We all have hospital-cards but not all of us are delusional

President Atta-Mills was once asked about his health and he impertinently retorted by saying “everybody has a hospital card”. Here, I would like him to also appreciate the fact that all inmates of Pantang, Asylum and Ankaful mental facilities, have hospital cards but none of these inmates can aspire to the office of the president, under the laws of our nation as enshrined in our constitution.

For example, X and Y are aspiring to contest for the presidency of Ghana. And let’s say`, it is mandatory for them to be medically examined before being given the green light. Now, if after the medical examination, it is found out that X has malaria parasites in his blood stream but Y has a mental disorder, Y will be disqualified under the constitution while X will be treated for malaria and allowed to go ahead and contest.

Here, both X and Y would have visited a health facility and be having hospital cards alright, but the constitution will bar Y from the contest due to mental derangement. The good people of this nation, therefore, reserve the right to demand for evidence of true mental state of any person seeking to, or have already, become our leader. This is because, we all have hospital cards but the levels of our mental steadiness certainly differ!!

Any person aspiring to lead any civilized nation is therefore obliged to open himself/herself up for extensive scrutiny by the people he/she is seeking to lead. The moral,ethical,social and above all, the health status of prospective leaders are critically examined, in the open, in order to forestall any mishap of the nation having to go through fresh and arduous process of electoral exercise, with all the financial and time wasting effects.

When you take a nation as America, the president undergoes a complete health check every year, and the report is made known to the citizenry through the media. This is a norm in America and it therefore serves as a disincentive to people who are habouring all kinds of ‘loose bolts and nuts’ within their fragile body frames to, on their own accord, stay clear of the presidency.

However, when it comes to Africa, even those who have been confined into wheel-chairs will contest presidential elections and manage to win, through fair or fowl means, as it happened in the case of Mwai Kibaki of Kenya. If this Mwai Kibaki man was so desirous of becoming a president with the sole aim of serving his people, then why was his nation plunged into civil war during their 2007 general elections?

Coming back home to Ghana, the issue of health of then candidate Atta-Mills became topical but the sycophants around him were up in arms any time the people of this nation raised the matter. As it always prevails in Africa, most people are motivated, primarily, by what they hope to gain, personally, with political power than the well-being of the entire citizenry.

These greedy bastards who realized Atta-Mills had been elected flagbearer and was therefore their only ‘messiah’ to the juicy gates of political kingdom, constructed an imaginary wall of ‘clean-health-status’ around him, and quickly jumped at the throat of anyone who dared questioned the health status of their prospective step-stone to the kingdom of ‘edufudze’(freebies).

Atta-Mills was forced by his handlers, during the 2008 electioneering campaign, to embark on, often times, very strenuous exercise of ‘door-to-door’ visits.Infact,we all could clearly see, at the time, that Atta-Mills was definitely not in the best of health,yet,his handlers kept drumming into our ears that he was as strong as a bull.

I very well remember, when some Ghanaians began expressing worry about the health of Atta-Mills as a result of his significant weight lose, people like Koku ‘the bull’ Anyidoho and Nii Lantey Vanderpuije came and threw dust into our eyes with a ‘Kweku Ananse’ story that Atta-Mills had been put on ‘water-therapy’ by his physician. The condition, for which that prescription of ‘water therapy’ was given to Atta-Mills, at the time, still remains a mystery to the people of this nation. He was therefore ‘feeding’ on only water, 24-hours a day, hence, that frightening weight loss!!!

We were in this country when Atta-Mills simply ‘vapourized’ into the thin and re-surfaced in South Africa for medical attention while those unrepentant NDC apologists were sitting in the studios of Radio Gold, here in Ghana, and breaking our ears with the explanation that Atta-Mills was away for some reasons other than medical.

I very well remember Kwesi Pratt yelling in the studios of Radio Gold that “Atta-Mills is sick and so damn what?!!!”He went on to draw a comparison between the health status of Atta-Mills and former Nigerian president, Umaru Musa Ya’rdua.The people of this nation were rabidly castigated by Kwesi Pratt for raising issues with the health of Atta-Mills, for the simple reason that the then Nigerian president suffered from a much grievous health problem of kidney failure and was even on dialysis but the people of Nigeria still voted for him to become their president.

The irony in the behaviour of people like Kwesi Pratt, Tony Aidoo, Koku ‘the bull’ Anyidoho and Nii Lantey Vanderpuije, at the time, was that they were ever-ready to tell us what exactly was the health problem confronting the then Nigerian president but were prepared to put their hands in fire (Kwame Pianim style) to deny the fact that then candidate Atta-Mills was also battling with incapacitating health problems. In effect, these people around the then candidate Atta-Mills wanted us to believe that he was well but were not prepared to show us any attestation of their frivolous claim. Atta-Mills himself did not help matters when he also went to all lengths to hide his badly deteriorating health condition.

Now, with these recent revelations about the debilitating health status of the then candidate Atta-Mills, it is evidently clear that the NDC has lied to, and perpetrated a monumental fraud on, the good people of this nation. This lie told to the people of this nation could cost us millions of dollars, by way of a state funeral and other expenses, in the unlikely event of Atta-Mills passing-on while in office, or becoming totally incapacitated.

This brings to mind some pronouncements Koku ‘the bull’ Anyidoho made in that his infamous response to Dr. Ekow Spio-Garbrah’s article in the Daily Graphic newspaper. Koku said that he had deserted his marital responsibilities in order to delve into the trenches with Atta-Mills to make the win of NDC possible. Now, if Koku was also privy to the fact that Atta-Mills was sick during the 2008 electioneering campaign but decided not to tell Ghanaians, then he (Koku)is an accomplice of this massive crime,deception,current astronomic presidential-health-bills on the poor tax-payer and a probable state funeral expenses to our nation’s already cash-strapped ‘ecomini’.

The NPP lost power in 2008 after ruling the nation for 8-yrs.The record of the Kufuor led administration is there for all who want to see, to behold. And yet, the party was ‘kululued’ out of power through vile propaganda by the power-hungry NDC.Our dear nation would have easily slipped down the disastrous road of the likes of Kenya, Liberia and Cote D’Voire if president Kufuor had not brought to bear, his gentle giant disposition.

It is evidently clear that if the sitting president, at the time, had been the hot-headed type, we would certainly not have been where we are today, only to bring into power an idea-bereft administration that is being superintended by a totally incompetent president whose health status was, and is still, being questioned by the very greedy bastards who, through unprecedented levels of intimidation, fraud and beatings, brought him into power.

Now, coming back to the person at the centre of this whole brouhaha; Atta-Mills. He certainly, cannot escape blame for the stormy current that is threatening to bring down the very foundations of the NDC party. Putting aside the various quarrels brewing amongst pro-Rawlings and Atta-Mills groups, it is also clear that Atta-Mills, who knew deep down in his heart that he was not in the best of health but deliberately, capriciously and for his insipid lust to become a president, hid from the good people of this nation, his true state of health. This insincere and fraudulent act of Atta-Mills is what some people within the NDC have pounced on, today, to throw the governance of our nation into a state of total confusion and uncertainty.

In a civilized nation like Obama’s America, a revelation of such magnitude casting doubt over the sanity of the president’s mental state, emanating from the highest echelons of a ruling party will attract a swift action by way of Independent Commission of Enquiry to ascertain the veracity of the whole saga. The president will then be taken through a thorough medical check and the results made public. This is because a president of a civilized nation is always considered a property of the state and everything about him/her cannot be kept secret from the taxpayer.

But here in Ghana, the president decided to slip-out to South Africa to cool-off at the football world-cup, in the midst of such a volcanic revelation about his mental state, while some NDC serial-caller bigots and those who rushed to the castle to pledge their ‘unflinching’ support are falling over one-another to water-down such a serious matter.

Therefore, I would like to ask all those who see Atta-Mills as a victim in this current NDC power struggle saga, to quickly revise their notes and cut-out their sympathies for him since it is a doomsday scenario which he had, willingly, knowingly and actively managed to bring upon himself, with the sole intension of deceiving the people of this nation into voting for, in the words of Herbert Mensah, a delusional and extremely sick person as president.

Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei

E-mail: justnoff@yahoo.com