There is no doubt that Ghanaians have welcome the year 2016 with both excitement and trepidation.
We are excited because the new year brings hope – hope that the hardship, misery and hopelessness we went through in 2015 had passed and that a new year full of promises – promises of an end to ‘dumsor’, promises of new jobs being created to absorb the many idling young men and women, promises of the stabilization of the cedi and control of run-away inflation and promises of good governance and effective management of the economy – awaits us in 2016..
We are equally facing the new year with trepidation. 2016 is an election year in Ghana and many analysts have predicted that the November elections may perhaps be the fiercest electoral contest that will ever take place in Ghana’s history. The elections once again, will pit the incumbent president – John Mahama of the NDC against Nana Akuffo Addo of the opposition NPP.
The stakes are high because to the incumbent, John Mahama, it is a ‘must-win’ contest. Losing the elections will be catastrophic for him in many respects. Already so many questions are being asked about the alleged massive corruption under his watch associated with GYEEDA, SADA, the Embraer planes, the failed STX–Korea housing scheme, the National Service and many more. There also may be an opportunity to open an inquest into the inexplicable and sudden death of his predecessor – the late President John Atta-Mills. All these are weighing on his mind and perhaps giving him sleepless nights. If he wins a second term, he will hope that by the time he finally leaves the scene at the end of 2020, Ghanaians would have forgotten all these issues, just like nobody now remembers the evil deeds Jerry Rawlings committed during his 19 years PNDC/NDC rule.
Nana Akufo Addo, on the other hand sees this as his final attempt at becoming the president of Ghana and proving to Ghanaians that he is a better choice and that he is the person with the vision and leadership qualities to pull Ghana out from the economic and social doldrums it finds itself now. Age is not on his side and therefore he must win. If he doesn’t, even his party, the NPP, which will be tagged as perpetual losers, may split as the teeming party supporters may want to find another political home. The fight is akin to the Ali/Foreman heavyweight boxing fight in 1974 at Kinshasa, DRC (former Zaire) - it has all the hallmarks of a fierce contest.
But should Ghanaians give President Mahama another four years to preside over the country and manage its economy? My answer is an emphatic NO. The following are my reasons:
First and foremost, the NDC – President John Mahama’s party – and its antecedent, the PNDC, have in total presided over the affairs of Ghana for 26 years out of the last 34 years (since January 1982), compared to the NPP’s 8 years under former President John Kufuor. This means that for the 58 years Ghana has been an independent country, close to half those years has been ruled by the PNDC/NDC. Jerry John Rawlings enjoyed absolute power for 19 years – with no opposition and Mahama has been technically in charge of the country for the past 7 years. During the late President Atta Mills presidency, John Mahama was the Vice-President, which means he was in charge of the economy even before he assumed office as a president when Atta Mills died and he has been steering the affairs of the country since he won the 2012 elections.

President John Mahama himself has admitted that the country is facing many serious problems and challenges. The economy is very bad – it is not growing at the pace to absorb the millions of young hands that are coming out from school every year and therefore the unemployment queue is growing longer and longer every year. There’s a general sense of hopelessness all around, in Ghana. For two or three years now, the country has been experiencing debilitating power cuts never known in the nation’s history. ‘Dumsor’ as the constant power outages have been dubbed, has thrown many people out of job because of the closure of businesses which rely on the national grid for electricity. Many social and economic infrastructure especially roads in the country have deteriorated so badly that many motorists are avoiding using them. For example, the road from Yamoransa (in the Central Region) that passes through my village in the Assin district now has potholes that can swallow baby elephants. The same can be said of other major and minor road networks in the country. The old railway lines have collapsed. Prices of many goods and services are out of reach to millions of Ghanaians because of inflation. The cedi has been depreciating steadily since the NDC gained power in 2008. The country is now highly indebted due to the NDC government’s insatiable appetite to borrow money and economists are wondering how sustainable the situation can be if more than 50% of the national revenue is spent to service loans. That is the legacy of the NDC so far.

And to add to that, there has been serious environmental degradation of the country in the last six years or so. Many rivers like Pra, Birim, Offin, Ankobra etc have been polluted due to unscrupulous small scale mining, carried out by Chinese citizens and their collaborators with the official approval by some government officials and chiefs. Accra and all the major cities are now dirtier and filthier than they were many years ago. Many open areas in Accra, the capital city, are now public toilets – 58 years after Ghana attained independence.


Where Ghana finds itself now has been due to the cumulative effect of bad governance and poor, visionless and corrupt national leadership that has presided over the country since the collapse of the third republic at the end of 1981. And this is the period the PNDC/NDC has ruled the longest – 26 years. There are no other reasons to ascribe to our present predicament than to put the blame squarely on the PNDC/NDC governments. Our national resources have not dried up – we still have some gold in our rocks underground. There’s still bauxite, manganese, iron ore and other minerals still sitting in our soil and now we even have oil. And our population has not exploded so much as to make our resources insufficient to give the country a good economic outlook. Yes, we are where we are because of bad governance, incompetence, poor and visionless leadership and corruption.

President John Mahama must humbly admit to Ghanaians that his party and its antecedent – the PNDC, have failed the country. For example, if Jerry John Rawlings who ruled unopposed and with iron fist for 19 years was a visionary and competent leader, he would have foreseen in the early 1980s that the Akosombo Dam alone could not meet Ghana’s electricity needs – thirty years along the line and that a new power generating source would have to be found. Former President Kufour commissioned the Bui Dam when he saw that the country’s electricity generating capacity was not enough to sustain a growing economy. The recent knee-jerk effort to get a generating plant from Turkey to convince Ghanaians that ‘dumsor’ has ended should not make us see the NDC government now as a party with foresight to which we can entrust the governance of the country once again.

The second reason why Ghanaians must not elect President John Mahama and his NDC for another 4 years is that the country badly needs a national unifier who can galvanise the citizens to overcome the challenges facing it and set it on the road to full economic recovery. History tells us how Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower of the US and Konrad Adenauer of Germany provided their respective countries with the visionary leadership that pulled them out from economic ruin inflicted either by civil war, social turmoil or a world war. None of the past PNDC/NDC leaders has been able pull Ghanaians together for a common purpose and vision. Jerry John Rawlings for example pursued divisive policies that rather saw the destruction of businesses and properties owned by one ethnic group – the Akans, during his 19 years rule. The lowest point he reached was when he told Ghanaians not to buy ‘Apino’ soap (owned by Appiah Minkah) and chicken products from Darko Farms (owned by Kwabena Darko). The two businessmen were perceived by him (Rawlings) as being in opposition to his rule and so initiated a national campaign to make Ghanaians shun their products. He also supervised the destruction of a well-furnished hotel close to the airport in Accra owned by an ‘opposition’ businessman. The legacy of his tribal politics lives with us today.
Neither has President John Mahama been able to show the type of leadership that Ghana needs at this time to bring Ghanaians together to solve our myriads of challenges. He’s also fallen into the trap of playing tribal politics. His appeal to the people from the northern part of Ghana to vote for him, during the 2012 elections campaign, because he is one of their own and that Northerners do not deserve always to be accorded with the vice president’s position, was also his lowest point. His strategy, since becoming president, has been to consolidate his support in the NDC strongholds of the Volta, Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions and then make forays into the so-called opposition strongholds of Ashanti, Central, Western, Brong Ahafo and the Akan part of Eastern Region. Clearly he is not the leader who can forge a national cohesion and get Ghanaians united for a common cause.

If President John Mahama is sincere, he must rather apologise to Ghanaians for the mess the PNDC/NDC has put Ghana in and bow out from the scene at the end of his term in December 2016. He has nothing new to offer to Ghanaians in another 4 years. By the time his second term comes to an end (if he wins power in November 2016) Ghana would have sunk deeper into the economic abyss. Ghanaians would be worse off than they are now. Mark my words. It is surprising that his supporters are praising him for constructing few roads, building one or two new hospitals and schools etc. That is not an achievement by any standard. If an audit is done to determine what the NDC has achieved in the last 7 years, given the amount of money it has had at its disposal, Ghanaians will be shocked to find that there has been colossal waste of our national income due to gross mismanagement, incompetence and corruption. And let Ghanaians understand that the success of any government is measured in terms of its ability to provide its citizens with a basic standard of living that is decent for every human being and comparable to the best we know in other countries - an efficient health care delivery system, a functional educational system that brings out the best in learners, an efficient public service that responds to the needs of citizens, a vibrant economy that creates jobs, a clean environment and security for all citizens etc. These are the minimum expectations by the people from their government. Has the PNDC/NDC government been able to achieve that after being in power for 27 years and can they achieve anything in the next 4 years? NO, they cannot.

President Mahama and his NDC want power again to enable it to cover up the many misdeeds they have committed, including the looting of national treasury through the many ‘create, loot and share’ schemes that have come to light. Ghanaians will have themselves once again to blame if they vote again for John Mahama and his NDC. Any political leader, apart from John Mahama will be a better choice as president of Ghana after the November 2016 elections. Mark my words.

P K BOATENG
EAST LONDON
SOUTH AFRICA