Is Amissah Arthur a good bargain?

*Learning from experience, Is Amissah Arthur a good bargain?*

I begin this article with a quote from Victor Smith. Quote, “I’m not

comfortable, I can tell you clearly. I have made that point to leadership.

Amissah-Arthur for the longer time is a weakness. It will not help us the

way I see politics has been done in this country. We need somebody who will

bring us a lot of votes, a person to complement the president, John Mahama

has a lot of ground support but you need to partner him with another strong

person who can excite people,”

“If you ask this guy to go, I can tell you then we are gambling, then we

have reached the gambling stage”

In an article I wrote on Wednesday doubting the viability of Amissah Arthur

(read

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=246482), I

was lampooned by NDC fanatics with all manner of uncharitable words.

Typical of them, they neither look at the merit or otherwise of the

argument being raised but are so convinced in their ignorant bigotry stands.

In 2008 when Nana Akufo Addo chose Bawumia as his running mate, many were

those who raised issues about Nana’s judgment. The coercive power of the

NPP caged every dissenting view into submission. In the end, Nana Addo lost

the election to the late President John Evans Atta Mills who had a popular

candidate as his running mate.

When John McCain chose Serah Palin as his running mate for the US general

election, Republicans felt he could have gone for a more experienced and

popular candidate. *Dick Cheney, **former vice president contributing to

McCain’s choice recently said *that it was a “mistake” to put Palin on the

Republican ticket in 2008 when she’d governed Alaska for less than two

years.

McCain’s reaction: “I’m always glad to get comments four years later,”

McCain told Fox News, laughing. “Look, I respect the vice president. He and

I had strong disagreements as to whether we should torture people or not. I

don’t think we should have.”

“But,” McCain added, “the fact is that I’m proud of Sarah Palin, I’m proud

of the job she did, I’m proud of the job she continues to do, and so

everybody has their own views and I respect those views, but I’m proud of

what we did.”

In the final analysis, McCain lost to the Republican candidate, Barrack

Obama.

Back to the thrust of my views. Can we say Arthur’s nomination is not

tearing the NDC apart? Can we deny the dissenting views emanating from all

quarters of the NDC? Can we?

Latest to this twist is that, Arthur might not be a running mate to John

Mahama but only holding the fort temporarily. Here I’d gladly quote Yaw

Boateng Gyan. “It is not yet time for him to select his running mate for

the upcoming election, that will be done at congress on 1st September;

after he (Mahama) has been endorsed by popular acclamation as the

flagbearer. Then he, in consultation with the party, will decide if the

same person (Amissah-Arthur) should be as his running mate or whether a

different person should be nominated. Right now, we are not certain that

Amissah-Arthur is going to be the running mate of John Mahama. He has just

been selected as the Vice President but not the running mate for the 2012

election. Even for the flagbearership, it is not a done deal procedurally,

until September 1st. He has to be endorsed before he can nominate a running

mate. For now, the state has done its part through President Mahama

deciding who should be his Vice-President, when the time comes, the party

will also take a decision with the majority of the party executives (on who

should partner Mahama)…”.

I trust he’s a fine gentleman for the job. However, he comes into the job

with a huge deficit. He superintended the

dollarization

of the economy and the crude devaluation of the cedis. This caused the

nosedive of purchasing powers of businessmen in the country.

He cannot also be exhumed from the Woyomegate scandal. As Governor of GOG,

he was the custodian of the Consolidated fund. He failed to apply the

Financial Agreement Act which resulted in the fraudulent payment of the

Woyome judgment debt. He sat aloof for this gargantuan fraud to be

perpetrated on Ghanaians.

His record as a deputy finance minister in the Rawlings regime in my candid

opinion isn’t satisfactory.

To conclude, I have some advice for President Mahama. Don’t choose another

Bawumia as a running mate. Learn from the mistake of others. We are not yet

certain whether Arthur will be your running mate but…, a word to the wise,

is enough.

I invite you to my blog, www.abuwrites.blogspot.com follow me on twitter

@abumubarik. On YouTube, abumubarik7.

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