The second coming of John Mahama aka Ezra

At the Revival Restoration Centre of the Assemblies of God Church, Roman Ridge, Accra, December 2013, President John Mahama said to the teaming worshippers at the event that Ghanaians have a short memory. This was an attempt at explaining what his government had done to resolve ‘’dumsor’’. In other words, President Mahama was saying Ghanaians are ungrateful to the point they don’t remember anything good you do.

When Ghanaians reminded the former President subsequently that, we don’t forget through street protests at his bad governance and corruption, he uttered his famous words ‘’I have the dead got syndrome” meaning he couldn’t be bothered whatever actions we take, civil or legal against his bad governance.

I am going to attempt to hold the John Mahama mirror to all well-meaning Ghanaians who don’t easily forget and to remind the forgetful ones, what living under a John Mahama government was and will look like. In effect, I am attempting to take us back to the future.

When the NDC assumed office in 2009 the soon to become ambassador Victor Smith led and inspired hooliganism by seizing and overturning vehicles of the former government at the castle, the seat of government, an act which was rewarded with an ambassadorial post.

Ghanaians cannot forget the random, Rambo style arrest of former ministers and government officials under the pretext of prosecuting them for corruption. The security forces, especially the BNI were used to harass and arrest and seize passports of former government officials. The infamous Stephen Asamoah Boateng arrest and seizure of his passport when he was about to board a flight readily comes to mind.

These acts of hooliganism at the highest level of the new government trickled down to the party foot soldiers from the constituency to district, to the regional and national levels with their own form of vigilante justice and administration, with most believing that foot soldiers should have an equal share in holding offices and governing the country.

The infamous seizure of public toilets and school feeding programs in virtually every constituency and district in Ghana by NDC foot soldiers in the name of financing the party at the grassroot and the subsequent looting and locking up of offices cannot be forgotten. For instance, Alhaji Dawda who was the NDC propaganda secretary for Kwesimintsim in 2012 accused the Effia constituency Chairman of the NDC of being in charge of the seizure in that constituency in 2012.

In the Northern region, the NDC foot soldiers had now turned their guns, machetes and whips on their own NDC public officers who were being beaten and driven out of their offices to the extent that the regional minister at the time, Hon Moses Bukari Mabengba directed the regional police command to start arresting and prosecuting their hooligans for threats on lives and public property in 2010.

It is my estimation that the NDC foot soldiers who are largely uncontrollable by the party, within the first 100 days of an unfortunate second coming of John Mahama will result in the seizure of more public offices and properties to either use them as a bargaining chip with their own government for positions in the administration or as an end in themselves to raise money like they did in the past with toilets and school feeding.

On the matter of corruption, I am in a good position to remind most Ghanaians of the depths of corruption under the former President John Mahama. We cannot afford to forget Woyomegate with its subsequent description of ‘’create loot and share’’ by our courts. The airbus saga is still fresh in our memories courtesy of the OSP. Hon Kingsford Sumani Bagbin, the Speaker of parliament had cause to call out the former President for running a family and friends’ government.

Still on the matter of corruption however, the most nauseating in my opinion was the GYEEDA scandal. Most people may not be aware but I was the first person to bring the content of the GYEEDA report to the attention of Ghanaians, and Dzifa Bampoe formerly of joy FM in her midday news with me then, was dumbfounded at the same time concerned in our interview.

In my fight against corruption, GYEEDA stands out due to the gargantuan amounts involved. At the time of releasing the report to the public, monies that had been funneled through the various programs under GYEEDA and SADA was more than 1,200,000,000 Ghana cedis, more than $600million US dollars using the exchange rate at the time.

My humble question is, does anyone in Ghana think a second John Dramani Mahama government will be less corrupt knowing they have only four years to make as much as they can? It will be such an epiphany and though I am a Christian, I am a realist also and don’t believe that a kleptomaniac becomes clean simply for not having access for eight years. In actual fact, the reverse is true and your guess is as good as mine.

The greatest threat to Ghana in my view, of a second John Mahama coming is not all the above watered down mirrored images of Ghana under his previous administration, but the succession plan of the NDC or of John Mahama. The elephant in the room is who succeeds John Mahama?

I have suggested that the NDC and its foot soldiers will start seizing state properties and arresting and detaining officials even before handing over. This will go on well into the year and possibly the second year as the previous government is demonized and prosecuted even if unsuccessfully. While the foot soldiers jostle for toilets and feeding programs among others, John Mahama’s cabinet will be busy jostling for his seat, for in four years, the NDC will need a new presidential candidate and I doubt grandma Prof Jane will be that candidate.

My sources within the NDC have revealed quite a few names with both regional and ethnic connotations to them. Hon Haruna Iddrisu virtually has the northern votes wrapped up and is the frontrunner in my book. Hon Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, ironically, the NDC’s new found anti-corruption czar whose car boot was filled with cash at a washing bay is in the mix, Dr Ato Forson, the minority leader is likely to lead the fante confederacy, Dr Omane Boamah, a Mahama favorite has been mentioned but it is the Rawlings’s that are to be watched.

Is it not curious that all of a sudden, the Rawlings siblings are all visibly supporting John Mahama and their sister Zanetor, who is angling to take over from where her father left of? She and Hon Ablakwa, will tug it out for the Volta ticket.

The next John Mahama cabinet, which I bet will have all the above as part of it, will be busy making the most of their offices to build their war chest to give them a shot at the candidacy rather than be occupied by the affairs of the state. After all, they will have only four years.

That will be two years of seizing of public properties, arrest and prosecutions of the previous administration, intermixed with stockpiling of resources to compete among themselves for who should succeed President Mahama. In the third year, the NDC will go to the polls to elect who should lead them and in the final year, Ghana, will be busy electing who should lead us in 2028. In effect, four years laid to waste in a second John Mahama government.

I have deliberately not touched on the economic policy of the former President because he has not presented any policy alternatives so far. He will simply take off from where he left off, which is to take us back eight years into the past. The only new policy I have heard from the former President so far, is the 24hour economy. A policy he himself seems not to understand.

The last time I heard, the former President was talking about guinea fowl rearing and roasting as part of the 24hour economy, in which travelers going to the north can stop and buy guinea fowls by the road side. I don’t know how different that is from the now expelled Dr Atta Wusu, an NDC communicator who explained the 24hour economy to include rearing of lions. In a country where we are struggling to make good use of eight (8) working hours, where ‘’workers pretend to work and government pretends to pay them”, I shudder to imagine how 24hrs will look like.

It is my considered opinion that Ghana under a second John Mahama government is going back into the past when Ghana needs to look forward and march from its current unpleasant economic situation. The biggest currency in politics is HOPE, who is offering Ghanaian’s hope? Who is taking us into the future?

The tendency is for us to be enslaved by our current challenges and gripped with fear of that situation to the extent, we will prefer a promise of the good old days to a prospect of a better future. Let’s rise out of the politics of doom and gloom to a politics of hope. Let’s refuse to go back to the past and forge for the future.

Richard Nyamah, the writer, is a political analyst.