H.E Prof. John Evans Attah Mills is a unique and a highly respectable person who
have chalked successes in different areas of his life but when it comes to leading a
nation and a party there he falls far below the pass mark. He has splendid giftings
and calling but among them, leadership cannot be one. At least leading a nation and
party like NDC is not one of the gifts God has gaven him. The law professor has
shown his failure in leadership in six different areas. The areas are; his
inability to unite his party and the nation, coward-like complaints, open admission
to people behind the scene that someone else is twisting his arms in how to run his
own government, His easy yield to pressure, the waving stand he exhibited on the
ivorian crises and finally where he looks when he confronted with glaring disturbing
issues.
In uniting the party and the nation, it is evident how divided the nation and the
party he leads has become just two and half years into office. When the turmoil
began in the NDC, the single person that had the ability to quench the fires when
they were still easy to control, is the President. He should have been the centre
of unification between his government and his party. Our president showed a total
failure in carrying out this duty and have left the party divided than ever before.
The needs of all the stake holders cannot be met in a governing party but to a large
extent the president could have made good compromises and arrange a meeting point
where all will have been calm enough to help the success and unification of the
party. Prof Mills just couldnt and we see the division in the NDC today. Again the
leadership of President Mills has divided Ghana than any other leader in this
current Republic. Immediately after the father for all
promises Ghana witnessed an embarassing holiganism that saw NDC loyalists molesting
people they perceived to be NPP members. Killings took place which the president
has refused to order any investigations into. People were chased out of their jobs
without any justification, ranging from Public workers through recruits at
Millitary camps to poor men that sat in front of KVIP toilets. Our President
looked on unconcerned even when his youth committed crimes in broad day light,
burning down properties including their own party offices, killing innocent people,
taking over toll boots and many more. None of all these has been investigated nor
any arrests made although complaints were made in most of the cases and our
president is just silent. The leadership quality that could have roared and put a
stop to these barbaric incidents failed to show up. Almost three years into office
Ghana is divided than ever before. The Leadership of President Mill did
not only fail to control this divisions created but helped to deepen the division
further with his last state of the nations address which saw the minority leader
refusing to escort him out. The firs of its kind in our History.
Some complaints made by the President to some important people showed clearly who
was scared of some personalities. This is not a quality which should be seen in a
sitting president. People should rather be scared of you because of your principles
and justice. But here we are with a peesident complaining to a King, Otumfour that
Former President Rawlings is terrorising me ("Rawlings o re hunahuna me"). These
were words quoted by the papers when our president met Otumfour to resolve the
issues between him and the former president. Immagine a whole sitting president,
with all the state security aparatus at your disposal complaing that someone is
terrorising you. This is certainly one of the worst leadership qualities. The
former president made public an allegation which our president has not come to deny.
The former president said that he sent someone to the president to have been put at
a position which the president accepted but before the fellow
got there somebody was already at the position. The said person reported back to
the former president and the later on receiving the report called the President
only to be told that; "prof o re hau me paa o". This again is a complain that
sounds fear to confront people who are stepping on his toes. This cannot be the
quality of a good leader.
When the President was said to be proving his critiques wrong by being a man of
himself and not taking commands from former president Rawlings, I was one of the
happy persons. All of us had this fear that he could be remote controlled by the
former president but unfortunately it has surfaced that he (pres Mills) is not a man
of himself after all. He (President Mills) openly declared that Dr Spio Gabrah was
the first minister he will appoint when he comes into office as the President of
Ghana, according to Dr Spio Gabrah which the president has not denied. Dr. Spio on
waiting for a while without any call said he confronted the President to remind him
of his promise and what our president told him was nothing far from what he told the
former President. "Spio its not me, I wanted to have given you the portfolio as I
said but there are some people who are preventing me". Here you see clearly that
our president is just a ceremonial one, when it comes to
appointing people of a government he is leading, he has no say. I need not remind
you that the power to apoint and fire ministers is solely in the hands of the
sittting president, but our president's hands has been twisted and that power
taken away from him hence Dr Spio Gabrah's declaration that the Ahwois are
terrorising the President. The president in this pronouncements from him has shown
a bad leadership quality that tells us that he is not in cotrol of his own
government.
Sometimes it is good to have a leader who listens to his people and does what they
ask but when it becomes a daily affair it turns to be a bad quality which will makes
any leader unstable. When NDC foot sodiers agitations started on people perceived
to be loyalists of opposition I was very surprised that the Asomdwoehene could not
say a word to his youth. At a point the aggitations turned towards their own
leaders and I was astonished at how the president fired DCEs, MCEs and other
government appointees just because a handful of foot sodiers told the president of
their disapproval of people duely appointed by the President himself. He yielded to
those pressures and fired anyone at the request of the youth. If this is how a
leader should be yielding to presure how can he get a stable government? Good
leadership has the ability to soak pressure and find alternative solutions to these
kind of problems and not just doing whatever any angry youth will
organise themselve and caugh out. Just firing your appointees even when the
aggitations are baseless and the people you trusted and appointed are carrying out
the assignments you gave them.
During the ivorian crises a high profile meeting was organised in Abuja, Nigeria and
naturally our president was there. Ghana is one of the powerhouses when it comes to
issues of peace and conflict resolutions in West Afeica and Africa as a whole. In
this meeting all attendance agreed that Alhassan Outtara was the winner of he
elections. Laurent Gbagbo was therefore given two options to accept defeat and
allow a sooth transition or if all efforts fail a millitary intervention to oust him
out of power. Our president nodded and signed to show Accra's support to those
decisions. Some days down the line all the first options had been tried and Gbagbo
was being adamant so the last option they all agreed upon had to be considered. The
whole world was watching what ECOWAS and AU will do. Every attention was also on
Ghana because we are at strategic position regarding our proximity to Ivory Coast
and our contribution to any possible millitary force to
attack Gbagbo. Then our president who had agreed in the presence of the whole
world on this option turned his back on these African leaders and declared the
infamous "dzi wo fie asem". If the president had disagreed on the millitary option
in Abuja People womt have been worried but such a waving stand was ugly and
embarrasing. Here Pres Mills and of course Ghana gained the worst diplomatic
respect ever.
During the time Pres Mills was confronted with the issue of the 90 million cedi
campaign budget issue, the President showed a side of him that I never expect from a
leader. He said if he had that money he would have used it for some road projects
including the Offankor road where passes everyday going to and coming from office.
He said whenever he gets there he bows down his head because he does not want to see
the dilapidated road because he feels embarrased. Maybe the president thoigh by not
looking the bad road will fail to exist. Good leaders have the courage to both
look, evaluate and feel any circumstance. Good or bad. By bowing down it he
problem will not be solved but by looking and seeing the horror it urges you to take
the right measures. This might sound menial but its a great leadership quality to
look and feel the pain which then powers you up to take the appropriate steps. I
will here want to plead with to His Excelllency to raise
up his head and see the youth selling dog. Chains and make Senior High School
education free to compliment what the NPP did up to JSS level. To look and see the
number of people cholera is killing and take pragmatic measurea to clean Ghana of
waste.
If I were the president I would have resigned because his leadership has very little
to write home about.
Noah Dugubrame Asare
Frankfurt, Germany.
