John Mahama Beyond Halo

A British readership survey found that Bill Clinton’s autobiography, My Life, was the least read among a list of political memoirs over a period. Readers had found the size a worry. Indeed, Clinton himself had admitted in the post-launching interview that he wished the book had been less beefy. I rushed to buy a copy when it went on sale in bookshops in London, but I have only managed to read about 250 pages. A colleague language teacher, who has also read the former president’s memoirs, made an observation that is strikingly similar to what I found: beyond our perception of the fine political statement that Clinton stood for, the Lewinsky and all, there doesn’t seem to be anything extra worth exploring. Maybe, this accounts for the low readership, even though generally, patronage was great. Politicians are a rare breed: their worth is most appreciable when you judge them backwards. Often, when you look beyond the spin and the manicured presentation that really make them look like negotiable commodities than natural beings, the allure they have and the excitement they provoke in us become negotiable, too. So, mostly, it becomes strategic to look beyond platitudes and ‘political correctness’ if you want to do a good job in assessing a political material. When you read Nelson Mandela’s memoirs, Long Walk to Freedom, you wonder why Winnie Mandela is mentioned in passing, as if she was a footnote in the making of the man. Beyond the halo, most politicians would receive only as much as a glance from us.

What about John Mahama, the NDC’s Vice-presidential candidate? At once, you see a beautiful, intelligent statement encased in a gleaming carapace of liberal elitism. Did the choice surprise anybody? Well, perhaps only a few. It seemed the right thing to do. A fine politician who does not wear his convictions on his sleeves, John has succeeded in constituting himself into the conscience of the Ghanaian electorate as a rare figure who triumphs over the dividing lines in our politics. He was perhaps the most likable minister in the NDC administration. There doesn’t seem to be anything of the night about him. Even if there is, his good days in Ghanaian politics have been too bright to tame the dark side of the affable gentleman. But, can John Mahama clinch victory for twice defeated John Fiifi Mills in the coming elections?

If likeability was the biggest virtue in politics, then you would say Mahama has it all. At the Ministry of Communications where he served as deputy minister and the substantive shortly thereafter, he did a good job. I met John Mahama a few times when I served at the ministry on national service. He would quickly stand aside to give way when he saw you ascending the stairs. And he didn’t appear pretentious whenever he laid the proverbial red carpet for any simpleton. His predecessor, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, would also do the same, but he came across as though he knew his enormous frame would block the human traffic in the two-storey building. Nonetheless, he did it genuinely, like a good politician, but John’s had an admirable ‘condescending’ quality to it. You felt him when he was around, and he affected you when he spoke to you. And when he left your presence, there was always sufficient reason to think that he left behind a good impression, the same way that a good play would leave its audience with a catharsis. When you saw too much of him, he reminded you of the bloke next door who does not need invitation to come to your house for dinner. He wasn’t exactly an enigma, but there was something enigmatic about him that gave you reason to like his person.

So, would Mahama’s fine qualities mean anything for voters in the 2008 elections? Certainly, the answer is in the womb of time. Time is always an important thing in politics. A US Senator, Dick Durbin, said to Democrat Presidential hopeful Barack Obama before he launched his White House bid: “There are moments in life when you can pick the time, but when it comes to running for president, the time can pick you. You have been picked. This is your moment.” Can we say the same thing for an Atta Mills-John Mahama presidency in Ghana? With John Mills gradually carving a political metaphor for himself as the Banquo of Ghanaian politics (Greater is thee but thou shall never be King), it makes it all the more imperative to stick it out and ask whether the witches would be coming forth with a different prophecy for an NDC victory on account of John Dramani Mahama. That will be witchcraft indeed. Politics goes farther than prophecy; it flirts with several things in the tracks of a particular prophecy. The prophesy makes sense only when the witches-the electorate-favour the wisdom behind it.

Do vice presidents matter in any political strategy? By George, it’s always been said that Dick Cheney runs the show from behind at the White House. And that is not Bush at all, especially when you have a vice president who had been a chief of staff at the age of 34 in one of the most important political traditions in the USA. John Prescott, deputy Prime Minister in the Blair administration, was popular with food and sex than he was with the consolidation of New Labour in British politics. He confesses in his autobiography that he suffered a strange form of Bulimia, so he probably overate his way through Tony Blair’s ten year stewardship of Great Britain. Maybe, Aliu Mahama did not matter much in the making of J.A Kufour, but the same cannot be said of John Mahama. In Mahama, we have a vice presidential material who would pass for a president any day. Folks even believe that he had been hesitant in accepting the offer because he had thought himself good enough for the main job of flagbearer. John Mills believes in the advantages his Veep could bring to his bid. The law professor has publicly acknowledged this.

So, who is John Mahama beyond the fine, nearly impeccable persona we have formed in our minds? I got only as close as the reasonable distance any civil servant would allow between himself and an honourable minister. Those who have gotten closer to him say that beneath the gorgeous exterior that is his gain lays an even greater beauty. When the Ghanaian Observer newspaper published the story of a Good Samaritan who shocked capitalist Ghana by returning a Dollar stuffed wallet he had found to its owner, Mahama was said to have opted to sponsor the poor boy’s education. I live several thousands of kilometers away from Ghana, so I usually find it difficult to gauge public reaction to certain things in the Republic. Even so, I am confident that this is a gesture that would be appreciated even in the Papacy. If that was seen as a politician at work, at least, it provided a window to see through the heart of a social being. It drew him closer to the politician that the masses in an economic dispensation like ours would like to have for a neighbour. And, if good fences make good neighbours, then it makes sense to pitch camp with a neighbour you can call simply John, even if he is also Mahama.

Even as a good neighbour, John could suffer the same ‘withering’ disease that political connoisseurs in America associate with Barack Obama. The time just seems right for the Democrat presidential contender to occupy the White House. If Time does not crown him King now, pundits believe that he is finished, as least, as far as the highest political office is concerned. There is nothing like a comeback for him; he would only melt in and watch from the sidelines, as future contenders pluck the fine branches of his very good nature to build their own trees. So, if it is important that Obama becomes president of the United States this year, it is even crucial that John Mills’s NDC win power in Ghana, if John Mahama will ever become a Vice president in the West African Republic. Of course, unlike Obama, there is a comeback for John Mahama if Mills fails for the umpteenth time to win the 2008 elections. He would most probably be the NDC flagbearer in the 2012 presidential contest. If that is the consideration that informed his selection as Mill’s vice, then, perhaps, it is a fine strategy, provided a Spio comeback is not favoured. In all these, however, there is one constant: the NDC will make assurance double sure that Prof Atta Mills is not elected flagbearer next time. The Swedru declaration has effectively expired on account of Betty Mould Iddrisu. Or, so it seems.

And here, I would stick it out again that the NDC will not win the 2008 elections, so there will not be Vice President John Mahama, anyway. That, however, is not as clear as Mills not being flagbearer in 2012, especially when you consider that Mills seems better armed to up the 44% he garnered in the 2004 race. The door to door campaign strategy appears to be paying off, especially in areas where voters are still floating. And then there is a handsome vice presidential candidate who could pull votes from ladies. These things have altered the terrain a bit, but the NDC itself has not managed to change its character as an organisation pleading for faith and trust, instead political power. If the electorate would return the NDC to power, it will be because the party proved to be a more attractive alternative than that the NPP has been disappointing. They will lose again if they continue to pit their record of achievements against the NPP’s. The records are the same, a Daily Dispatch columnist wrote only recently. You don’t need to use statistics or any scientific tool to measure that. Living standards were not great in the near 20 year P/NDC rule of Ghana, and they are not any better now. So, the average Ghanaian voter would not be weighing arguments and style, in the way that a typical London voter would thump out Labour’s Ken Livingston for a fresher style in Boris Johnson, (as it happened in the recent mayoral elections); the voter in Tweapease is looking for those same things they have looking for before the NPP and the NDC traditions came into being. So, in a way, and a very bad one too, 2008 will be deciding between two known evils. If there is an angel we don’t know in the CPP, then we want to see. Otherwise, the worn-out cliché- the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know-will continue to make sense.

Of course, arguments, especially good arguments, are important in every contest where the umpire is a mass of people. If the English Alphabet did not include the letter M, the masses will be, in the words of J.B Danquah, mere asses. So, the masses will only be making use of arguments only when they are useful. Maybe, it is a good thing that spin doesn’t work well in our politics. If John Mahama will bring anything special to Atta-Mills’ final bid for the presidency, because he is the new kid on the block, then, perhaps, J.A Kufour answered him way back in 2000: “There might not be virtue in newness.” By Benjamin Tawiah, Harrow, Middlesex. The author teaches English and Journalism in a London community college.