Opinions of Wednesday, 3 May 2023

Columnist: Maxwell Okamafo Addo

John Mahama's elites versus 'illiteracy' folks

Former president of Ghana, John Dramani  Mahama Former president of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama

The NDC’s presidential primaries comes off on May 13, 2023. The battle is between Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, one of Ghana's finest leading economic surgeons, a former governor of the Central Bank, former Finance Minister under late president Mills and ex-president John Mahama.

A contest presumed to be tough and is expected to act as a compass for Ghana's challenging economy is certainly between classes of the NDC delegates who have perhaps made up their mind.

We learnt that NDC polling agents posed a problem to John Mahama because they were mostly illiterates. Few days for the race to end, Mahama will face those he's stamped the 'illiteracy' tag on since when he wins he will change the NDC’s polling station agents nationwide because they are illiterates and the party has no use for illiterates.

I laughed at the intensity with which my people were all outshouting each other to debunk the 'illiteracy' tag by Mahama.

2024 next year will largely depend on the understanding of the workings and running of the economy or lack of it between the elite class and the common man for the voting pattern.

Conversations across platforms in the NDC party indicates that majority of the middle and high class members may want to prefer a tested business manager like Dr. Kwabena Duffuor to run the economy while the low income earners also like him because he has a proven legacy making the party a business friendly party.
Their decision is largely informed by high level of poverty in the party they have toiled and suffered for over the years, yet nothing to show.

While some Ghanaians still believe in giving the three-and-half year old present administration a chance again, other Ghanaians have different opinion as they believe that my Mahama has nothing again to offer and should be replaced with other economic managers like Dr. Kwabena Duffuor. The government has relied on blame games instead of tackling the economic challenges it was voted to handle.

Majority of party members believed that if John Mahama eventually wins the NDC presidential election, the economic situation may remain the same and he has only four years which is not enough and as usual family and friends.

Analysts strongly believe that if the election is free and fair and members of the grassroots walk their talk, there will likely be an upset in the presidential primaries. John Mahama will lose. Politicians in the NDC must understand that votes of the common man or woman matter.

As John Mahama stated the NDC polling station agents in the last elections were not educated people, an insult to polling station agents. Meaning someone who is not educated does not have that ability to reason and analyse things the proper way. These are the same illiterate folks that support the politicians and give the massive votes.

It is said that democracy is a game of numbers, if the illiterates always outweigh the literates. Then for now Mahama is in trouble. The vision about financial empowerment of the grassroots via the Ahotor Project; more importantly, it is also about the qualitative development of the human resource capacity of the NDC without any form of discrimination or segregation.

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