It is election year again and people are making statements to score political points. Our attention has been drawn to an article on ghanaweb, that Mr. Allotey Jacobs, chairman of the NDC in the Central Region said "President Mahama is Dr. Kwame Nkrumah reincarnated".
This is not only a despicable lie, but also a blatant and treasonous attempt to rewrite the glorious history of Ghana's First Republic.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah from 1957 to 1966 as leader of independent Ghana made great achievements for this country, one being the Akosombo Dam. The dam then supplied power to industries and homes and also generated foreign exchange, as Ghana exported power to Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire and Togo.
Many industries were set up to provide employment to the youths both educated and uneducated, skilled and unskilled.
They include the Paper Processing Factory, Nsawam Cannery, Abosso Glass Factory, the GIHOC group comprising Pharmaceuticals, Bottling, Distilleries, Jute Factory, Tomato Processing Factory, Match Factory, Meat Processing Factory among others; and Gold processing Factory.
Kwame Nkrumah also established State institutions like the Black Star Line, Ghana Airways, Ghacem, Valco, State Housing, Agric Development Bank, SSNIT, SIC, NIB, GCB, State Hotels including Ambassador, Star, Atlantic, Meridian, Eredec and City Hotels, as well as several Government Rest Houses in regional capitals and elsewhere.
Tema Harbour and township, Tema Food Complex, Asutware and Komenda Sugar Factories, Juapong Textiles and other enterprises, too numerous to list here. He also established a number of secondary schools, Teacher Training Colleges, Technical Schools across the country; and founded two other Universities in addition to the University of Ghana at Legon.
Nkrumah strove to achieve the above and more, to demonstrate that we were "capable of managing our own affairs". To end the British and other colonials' grip on our economy and sovereignty, Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana to become a Republic in 1960.
President Mahama has done nothing to create employment for the teeming youths. He and his predecessors in the NDC and NPP have supervised the endless sale of State institutions and assets, culminating in his signing the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU, that will lead to the loss of over 30, 000 jobs, and end local manufacturing.
He and his government want to pass the Plant Breeders Bill that will hand over the DNA of all Ghana's plants and animals, literally our hard won sovereignty to foreign agribusiness companies.
Allotey Jacobs' sycophantic comparison of Mahama to Nkrumah only serves to highlight how little he has in common with Ghana's first and best Head of State! Mahama is not, and can never be Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's reincarnation. That comparison is at best a wet dream!