President Mahama is Not Intelligent

Some narrow-minded people may find the heading of this publication, "President Mahama is Not Intelligent" very nauseating if not absolutely offensive. The heading is not meant to insult him for I have decided not to be rude to anyone any more. However, I have the right to state the truth and honestly, he is not intelligent at all. This is a statement of fact which I shall prove shortly.

President Mahama has just chided Dr Bawumia for advising, if not, educating, him, on economic policies that are in the best interest of the nation. I know that we chide people for their bad manners but not for giving us good advice that if we took and implemented will lift up our self-image through the benefits that the advice will yield to many people.

President Mahama has asked who is Dr Bawumia to advise him on economic, financial and good governance polices or methods. He stated categorically that since Dr Bawumia has never been a President of Ghana or any other country before, he has nothing to advise him about sound economic policies or good governance. It is only people like former Presidents J. J. Rawlings and John Agyekum Kufuor who can, and have the right and knowhow to advise him on governance etc., he said. This is where I have a problem with President Mahama hence calling his intelligence into question.

Does he have advisers as a President at all? What are the functions of the members of Council of State that he has appointed? Are they not there for him to consult for advice on certain policies? Has he ever consulted them for any reason whatsoever? If he has, have they been Presidents before? If indeed he has ever consulted them, did he do as they advised?

Almost every President the world over has got people who are not all principally past Presidents or Prime Ministers or Government Ministers to advise them on certain policy initiatives or on how best policies can be implemented or cropped up problems can be solved. This type of consultation is never in conflict with the duties of the Congress, Senate (America); Parliament and House of Lords (United Kingdom) and Parliament (Ghana).

It is this same President who is on record to have said he is a "dead goat" and that since dead goats do not fear knife and don't care about how they will be flayed, cut up, cooked or eaten because they are dead and have no sense of pain, he does not care about whatever Ghanaians say about him.

It is only an unintelligent President who will make such completely silly statements and pronouncements either in private or in public. Being a President is not a position for life unless one is living in an authoritarian or a dictatorial nation like those pertaining in the Arab world. Once your position is not permanent and you can be voted out, a President must, or should be seen to cooperate with, or listen to the governed. He should not say, I will not listen to their complaints hence coming out with that naïve sarcasm about dead goat.

He thinks all it takes to govern a nation successfully is to be conspicuously nepotistic, tribalist, practise selective justice, and empower a few perceived strong people and party activists and to corruptly enrich his cronies while the majority of the citizens remain poor. Such is the view of a completely unintelligent person or President.

A person who claims in his book to be incapable of taking intelligent decisions on his own is normally not worthy of the position of the President of Ghana. It is just unfortunate that President Mahama continually proves himself unintelligent by his actions and pronouncements.

Am I wrong if I say President Mahama is not intelligent deducing from his own actions and pronouncements? No wonder his 2012 campaign slogan was "Ede bii keke" meaning "me be dii be keke". He honestly lacks what it takes to be a credible President. He thinks being inherently corrupt is all it takes to be a President.

Rockson Adofo