Former General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie (Sir John), says President John Dramani Mahama is bound to send the National Democratic Congress back into opposition because the Ghanaian people simply do not trust him anymore.
Sir John says, “The most important ingredient about leadership is trust. Once the people see you as a liar or deceiver, there is nothing else you can do. It is gone. Finished!”
He believes this is where the President is with three weeks to a referendum on eight years of the NDC in office.
“The President is so confused in his own lies that after sacking 23 members of his own party just a few days ago, and having the founder of his party and the wife contesting and campaigning against his re-election bid, he is rather the one going around with his Vice President and General Secretary accusing their main opponent as divisive. This is the sign of a man who believes he can lie his way through every truth,” Sir John says of President Mahama.
What is worst for the President, according to Sir John, is that “John Mahama’s own party people now see him as a liar. He may be cool. But he lies and that is not cool at all. Yes, there are some who will still vote for him. But, when your leader is a liar and you still keep faith in him, you and he have a lot in common!”
According to Sir John, John Mahama is like the politician who was running for re-election and was talking to his constituents saying, “My opponent has called me a liar. Rest assured, I have never lied to you. The only problem I have is that the facts don’t always match up with what I believe.”
To the NPP man, if the President stops believing in his own lies he will begin to see how far his world is from the reality that 27 million Ghanaians are facing.
The President “thinks he has done well when he wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror in his marble-floored room,” Sir John remarks.
On top of that, Sir John adds, “President Mahama and his NDC, in the last eight years have proven beyond doubt that lying and stealing share the same compound house. When they are stealing from you they tell you they are changing your lives. When they are using their ill-gotten wealth to transform the circumstances of their friends and family, they tell you to focus on things that are not necessary.”
The say-it-as-it-is lawyer says the President and his team have tried all that they can to divert public attention from the lies, corruption and incompetence they have engulfed Ghana in which is sinking the country and soiling its international image.
“Have you heard the NDC advert with a voice of a woman, who is obviously a beneficiary of no ko fio, saying that she will vote for JM because she cares about peace and stability? Was Ghana in turmoil when JM took over? Has any leader threatened to invade Burkina Faso? People want jobs, food, accommodation and the dignity that comes with earning a decent income and you the President that has caused us misery and pain you are there talking about peace! Na peace we go chop?” the NPP former General Secretary queries the NDC campaign message.
“I have also heard the President talk about Akufo-Addo as divisive and that the NPP is divided. Really? Mrs. Rawlings, your former first lady, who was your party’s vice chairperson under your government, is now number two on the ballot paper, next to you. Her husband, the founder of the party you lead, is saying you are going to lose the elections next month. He has refused to campaign for you. You can’t get him to reconcile with your bad leadership and you have the nerve to call Akufo-Addo divisive!” Sir John stressed.
To the NPP man, the President has lied about everything that “he has even been able to lie to himself that he is leading a united party when three of his MPs have filed as independent candidates and most of the Mills men have been completely sidelined.”
Sir John is convinced that after eight years of lies, unemployment, stealing, incompetence and mass sufferings, John Mahama’s time is up. “You can fool too many of the people for some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,” he says in a Wailers way.
Ghanaians unfortunately equated John Mahama’s “smooth talking to trustworthiness. Not knowing it was always one big con. He is the typical ‘opoe man’ proper,” Sir John says.
“Ghanaians must just vote John Mahama out to save him. He is stuck. He is like a man who travelled to a territory of lies without either a passport or a return ticket. He needs to be saved. Mahama is cunning, very corrupt and lies to get what he wants. He is an ‘opoe man’ – a conman,” Sir John says.
“If anyone knows someone who wants to vote for John Mahama,” he said, ” you have to sit them down and point out that everything John Mahama says he wants to do is absolutely opposite of what he has done.”