President Mills Has Let Us Down

Why are Barton Odro and Alex Segbefia still at post? The president’s failure to fire them after the unraveling of the “genocide” that has rocked the country by Mr. Alfred Woyome and his collaborators from the National Democratic Congress government clearly shows that he is at his lowest in fighting corruption in the country. When ex-president Rawlings said that the Mills-Mahama administration started failing a week after its inauguration, a section of the citizenry took that to be a joke, but it wasn’t. President Rawlings was even fair to the party he founded; the truth is that the NDC government started failing before the inauguration of president Mills. Before the inauguration, the president didn’t know which of his party members were suitable for the various ministerial portfolios. In fact, he was not ready to govern, and for that matter we should not be astonished about his imminent rejection at the next polls.

A vote for the NDC will represent a vote for the consolidation of corruption, surge in unemployment, laissez-faire attitude towards the drug trade, and the eventual failure of the state. During the 2008 electioneering campaign, many were those who thought the NDC has what it takes to add to the successes that were chalked by the New Patriotic Party administration. In fact, the expectations of the electorates were heightened to unprecedented levels as a result of the numerous promises made by the then candidate Mills and his party. They made the average Ghanaian believe that they had the capacity and the wherewithal to better the life of the citizenry. Apart from branding the NPP as incompetent and unable to meet the aspirations of the citizenry—an obvious untruth and deceit, they also portrayed them as a corrupt and narcotic party. Although they witnessed and experienced the gains the NPP was making regarding the socio-economic development of the country, they deliberately invented lies with the intent of capturing political power in order to execute their insatiable appetite for corruption on our depleting resources. Unsurprisingly, none of the numerous promises that president Mills and his party made has been fulfilled. As a matter of fact, president Mills and his administration have let us down. This disappointment springing from the below-par performance being exhibited by the NDC government has left majority of the citizenry losing confidence not only in the governance of this administration, but also in the entire governance system of the country.

Majority of Ghanaians, more than ever are disgruntled, disillusioned, disenchanted, and discouraged as a result of the hardships that have been brought to bear on their lives by a government swimming in unprecedented corruption, arrogance, and abuse of the right of the people. In his quest to win power at any cost, president Mills promised to introduce policies and programs to deal with three major “devils” that have, since time immemorial, threatened the stability and progress of the country. As a matter of fact, he declared war against corruption, unemployment, and the drug trade; but what do we see now? The president has failed on all counts in his attempts to arrest these societal evils. In fact, the fight against corruption, unemployment, and the drug trade has been a mirage. These catastrophic societal evils have soared under the Mills-Mahama-led administration.

Fighting corruption under the president Mills-Mahama administration has been the worst since we attained independence. He promised to fight corruption, but has failed to introduce a single policy to fight this canker. Under this administration, people who blow the trumpet about corrupt party officials are made the scapegoat whilst the alleged officials of gargantuan corrupt practices are either kept at post or made heroes. The lack of political will by the president in fighting corruption has led to the looting of the economy by party functionaries and officials in his administration. As majority of our folks are suffering, finding it extremely difficult to eke out a decent living for themselves, individuals who are sympathetic towards the NDC and members of government are milking the economy to destruction. The supposedly fighter of corruption is bewildered and has been overwhelmed by the mother of all corruptions in the annals of our socio-political development: the Woyome scandal. This corruption is for all intents and purposes, a genocide, a crime against humanity—i.e. a crime that is going to make the poor Ghanaian even poorer. What is intriguing about the president’s equivocal stance on fighting corruption is his ambivalence on the Woyome scandal. I am convinced that after perusing the report on the judgment debt paid to Mr. Woyome, and the implicating evidence deduced from it; he then decided that the Economic and Organized Crime Office investigates the alleged fleece on the economy. What is more serious and doubtful about the president’s motivation to fighting the canker is his determination of the gamut of the terms of reference given to the EOCO about the Woyome-NDC collaborative fraud. For me, it is an attempt to cover up the corruption of the century. The president has shown that he is not interested in getting the stolen money back into the consolidated fund. He is more concerned about the historical accounts leading to the wrongful and fraudulent payment of the tax payer’s money to one of his most loyal party bankrollers. What a shame? No wonder Ghana’s corruption perception index (CPI) has fallen from 4.1 in 2010 to 3.9 in 2011—an indication of a surge in corruption in the country.

Besides the corruption that is rendering us poorer and poorer under this administration, nothing is seriously being done to arrest or curb the spate of unemployment in the country. The president promised to create jobs for the populace, especially the youth; but has woefully failed in this regard. Most of our young graduates are sitting on their buttocks and wondering about their future if the gloomy unemployment situation remains unchanged. For the first time in our history, a group called the unemployed graduates association of Ghana (UGAG) has been formed and we are awaiting the president to inaugurate it. This shows the ineptitude and lack of direction of the Mills-Mahama administration.

The final platform on which the NDC stood during the last elections was the drug menace. The then candidate Mills indicated that the drug trade was going to be a thing of the past. He promised to deal ruthlessly with the cocaine epidemic that is threatening the relevance of the youth in our socio-economic development. Three years down the line, the president has not shown any signs of abating this canker. Not even a single policy or intervention has been rolled out to deal with the problem. It is therefore not surprising that the cocaine business is gaining currency within our borders. Is it not strange that most of the arrest of drug traffickers under this administration have occurred without the borders of the country? Why are our security agencies not arresting these individuals within our borders? Answers to these questions might lead to the doorsteps of the government: they are not doing enough to fight the drug trade. Maybe, as the president said some of his appointees or officials have already compromised. They conveniently talked about it to win political power, and are doing less to arrest it. For cocaine to metamorphose into baking soda under his watch clearly shows that he might not have ascended the presidency to solve the drug menace, but to allow it to flourish. I might be wrong, but he should prove us wrong by dealing with it decisively.

These are not the only pointers about the failure of our president; there are a lot more. But my worry is that if we let him continue at the castle for another four long years, folks, our country will have an outlook of the pre-colonial era. The gap between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots will be widened. For a president who couldn’t make good his promises to the electorates on issues that bother them—which earned him the presidency, obviously has let us down and must be rejected during the next polls. God bless Ghana!!

Source: Kingsley Nyarko, Psychologist,