Opinions of Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Columnist: Poku, Kwadwo

Mahama, Who Do You Think You Are Fooling

By Kwadwo Poku

Just when I thought we were through pointing out the utter dishonest attitude of Mahama towards Ghanaians, he opens his mouth again and this time he really thinks we are fools. In his policy statement dished out to the nation on Tuesday, he said he will ensure that all monies wrongfully paid to individuals and institutions under the guise of judgement debts are retrieved. Folks, I don't consider myself as a grammarian, but under the guise of judgement debts phraseology used in his statement in itself is an indictment on the character of this man.

This man was the vice president when these so called debts were paid and was complicit in the shenanigans by virtue of his silence but we are to pretend he wasn't even alive when the payments were made and give him a clean slate. Are you kidding me? You don't have to delve far to ask why he never acknowledged that the settlements were wrongfully paid whilst he was the vice president. May be we should blame the corps of Atta Mills. When Mahama took over, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt since I knew little about him but the more I hear him speak, the clearer I see who he really is. No wonder the bible says by their fruits you will know them.

This statement clearly shows he knew from scratch that the judgement debts were money laundering schemes which they all benefited from but since the gullible Ghanaian will not take the pains to decipher his pronouncements, he can pontificate on the subject and get away with it. With all these self indicting statements, you wonder whether real journalism exist in the nation. So far not a single solitary journalist has raised Cain about this. What a disservice they are to the nation. All they do is to jostle for position so they can ingratiate themselves to the presidency for favors in lieu of being mouth pieces for the mouth-less Ghanaians.

When woyome's settlement payment was exposed, given the magnitude of the amount, one would have thought a sudden burst of anger on the part of the administration would have been exhibited but no, all we witnessed from Mills/Mahama was a flippant and cavalier approach to rip off our coffers. To add insult to injury Mahama now has the temerity to tell us that the wrongfully paid settlements will be retrieved. Mahama, I don't blame you for thinking we are fools. In fact we've allowed this idiosyncratic mannerisms towards the nation from our political leaders by politically miss educating ourselves. How sad! Instead of perceiving our leaders and political parties through the prism of integrity and the overall betterment of our nation, we have unwittingly agglutinated to them like the way we support Hearts and Kotoko Football Clubs regardless of their performance.

To tell you the truth, the behinds of Mahama would be scorching hot if we were to be in a western democracy based on the implicating statements he made. Given the fact that our fourth Republic is 20 yrs old, I still find it inconceivable that an impoverished nation like Ghana will rush to pay out of court settlements of gargantuan proportions without the attempt to allow proper judicial course as a stratagem to save money. It's only when the powers that be, benefits from such huge settlements can this thievery act visited on our poor nation be conceivable. If our nation really stands a chance of being the beacon of hope for the overwhelming majority of Ghanaians comprised of jobless and impoverished people, we can't afford not to hold our politicians accountable by allowing them to fool us all the time. So far they have proven to be a bunch of thieves taking advantage of a naive people.

Kwadwo Poku NY