Opinions of Sunday, 19 May 2024

Columnist: Anthony Obeng Afrane

When posterity judges a good person kindly

File photo File photo

Folks, is there anyone among you who has never had any challenges in life before? I don't think anyone can answer in the affirmative. I remember when I was a child, my late grandmother, Nana Yaa Abuakwaa, would sometimes say, "The tests that we have faced this year as a family are not the standard seven kind, but the college type."

Life has always been full of challenges, and the fact that you are facing challenges does not make you incompetent or hopeless.

I love challenges because they shape us and make us push ourselves further to become better. They are blessings in disguise.

The unfortunate thing is that even though challenges are agonising and sometimes excruciating, steps to remedy such situations are not soothing either. It takes bitter pills and painful injections to cure life-threatening diseases.

Sadly enough, and in most cases, any leader who attempts to bring about change in order to solve a problem sometimes meets stiff opposition from the same people from whom the intervention will benefit. And those were the stories of Moses and President John Dramani Mahama.

In Exodus 1:14 of the Bible, the lives of the Israelites were made bitter with hash labour and were ruthlessly suppressed by the Egyptians. The Israelites cried out to God to deliver them from the hardship and take them to the Promised Land. God answered their prayers by empowering Moses to lead them out of Egypt. But they felt uncomfortable with the change that brought them absolute freedom, and at a point they grumbled and threatened to stone Moses and Aaron to death.

The simple truth is that no one can ever please human beings, not even God. Rick Warren says in his "Purpose-Driven Life" that he doesn't know all the keys to success, but one key to failure is to try to please everyone, and he is right.

But whatever the case, we have a certain fair judge called posterity who has often judged individuals who have made positive contributions to society and humanity with kindness and admiration.

And with the benefit of hindsight, Justice Posterity has judged H.E. John Dramani Mahama fairly and kindly, leading to the remorse of many Ghanaians who vilified and demonised him.