mahama publicly upbraided both Messrs. Akufo-Addo and Bawumia, the former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Ghana and three-time Vice-Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, for daring to criticize his job performance, when these two gentlemen had absolutely no first-hand experience with the presidency.
At the time that he made the foregoing indubitably cutting remark, Mr. Mahama had also added that only two living Ghanaian citizens were qualified to assess and/or critique his job performance, namely, former Presidents Jerry John Rawlings and John Agyekum-Kufuor.
And so rather than childishly presume to bait Nana Akufo-Addo into readily consenting to debate Mr. Mahama, maybe Mahama hangers-on like Mr. Amaliba need to explain to the Ghanaian public precisely at what moment President Mahama decided that, somehow, the man he had earlier on claimed had no presidential experience to commend him to presume to be qualified to debate his political superior became certified as being, at long last, qualified to debate His Excellency, the President of Ghana.
Well, we think we know a significant bit of the answer. And it is that having soberly concluded that his imperious public bluster and all, he (President Mahama) has miserably failed to outperform Messrs.
Akufo-Addo and Bawumia in the august court of Ghanaian public opinion, the smugly self-styled “Golden Star of the North” has decided to use the avenue and last chance provided by a presidential debating forum to belatedly launch a blistering offensive in a highly unlikely bid to salvaging some of his recklessly frittered opportunity to make his desperate case, once more, to the people.
We must also quickly point out, if also to staunchly back up our foregoing observation, that recently the man who literally straddles Ghana’s political landscape, like a Greco-Roman colossus, bitterly complained that the message of his “sterling” presidential performance had yet to register the desired impact in the press.
Put more tersely, according to President Mahama, rambunctious NDC propaganda operatives like Mr. Amaliba have miserably failed to help him gain the indispensable trust and confidence of the Ghanaian people and, most notably, the electorate. And so one can fully appreciate the gasping desperation behind the voice of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation’s board member.
