Opinions of Monday, 17 August 2020

Columnist: Eric Ametor-Quarmyne

Mister President: Your pettiness is disgusting and nauseating

President  Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo

The recently reported news that President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has claimed at this year's celebration of the Muslim Holy Ceremony of EID, at Asawase in Kumasi, that he has not heard of any incidents of violence and intimidation of citizens during the current ongoing voters' registration exercise, is most reprehensible, disgusting and nauseating to say the least and I feel like throwing up.

How can the President gather such courage and lie through his teeth at such a religiously significant ceremony with all the hierarchy of Muslims clergy there gathered? This shows that the President has no fear and reverence for Allah the Omnificient, the Beneficent and the maker of all things under the Sun and the Moon, before whom the congregation had gathered to pray and to give thanks.

If Mister President has no fear and reverence for God Almighty, as he has displayed. how can he have any regard or respect for human life or common human beings like poor Ghanaians?

I say Mister President lied by saying he had not heard of any incidents of violence in the just ended voter registration exercise, because I know that he is briefed by national security and the press office every morning and if there is a matter of importance the President holds a meeting for further deliberations and takes a decision. Press cuttings of relevance for the attention of Mister President are placed on his table, by six o'clock, every morning. If a matter needs his urgent attention, he is informed immediately where ever he is.

You may ask his Director of Communications or any other designated official who must be responsible for such a task, whether such a routine is not carried out every morning for the information of Mister President?

So, for Mister President to look the citizenry into our poor and hungry faces and tell us lies without blinking an eyelid, can only tell us the kind of man Mister President is - completely untrustworthy.

Why?

Because he has pretended he has not heard of his Minister of Special Projects, Mavis Hawa Koomson marching to a registration centre at Kasoa and firing indiscriminately into the crowd of registrants there gathered. This palpable crime became a national issue with the National Peace Council, the Christian Council, Civil Society Organizations all having to condemn this despicable act of Hawa Koomson a minister of state at the office of Mister President himself. Still, he says he has not heard anything.

So, since he was asked about the incident in Kumasi, during the EID ceremony, what has Mister President done about the unacceptable behaviour of his beloved Minister?

It became the talk of the town until the Central Regional Police got involved. Does Mister President say he has not heard of this? Even my grandmother who is a very old woman has heard of Hawa Koomson the Ramboo woman and her exploits at Kasoa.

There are cruel happenings in the Banda Traditional Area in the Bono Region in which a young student of the Wenchi Methodist College of Education was stabbed to death by the brother of the NPP's parliamentary candidate for the Banda constituency. Does this one too Mister President say he has not heard?

Then there is the issue of soldiers brutalizing citizens, mostly Ewes and persons of northern descent who have settled in other parts of the country such as the Ashanti, Ahafo, Bono and other regions.

Mister President says he has not heard that some soldiers of whose Chief Commander he is are marauding in the regions and preventing legitimate citizens perceived as supporters of his main rival from registering to vote in the December elections so that Mister President can have a "cool chop?"

Many are surprised at Mister President's behaviour. They say it is strange that Mister President claims he has not heard that some citizens were brutalized to death in the just ended voter registration exercise.

But why am I surprised at Mister President's behaviour? Were Ghanaians not advised and warned long before now, to be extremely careful about Mister President, at a time he was just a candidate? Did we listen? Or when we heard, did we pay heed to the advice?

In 2008, when President John Agyekum Kufuor (Kofi Diawuor) was leaving office as the second President of the Fourth Republic, seventeen New Patriotic Party members vied for the position of flagbearer of the party to succeed President Kufuor in the election of 2008.

Mister President was one of the seventeen NPP contestants who contested. He eventually won that contest.

Two people warned Ghanaians against Mister President. President J. A. Kufuor warned us albeit in a subtle manner. We did not listen. Mr Kofi Coomson, Editor of "The Chronicle" one of the leading private newspapers of the time, also warned Ghanaians about Mister President. Kofi Coomson said he could not sleep with his two eyes closed, if Mr President becomes the President of Ghana, and that he (Kofi Coomson) could not entrust the safety of Ghanaians into the hands of Mister President.

Did we not refuse to listen?

President Jerry John Rawlings, a Soldier's Soldier ruled this country for 19years and left us in peace and as one united people and country. President John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor held us together as one country, one people from Hamile to Axim and from Paga to Keta with one destiny. When Agyekum Kufuor handed over to John Evans Attack Mills we were one people and remained one people when he departed suddenly to eternity and John Dramani Mahama held the country together in peace united in our resolve as one people, until January 2017 when he handed over this beautiful country in one single piece and in peace to Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Mister President.

Now in 2020 as we prepare for the crucial election, a crucial referendum on Mister President's four-year presidency, he is up in arms silently encouraging hoodlums of his party the invisible forces and delta forces to beat up innocent citizens whose only fault is that they want to participate in their constitutionally mandated rights to register and to vote in the coming December elections.

This latest violence and brutalities have really exposed Mister President as to his real character and intentions for this election and for the peace and unity of our country.

Since Mr President became President of Ghana, we have known no peace in the land.

Corruption and thievery of the public purse have become the order of the day.

Ghanaians rejected Mister Akufo-Addo on two separate occasions in 2008 and 2012. We were not so lucky in 2016 and Mr Akufo-Addo became the President of our Republic and now we are reaping the fruits of our not listening to good wisdom not to make Mr President our President.
The good Lord has granted us another chance to dismiss Mister President this December and we must take it unflinchingly.

Let's do it for mother Ghana. Let's do it for the peace, unity and safety of every Ghanaian.

Allah be our guide.