Opinions of Saturday, 11 December 2010

Columnist: Tanko, Ibrahim

“Dr” Okudzeto Ablakwa Declares President Mills Healthy.

Most Ghanaians knew the NDC was not as good in governance as its rival NPP. But
fewer Ghanaians would have believed that the NDC was so inept, arrogant and corrupt.

The level of ineptitude and arrogance that we are seeing in President Mills' lead
NDC government is stunning. What is sad and almost disgraceful is the manner in
which President Mills’ publicity is being handled by his inept, NDC’s own labeled
Team B handlers.

All over the world, if a President's health becomes an issue for public disclosure,
competent physicians or the President's own physicians routinely make those
pronouncements. The delicate nature of a president’s health, the obvious
ramifications associated with every single word uttered thereabout, and the
technical language involved makes it imperative that a physician who knows what he
or she is talking about informs the public. But in President Mills' Team B
administration, the one and only deputy minister of “misinformation” has suddenly
turned a physician to make public pronouncement about a complex medical issue, such
as the President's medication, its side effects and how he reacts to it.

“Dr”. Okudzeto Ablakwa, whose public image and truthfulness is worse than the late
Sadam Hussien's information minister Latif Hassif Jasin who was telling the World on
CNN that peace and tranquility prevailed in Iraq, at the same time that Americans
were throwing bombs in Iraq and the same CNN was showing the war on its channels
around the globe; has the audacity to tell Ghanaians that President Mills' whose
palms have turned pitched black from medication reaction is as fit as fiddle, he
works out each morning.

What credibility has this “misinformation” minister who was not disciplined enough
to pass his undergraduate exam to talk about the President’s health in public. What
bothers me is that the loudmouths Koku Anyidoho and Quashiga did not have a modicum
of common sense to know that if they decide to go public with the President’s
health, then at the very least they must have a competent and credible person with
medical background to deliver this to the Ghanaian public.

Mills is our President, political affiliation notwithstanding; therefore many
Ghanaians were flabbergasted by the way this wannabe doctor of a “misinformation”
deputy minister has handled this matter. Since “Dr” Ablakwa has brought the
President’s health into the public domain, Ghanaians are already asking what kind of
medication the President is taking, and to cure what ailment? Whether or not the
blackness of the President’s palm is a sign of bad omen for the country? Is it true
that the President’s palm turned black as a result of applying TB Joshua’s magical
lotion? Could the okro mouth Okudzeto Ablakwa provide answers for these questions?

Ibrahim Tanko, CALIFONIA