Dr. Bawumia is practically swimming against the tide

The voice of caution whispers persuasively in the ear of every politician, often with good reasons. However, when caution breeds timidity, a good politician listens to other voices. The Bawumia-led NPP is listening to other voices, hence swimming against the tide (doing or saying what is opposite to what most other people are doing or saying).

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has lost the most precious commodity in politics: trust, which persuades voters to give politicians the benefit of the doubt. It is glaringly apparent that he no longer attracts the applause or clout he used to enjoy as the so-called ‘economic wizkid’ since 2016. This is simply because he has succeeded in tainting his image as someone most incapable of delivering as the head of the Economic Management Team (EMT), as well as someone who now quickly comes across as a person whose utterances are vastly at variance with verifiable facts.

Just like Al Gore, a passionate ideologue who lost the 2000 United States elections by dropping his signature on the issue of the environment, Dr. Bawumia is shifting from issues concerning the economy to those of digitization, thereby distancing himself from what Ghanaians know him for: the economy.

Looking at the current economic outlook of Ghana, unprecedentedly characterized by a sky-rocketing inflation rate, a high unemployment rate, a low GDP, a high cost of living, and the thousands of Ghanaians who have been thrown into abject poverty, according to the IMF, one critical issue that will definitely be of concern to the electorate in the 2024 elections will be the economy and employment.

Dr. Bawumia appears to be deliberately running away from the economy, obviously because his government has been shamefully handcuffed by the very policies they have recklessly introduced and poorly implemented over the years. The consequence of their ineptitude and incompetence is the excruciating toll on the livelihoods of the average masses, innocent pensioners, and businesses.

It was Karl Marx who said, “History repeats itself: the first time as a tragedy, the second as a farce.” Apparently, Karl Marx might have been anticipating Dr. Bawumia in his thoughts because of his way of doing things.

Like Al Gore, who gave up on his signature issues and what Americans knew him for, thanks to his ego deflation by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Bush Sr., Dr. Bawumia has equally given up on the issues of the economy because Ghanaians feel he has been a complete disaster and a liability as the head of the EMT.

Panic campaign:

Panic as a campaign strategy on the issue of the review of the Free SHS (FSHS) Policy, where' review’ was deliberately twisted to mean ‘cancellation’, might have worked in 2020. However, the same strategy by the NPP would not gain currency this time around because many Ghanaians and even some leading elements of the NPP, such as President Nana Addo, Ken Ofori-Atta, and Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, have called for the review of the Free SHS Policy. The FSHS Policy is fraught with several debilitating challenges, ranging from parents coughing up extra money for feeding and other necessities to make their children comfortable in school.

The Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Sally Nelly Coleman, has recently revealed that over 137,000 fresh students placed in the 2023 Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) into Senior High Schools and Technical and Vocational Education and Training Schools across the country have not shown up for admissions. This is just a drop in the ocean of several cases that are a testament to the existence of overwhelming challenges facing our second-cycle educational system.

The discerning people of Ghana have developed immunity to deliberately orchestrated panic and fear and will not be stampeded into making decisions based on the same. As such, the attempt to resort to such inferior tactics will no longer work in the 2024 general elections.

Rallying around the flag effect:

Dr. Bawumia, in his inaugural speech as the elected flagbearer of the NPP, proclaimed that he was going to increase the NPP’s votes in the Volta Region. This is a good call, but how is he achieving this?

Politics, they say, is the pursuit of power, and history is the story behind politics. Yoshirō Mori, former prime minister of Japan, midway into his administration, by dint of his ineptitude and inability to cope with modern Japan, became so unpopular and unappealing that virtually nobody attempted to resist the call for his change.

On February 9, 2001, when Mori learned that a United States Naval submarine and a Japanese fishing boat had collided in the Pacific, causing the deaths of nine Japanese, including four students, he practically was unmoved, as would be less expected of a leader. He reportedly continued playing his favourite game of golf for two additional hours after learning of the tragic incident. This seriously infuriated the citizens toward their prime minister, and they therefore joined in the campaign to oust him.

Dr. Bawumia never raised a spectre of concern when the people of Anlo, Keta, and Ketu South were languishing under the devastating effects of the tidal waves in 2023. He only visited these areas to heartlessly ask for votes in his bid to become the presidential candidate, without a scintilla of sympathy for the victims. This callous behaviour was again exhibited during the VRA-induced flood that hit settlements along the Lower Volta Basin. It took him weeks to suspend his campaign to visit the flood victims, thus making the people of the Volta Region see him as the Mori of Ghana.

Unquestionably, John Mahama commands moral authority, political respect, vitality, and energy, like a white knight on a ride, to rescue the suffering people of Ghana. This he has demonstrated by constantly supplying relief items to the victims of the tidal waves and also being the first to visit the victims of the VRA-induced flooding, and in so doing, giving the catastrophe national and international attention.

The events caused by the VRA-induced flooding were a missed opportunity for Dr. Bawumia due to his improper timing in responding to the disaster and the lackadaisical attitude of his government in paying attention to the plights of the disaster victims. The NDC and its flagbearer, John Mahama, rather played a very conspicuous role without ceding any inch of goodwill to the government, thus deflating any goodwill from the people of the Volta Region towards Dr. Bawumia, the flagbearer of the NPP, hence denying the rallying-around-the-flag effect for the Bawumia ticket in the Volta Region. This obviously makes the loud claim by Dr. Bawumia of increasing votes in the Volta Region a fleeting illusion.

John Mahama is creating new contours:

The 24-Hour Economy is the brainchild of a virtuoso and a master politician who resonates seamlessly with the teeming youth of Ghana, who is optimistic that he alone is capable and competent in solving the cancerous unemployment problem in this country. Like Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, H.E. John Mahama is creating new contours for his electoral victory, unlike Dr. Bawumia.

Al Gore admitted that “the harder truth is that I simply lacked the strength to keep talking about the environmental crisis constantly when it matters most”. Dr. Bawumia lacks the moral authority to talk about the economy and unemployment when they matter most to Ghanaians in the 2024 general elections.

Restoring the economy and solving unemployment is a charge all political parties must keep, which calls for a fresh start, making John Mahama’s 24-Hour Economy Policy a quiet river of goodness and kindness that is cutting through stones, and anyone who opposes it is to "make a stone of the heart," in the words of W.B. Yeats.

John Mahama has planted a mustard seed with the 24-Hour Economy Policy, which will grow, flourish, and revolutionize this country. With this game-changing policy, he is leading the NDC to triangulate by winning the hearts of the upper and middle classes while keeping a hold on the NDC core base with productive social interventions. It is therefore not surprising that the 24-hour economy policy is currently the most popular policy intervention in Ghana, according to research undertaken by Global Info Analytics and other independent entities.

Crisis invention as a tool:

Crises such as wars, terrorist attacks, disasters, etc. can be the results of anti-democratic engineering, which produces a rallying-around-the-flag effect among citizens for the government to maintain its grip on power. An example is the case of Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, who decided to extend his tenure after his second term but needed to come up with a convincing reason. The Manila bombing of 1972 was orchestrated by government forces, according to US intelligence officials, which gave him the opportunity to extend his hold on that country for several years. Similar events occurred in the Moscow bombing and the security crisis in Turkey, which was also used by the Erdogan government to tighten its grip on political power.

Crises also serve as crucibles to increase the government's ratings. The aftermath of the September 11 attack is a case in point where President George W. Bush’s regime ratings soared from 53 percent to 90 percent, the highest recorded on the gallop. 89 percent was recorded by Bush’s father in the wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. With this massive support in the middle of a national crisis, presidents are virtually left unchecked.

In Ghana, the Nana Addo/Bawumia NPP-led government allegedly sponsored the Western Togoland secessionist movements in the Volta Region to invent a crisis situation for a conducive atmosphere for the deployment of security operatives into the region with the sole aim of suppressing NDC votes in the 2020 elections. The same is allegedly being planned as a repeat, going into the 2024 elections.

Historically, Western Togoland has been part of the UP (NPP) since 1957, under the leadership of Dr. Busia. It is evident that when the NPP is in power, such a group gains currency in order to derail the efforts of the NDC in its stronghold. These communist inferior tactics may have worked for the NPP in 2020, but they are highly unlikely to yield similar results in the 2024 elections because the people of the Volta Region are now awake and more than ready never to allow themselves to be intimidated by tyranny and will thus defy the odds to cast their votes in the 2024 general elections. Indeed, the people have found a cause worthy of dying for.

Politics of Religion:

Historically, Ghanaians did not regard religion as a primary factor that influenced their political orientation and decision-making. They never had issues with a Christian-Christian ticket, as was the case with Rawlings/Arkaah, Rawlings/Mills, Mills/Mahama, Mahama/Amissah Arthur, or a Christian-Muslim ticket like those of Kuffour/Aliu Mahama and Nana Addo/Bawumia. Again, they never found a Muslim-Christian ticket problematic as we had with Limann/De-Graft Johnson or a Christian president without a vice president from the time of Kwame Nkrumah until around 1979.

The disgusting religious card being played by Dr. Bawumia and his followers will, therefore, obviously not be to their political benefit. The call by Ali Suraj, who works at the office of Dr. Bawumia, for all Muslims to vote for a Muslim is apparently ill-thought, especially since Muslims are in the minority. Consequently, the Christian community is beginning to tilt en bloc to the side of the Christian candidates.

Digitization:

Digitization is no doubt a good enterprise in a 21st-century global community. However, the kind of digitization agenda being uncontrollably and ignorantly pushed by Dr. Bawumia is yet to court the needed attention, unlike the 24-hour economy. It is tactically unwise for Dr. Bawumia to be pushing such an agenda, knowing fully well that digitization is in fact a major strength of John Mahama, who has been credited with several initiatives that have become the backbone of Ghana’s current digital regime.

Clearly, Dr. Bawumia is seriously and ignorantly swimming against the tide with issues that are of paramount interest to the citizenry, and should he continue on that tangent, chances are that, like Democrat Roosevelt defeating Republican Alfred London, the 2024 elections will end in a landslide win for John Mahama, one that has yet to be witnessed since the inception of Ghana’s multi-party democracy.