President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
Fellow Ghanaians, let me continue with the Part Two of my article I started last week, with the compliment President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufu Addo gave the Honorable Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, at his first State of the Nation's Address as President in 2017.
The Dagombas has a proverb, that "people keep asking about your whereabouts doesn't mean they love you"
In fact, today, an objective prognosis and diagnosis of the President's compliment reveals nothing more than a mockery, and very much similar to the"Trousers" awarded by Mansa Musa Kankan in the fourteenth century to his hardworking citizens!
Our President is a celebrated big time politician we should not forget.
And politicians and diapers have one thing in common: they mustn't be trusted entirely.
We may be worried about the skyrocketing level of political dishonesty, debauchery, and treachery, but president Akufu Addo remains a leader of a political party not a Salvation Army.
According to Professor Adu Boahen, the golden age of the Mali Empire was between 1307 and 1337 under the reign of Mansa Musa Kankan who has been respected as history's wealthiest man.
As a veteran administrator, Mansa Musa instituted national honors day where citizens who distinguished themselves having achieved peerless feats were motivated and rewarded for their contribution to the success of the empire.
The greatest of this national honors day, according to professor Adu Boahen, was the "National Honours of the Trousers" where the overall hero was given a pair of trousers.
These trousers was characterized by narrowness in the leg and ampleness in the seat.
The unfortunate thing about the trousers as a national award was that, the greater a hero's achievement for the empire, the larger the size of the trousers!
Accursed was such an award (compliment)!
Obviously, an over elated Hon. Haruna Iddrisu who could not "think far", was grinning ear-to-ear having received such a soul soothing compliment from the first gentleman of the land that, he has a very comfortable bright political career.
However, like Emperor Mansa Musa's National honors of the Trousers, that compliment was a mockery which left a message "you would soon leave parliament".
Because, the President's policies are the most murderous of that political career he complimented the minority leader of.
It must be placed on record that such a bright political career spoken of by the President, can only be realized so long as the Honorable Haruna remains in Parliament.
Yet, the President's policies so far are the most threatening to this political career of the Honorable Minority leader.
Not only the Minority leader alone would suffer the full effects of the passionate venom of President Akufu Addo's policies that the minority keep on belittling to their own extinction politically, all NDC's MPs within Dagbon are at a greater risk.
The President's policies of New Dagbon, and the Point Seven Interchange to be constructed in Tamale, are two most destructive political atomic bombs more powerful than "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" detonated and dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by the USA which President Akufu Addo can ever use to murder the bright political career dream of the Hon. Minority leader and other Members of Parliament within Dagbon and beyond.
And this is going to be possible sooner rather than later if the people of Dagbon do not prioritize gratitude as the exclusive preserve of dogs.
In order words, if the people of Dagbon are going to be grateful to President Akufu Addo, and decide to vote based on performance and superiority of blueprint and message, the opposition would collapse like a pack of cards come 2020, because their leader would have given the political ghost.
The people of Dagbon (north) brimming with "bilchiinsi" (the state of being not slave) may not squander their "bilichiinsi" on the altar of vainglorious ethnocentrism and shameful chieftaincy disputes, by placing their thumbs on autopilot come 2020.
Because, their only son (former president Mahama) sat on the throne for eight years and never remember home. He didn't see the need for an interchange at home, but uprooted "Dubai" to be fixed in Accra!
Perhaps, it is because of this impending unenviable disgrace that Honourable Inusah Fuseini, MP for Tamale Central, has foreseen and decided to escape by shelving his parliamentary ambition in the upcoming elections.
In an interview with the NPP's parliamentary candidate for the Tamale South constituency, Yakubu Yussif after the 2016 elections, engaged in a rather purposeless lamentation to the effect that, he loss the seat with a skin of his teeth.
He claimed that had it not been "distribution of goodies" by his opponent, there wasn't anyway Hon. Hurana Iddrisu could floor him electorally.
But, again, the reality was that, aside the accusation of vote buying he levelled against Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, another factor, though invisible, was the Abudus and Andanis factor the NDC's MPs of the metropolis have wickedly exploited and utilized over the years.
Somebody just needed to say "Alu'ti n-nya o!" which literally means "he is a member of the Abudus", and he would lose painfully.
But now that every candidate is expected to go to the polls and test their popularity without the use of Abudus or Andanis kind of politicking, and the fact that the then opposition candidates on the ticket of the NPP who then had no goodies to distribute now have, would they make an impact in the impending elections to reclaim their seats lost to the NDC?
The then Gukpegu/Sabogida now Tamale south constituency, was traditionally won by Alhaji Mustapha Ali Iddris on the ticket of the NPP.
However, in 2004 after the conflict, the Honorable Minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu snatched it from the NPP.
Clearly, the internal cannibalization of each other by the Abudus and Andanis, had led to the NPP's lost of that seat and others to the NDC when the latter promised to bring the perpetrators of that callous crime to book.
Disappointingly however, we all were living witnesses to the amount of car tyres that were burnt on the streets of Tamale in protest against the greatest disappointment on the part of the NDC government to find Ya-Na killers.
Maybe, this is the time to revenge the deceit peddled by the NDC government to win the support of the Andanis populace.
Maybe, beneficiaries of Free Senior High School who have been registered underaged to vote for the NDC naturally, would not vote "skirt and blouse" by voting for their benefactor (President Akufu Addo of the NPP) and an NDC's MP.
The Honorable Haruna Iddrisu's throne is fast becoming a thorn, yet he is still comfortable lead.
Perhaps, the people of Dagbon would no longer vote party symbols, but vote for competence, good campaign messages, and general performance.
Perhaps, the people of Dagbon would not make President Akufu Addo to atone for the sins of president Kufuor.
Right now, even though the NDC party has a flag-bearer, it is crystal clear that the leadership of the party hinges on the representation of the party in the nation's house of legislature - the minority in Parliament led by the minority leader, Honorable Haruna Iddrisu.
NPP may reclaim their seats, at least, Tamale south constituency.
Unfortunately, the main opposition has no cloths on.
They don't have any superior message to counter the governing NPP, and the impact of their propaganda keeps fading like a misguided opinion.
And unless a miracle happens, if what is going to happen in Dagbon duplicates itself country wide, NDC is going to languish in opposition for decades!
Long Live Ghana,
God Bless us all.
