President John Dramani Mahama has found time during a busy Presidential campaign and three days before the crucial election to tell us all via the Daily Graphic “Why I wrote my book”. He uses the article in the state owned newspaper to officially announce the launch in Ghana of his memoire ‘ My First Coup d’Etat: memories from the lost decades of Africa’ and urges us all to commit our memories to paper.

OK, Mr. President, I have a memory and also a question for you? I remember that you cut short your U.S. book tour and cancelled a prestigious launch event in Atlanta, Georgia at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum set for 19th July 2012. This seemed very strange at the time because Atlanta has a large African-American and Ghanaian population, which is exactly the demographic your US publisher would want sell your book to. So the question is; are you sure it was merely a co-incidence that your cancellation of this event came just a few days before the death of President John Evans Atta Mills?

According to your article in the Daily Graphic the late president’s untimely demise “happened a few short days after my return from the U.S launch of the book, a requirement of the contract with my U.S. based publisher that I fulfilled”. But that statement is not true is it Mr. President? You did not fulfill all the events planned by your publisher to launch your book. In addition to the cancellation in Atlanta you also cancelled a launch event in Seattle. According to The Carter Presidential Centre, you had to return to Ghana unexpectedly. What were those unexpected events and did they have anything to do with the state of health of the late president?

As you are keen for us to have an accurate memory of the history of Ghana I think we all deserve a factual answer.

Christina Bonsu