Let’s call a spade a spade: Bawumia is humble, Mahama is not!

With all due respect with no attached condescension whatsoever, former President John Dramani Mahama’s desperation to return to power is really getting out of hands, judging from his endless and scurrilous pronouncements.

As Africans, we have been taught to always conform to the majoritarian African culture of respect and desist from using unprintable words like, ‘stupid, ‘foolish, ‘nonsense’, amongst others.

Therefore, it is somewhat disappointing that no less a person than Ex-President John Dramani Mahama would keep uttering such disgusting invectives in the open.

In contrast, his opponent in the forthcoming general elections, Dr Mahmoud Bawumia, is being hailed all over the country for his unparalleled humility. He is indeed humble.

Unfortunately, in recent times, former President John Dramani Mahama has been in the news, apparently, for his unsavoury and endless 2024 electioneering campaign pronouncements.

He recently attacked the Clergy, the Fetish Priests, Imams, Necromancers, Chiefs, Black Magicians, Opinion Leaders, amongst others, for choosing to bless, pray, and wish the NPP 2024 presidential candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia well in the forthcoming general elections.

The former president has also been criticised for asserting somewhat bizarrely that ‘the GA’s are only interested in their kenkey, fish, and pepper than Bawumia’s digitalisation, as there is no digital kenkey(emphasis mine).

In all this, the diehard supporters of Mahama would want the rest of us to believe that the former president has an unparalleled humility.

I am afraid former President Mahama’s much touted humility is questionable, so to speak.

Former President Mahama’s condescending remarks aimed at Alhaji Dr Mahmoud Bawumia during the 2016 electioneering campaign really exposed his hypocrisy.

I recall in one of his then ‘changing lives’ speeches, President Mahama sarcastically suggested that Bawumia had not been a president before and therefore cannot impugn incompetence on his government.

Strangely, former President Mahama went ahead and asserted that only our two former Presidents, Kufuor and Rawlings of blessed memory had the pedigree and therefore may criticise him.

According to ‘humble’ former President Mahama, the rest of Ghanaians did not have the right to criticise him and his government because we have not sat on the presidential seat before.

Obviously, such thought process is extremely dangerous and undemocratic and should not have come from the lips of a humble president.

I recall Ex-President Mahama went to Kumasi and labelled the entire people of Ashanti region as ungrateful lots. He referred to Ashantis as ungrateful lots who would never even be content with gold plated roads. How bizarre?

It was uncharacteristic on the part of a supposedly humble President to impugn that all Ashantis are unappreciative.

I recollect in one of the Parliamentary sittings, former President Mahama had an impertinent boldness to insult Ashantis indiscriminately. He openly said: “People of the Ashanti origin have problem with letters L&R”.

In other words, Ex-President Mahama was implying that Ashantis cannot pronounce words that have letters L&R. That was not funny by any stretch of the imagination.

That was indeed an unpardonable cheek from a supposedly submissive leader! Do Ghanaians call such an individual as humble and respectful?

Again, in the wake of the public discourse on the suitability of the proposed burial place of our departed president Mills, Ex-President Mahama condescendingly stated that Ghanaians who took part in the debate both on radio, television and even in their private homes and work places engaged in a “USELESS” discourse.

I am afraid, that was uncharacteristic of a leader who had been tagged as humble, respectful, God fearing etc.

With all due respect, Ex-President Mahama’s ceaseless sarcasm is out of this world. He is simply not humble.

Former President Mahama, to be quite honest, has an innate predilection for abusing those who show divergent views to his.

I recall during a debate on the STX Housing deal, former President Mahama, then Vice President, abused our Members of parliament who opposed the deal.

He unkindly told them: “BALONEY”. In other words, Ex-President Mahama was implying that the Parliamentarians were engaging in “foolish discourse”. How bizarre? Humble indeed!

I also remember when the Attorney General’s office charged Kennedy Agyapong with Treason, Terrorism & genocide and former President Kufuor humbly appealed for calm, and further suggested that we should avoid ‘killing a fly with a Sledge Hammer. Ex-President Mahama replied hastily and lividly: “We will kill a fly with a Bulldozer”.

Honestly, that cheeky remark can only come from the lips of a bellicose, but it should not have come from the lips of a supposedly humble and peaceful President. Frankly stating, Ex-President Mahama can be very careless in his pronouncements at times.

Let us remind ourselves that we (Ghanaians) have been taught to respect the dead. So I was extremely dumbfounded when after the death of Professor Mills, I heard former President Mahama impoliticly suggesting: “God in his own wisdom has taken the old man, Professor Mills away to pave the way for youthful Mahama to take over the mantle”. How pathetic?

Subsequent to that infamous declaration, Ex-President Mahama went to the Northern Region and asserted somewhat bizarrely that it was about time ‘Northerners’ took over the mantle of Presidency, because they (Northerners) were fed up serving in the Vice Presidency post.

To be quite honest, former President Mahama, more often than not, fails to anticipate the dire consequences of his pronouncements.

I recollect during the 2016 electioneering campaign, A number of prominent Ghanaians and civil society groups, including the then Chairman of Peace Council, Professor Emmanuel Asante and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) admonished Ex-President John Dramani Mahama to refrain from making comments deemed ethnocentric against the NPP and its running mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

“President Mahama while campaigning at Lawra in the Upper West Region, said the NPP will not allow Dr. Bawumia to be their flagbearer because the party is largely not in support of northerners taking up such positions” (cityfmonline.com/ghanaweb.com, 21/11/2016).

Former President Mahama pontificated somewhat carelessly: “Sometimes I feel sad when I see some of our northern brothers running and also doing this. They will use you and dump you. Let anything happen today and let our brother Bawumia say he is standing for president in NPP. They will never give it to him I can assure you”.

In conclusion, Ex-President Mahama’s much publicised humility by his brassbound supporters is a charade, more than anything else.