President Mills is an Absentee Leader

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Of course, every well-meaning Ghanaian has nothing but goodwill for President John Evans Atta-Mills. Unfortunately, in the two-and-half years that he has been effectively separated from the proverbial coattails of former President Jerry John Rawlings, the former tax commissioner and Legon Law School professor has yet to appreciably demonstrate his leadership presence on the Ghanaian political landscape. It is, however, risible that in seeking to put paid to perennial rumors that he was a very sick man with an imminent appointment with the proverbial leveler, the President would insist on being determined to live to see through the realization of his so-called Better Ghana Agenda (See “President Mills: I’m Not Sick” Peacefmonline.com 8/5/11).


For a man widely alleged to sport a humble demeanor, Tarkwa-Atta ought to have rather pleaded with his Christian God – for he publicly claims to possess one – for sound health and longevity to be able to perform over and above his incredibly lackluster performance so far.


Then also, it is not quite accurate that his epic trouncing of former first lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings at the National Democratic Congress’ presidential primary in Sunyani, in anyway, constituted a commanding mandate or resounding approval for the work so far done by him and his team of pathological misfits. Needless to say, the President’s re-nomination in Sunyani was simply a flat-out rejection of the effete and clinically vindictive Rawlingses. Thus when he soberly asserts that “I have my work cut out for me,” we hope that Tarkwa-Atta understands precisely what that bona fide American parlance means. And for those of our readers who may not know this, when a New Yorker says that “I have my work cut out for me,” it highlights the enormity and/or daunting nature of the task ahead. And it is precisely because in two-and-half years the Mills administration has yet to demonstrate that it has a fibbgrm grip on the affairs of our beloved nation, that Ghanaian voters ought to think twice, and then some, before attempting to return President Mills and his “Team-C” circus acts to the old slave castle at Osu.


On the question of the recent vehement agitation of the Volta Regional youth wing of the National Democratic Congress, Tarkwa-Atta had better humbly accept the fact that his performance vis-à-vis residents of the Volta Region has been an epic failure and a crying shame, particularly the sod-cutting hoax of a university project which the President undertook there recently. It was more insulting than if Tarkwa-Atta had literally slapped each and every one of the people of the region in the face, as New Yorkers are fond of saying.

Of course, regarding the latter hoax, President Mills also has the people and voters of Brong-Ahafo to answer to. And it is almost certain that Tarkwa-Atta would not be easily let off the hook. For if he does not already know this, the Brong-Ahafo Region it was that produced the first indigenous Ghanaian professor for the country’s flagship academy, the University of Ghana, in the sterling personality of Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, Ghana’s first real Prime Minister.


Ultimately, Tarkwa-Atta cannot be taken seriously when he rather quizzically asserts that “It is quite clear that to some people, a living Atta Mills is a threat.” Needless to say, about the only threat that the President ought to worry about, of course, is his scandalously woeful underperformance. Yes, it is true that the Akosombo Dam and the J. B. Danquah Academy of the University of Ghana were not built in a day; the reality of the matter, in Tarkwa-Atta’s case, though, is that he has actively ridden in the same bloody political wagon with Sogakope Jeremiah for twenty protracted years, and has been complicit in the criminal bulldozing of Ghana’s economy.





*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of 22 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.


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