Re: John Mahama Can Never be Trusted

Unbelievable…President Mahama’s Publishing Consultant is a Niece of Nana

Addo

“No lie can live forever”

--- Thomas Carlyle

“Truth crushed to the earth will rise again”

--- William C. Bryant



The writer of this article on Ghanaweb is very pitiful and pathetic with

his baseless and falsefool analysis. Just imagine, the mere fact that, the

President consulted the expertise of an international publisher for his own

private book, which he wrote even before he became the President, warrants

you guys to characterize him as some one devoid of nationalism.

As I iterated in the previous rebuttals to your myopic articles, I will

reiterate again that you guys, just like your Nana Addo, have become so

desperate and distrait for power, and because you do not have any pragmatic,

practical, smart and systematic solutions to our country’s socio-economic

malady, and your freebies campaign is not selling in the market place of the

electorate, you are resorting to character assassination, as well as

misinforming and misleading them to change their affectionate and loving attitude

toward the President to a hateful and vile one, without any persuasive

reason for them to believe you.

In fact the sort of articles the NPP communications team, both home and

abroad are writing these days, as we are getting nearer to the elections

leaves much to be desired. These guys really take Ghanaians, who are

discerning people for a ride. The title of the article seem to reveal very critical

and crucial issue of national concern, which will go a long way to place

Ghanaians private sectors operators at a great disadvantage. But lo and

behold, upon my quick perusal into this foolish and facetious article, I

realized that it was one of their daily-routine of; giving a dog a bad name into

order to hang it modus oprandi, just to please Nana Addo’s whimsical

desires.

Because the NPP communicators know that, it was the NDC first and second

regimes that had injected and infused real life into the economy, by virtue

of the ultimate and unlimited advantages that our government gave the

Ghanaian private sector, which is the engine of economic growth, this writer

decided to see fault into the President’s decision to publish his book abroad.

Take it or leave it, the President has the right to do so, because this is

his personal memoir, which has nothing to do with even his party, nor the

nation at large. But the writer should have done some research to know if

his party (NDC) has ever consulted foreign publishers to publish their

manifestoes and all other publications by the government.

Fact is that, the President, a gifted communicator (naturally and

professionally), is a journalist, aside of being an author. He is as well a

columnist in an international magazine, based in the US, called ROOT. And by

virtue of his diplomatic stature and even the subject matter itself, that

encapsulate and encompasses a broad repertoire of socio-economic, political and

historical narratives about Ghana at the micro level and Africa at large, it

is more expedient to publish abroad.

If you care to know, as an author of three books myself, the first one

entitled; “Paradise Under Mothers Feet.”, published in New York, in 2009 and

reviewed by the New York Beacon newspaper, for a book of that caliber to

get much publicity and marketability that it deserves, it has to be published

in an advanced world-where they have a full-fledge and Photo-finish

expertise in the publishing industry to subject the manuscript into a thorough

review.

The President, I think sees wisdom in the saying; “Think globally, but act

locally” to enable him showcase this historical narrative to the huge

global audience. That was why he chose to have another edition in America. I

happened to be on a business trip with two American investors to Kenya and

Central African Republic over the last weekend, and one of them, Jeremiah

sitting next to me, saw the title of the book I was reading inflight (for the

second time). He asked what was it about and I told him, it was the first

memoir written by Ghana’s current sitting President. Lo and behold, this guy

already infatuated with investing in Ghana (our next leg of the trip),

grabbed the book from me and started reading, and coincidentally, I was

sitting next to him, while he was still reading this book, (which has completely

arrested his attention) when we made a transit yesterday at the Paris

airport in France. I removed my laptop from my briefcase and log on to Ghanaweb

to read news and I saw this article, accusing the President of not using the

local publishers for his book.

I showed him this article on my laptop and he was shocked and said, “But

this is a personal initiative of the President, which has nothing to do with

nationalism, and besides I could see the exposure this book had, because

it was published abroad…” And I said to him, “you seemed to have taken

the wind out of my seal, because I just read the story and started this

rejoinder to the article and about to state these two points in it.” This

happened as we were sitting and whiling away time for our connecting flight back

to JF Kennedy Airport, in New York City.

Hardly would such a book, if published in Ghana attracts comments and

commendations from such literary luminaries and great think tanks, as Chinua

Achebe of “Things Fall Apart”, whose praise on the book partly reads, “A

much welcome work of immense relevance.” Andrew Solomon, a National Book

Award winner in the US and author of “The Noonday Demon” also wrote, “These

are stories…readers will be charmed by them. They brim with humanity.”

Ngugi Wa Thiongo, author of, “Weep Not, Child” stated that, “Mahama’s stories

lure the reader into unforgettable journey in which he interacts with

history as a living tissue.” Nuruddin Farah also wrote, “Mahama has given us

complex text. I ‘ve enjoyed reading these stories.” Aminata Forna, author of

the Commonwealth Book Prize, “The Memory of Love”, wrote “Warm and

engaging…The view of a complex world in a microcosm.” As you could see, these

catchy and captivating comments were facilitated by the publishers who have

great and good rapport with these highly distinguished authors.

One great advantage of publishing ones manuscript with Bloomsbury is that,

it is a giant global corporate publishing institution-headquartered in New

York, with branches in cosmopolitan and composite business cities like;

London in the UK, New Delhi in India, and Sydney in Australia.

It would interest you to know that, the publishing/communications

consultant, that His Excellency the President hired to work on the book is not only

an ordinary Ghanaian, but coincidentally, is a niece of the Nana Akufo

Addo, the presidential candidate of the NPP and her name is, Meri Nana Ama

Danquah, daughter of Dr. J. B Danquah, one of the founding fathers of the

nation, popular known as, “The Big Six”.

I don’t think you even saw the book, nor came to the book

launching/reading ceremony at the Schaumberg Center for Black History, a

state-of-the-art

library located opposite Harlem Hospital in New York City. Because if you

were a true Ghanaian, who thinks and acts beyond political expediency, than

our President, you would have come at least for the sake of “nationalism.”



Meri Nana Ama, one time lecturer at the school of Communication Studies of

the University of Ghana, Legon, is a niece of Nana Akufo Addo and the

publishing consultant of the President, who was the moderator of the event in

Harlem, and I believed she also moderated other book promotion tours by the

President across the United States.

It is interesting to know that, this book, “MY FIRST COUP D’TAT…AND OTHER

TRUE STORIES FROM THE LAST DECADE OF AFRICA” was first published in Ghana,

and the President came here in July to launch his “First US Edition”. In

his acknowledgment and appreciation to those who, overtly or covertly

contributed to the success of his first ever book, the President devoted the

last four paragraphs showering Meri Nana Ama with gratitude and gratefulness

for her dedication and commitment for the project to come to fruition. Part

of the acknowledgment reads as follows:

“…Meri Nana Ama Danquah, a warm and delightful person, blessed with

boundless energy and enthusiasm…She has been utterly inspirational, supportive

and instrumental in bringing this book together. It has been my privilege to

collaborate with her.”

So now tell me Mr. Spanash, is Meri Nana Ama, a daughter of our freedom

fighter, Dr. J. B. Danquah not a Ghanaian, even if she lives and works in the

US as you do, what difference does this make. If anything at all this is a

pointer to the fact that, His Excellency President Mahama, walked his talk

about utilizing the expertise of Ghanaian publishers, even before he

became the President. And it also exposed your sheer ignorance and stupidity of

wanting to score cheap political points with that fallacious and falsefool

article.

Next time you are writing on a highly sensitive topic like this, please do

your homework well, by making some indepth research, including borrowing

the book from a Ghanaian abroad in order to review especially, the

acknowledgement part if you don’t care to be “nationalistic enough” to purchase it.



This will enable you to present factual and truthful analysis to our

discerning Ghanaian readers. And I urge you and the NPP to render an apology to

His Excellency the President for this false allegation, especially having

to know that, he as a unifier went the extra mile to employ the service of a

family member of Nana Akufo Addo, (who is making thousands of dollars from

him, as she is still working on his second book) out of over hundred

Ghanaian publishers that you mentioned. And I believe Nana Addo would not hire

someone related to the President to work with him or for him.

As an educated resident or citizen of the United States (I cannot tell if

you have green card), you should know that, publishing industry in the US

is a huge business opportunity-Publishers enter into business deals with

authors based on percentages, and they draft agreements with their legal

consultants to cover themselves, and thereby make more money than the authors of

books they work on. They capitalize on the media publicity they render to

the authors’ books-with reviews from giant newspapers, such as; the New

York Times, Washington Post, etc. As well as radio and TV appearance, book

reading and signing ceremonies and above all, comments from such award winning

prolific authors mentioned above, who have blazed the trail and curved

enviable niche for themselves in the publishing field.

So please do not accuse the President of rejecting the Ghanaian

publishers, if you fail to do your homework well. This is a great shame and an

intellectual dishonesty to misinform and manipulate the mentality of our

electorate, who have vowed not to ‘hire’ Mr. “All die be die” with his “Yen

Akanfuo” ethnocentric mantra, since they resolved to renew the mandate of His

Excellency President Mahama come next week Friday to proceed with the ever

enviable and indelible socio-economic legacy left by the late President

Mills.

Husseini Y. Baba AlWaiz, Press Secretary, NDC New York