Nana Kweku Ofori-Atta, Security Analyst has passionately appealed to President-elect, John Dramani Mahama to stand firm against lobbyist as he looks forward to appointing his ministers, deputies and MMDAs Chief Executives.

He emphasised such moves come with dire consequences, highlighting its impact that could either make or unmake his government popular and affect its fortunes in the future.

According to the Security Analyst, Mr. Mahama must be bold to resist attempts by lobbyists who will approach him to lobby for a candidate or group of persons to be appointed in his government.

Speaking to the media, he posited that the rate at which Ghanaians voted for Mr. Mahama and his party, has placed an odious task on the president-elect to deliver on his campaign promises without fail. “This is the time you see a lot of lobbyists parading around the corridors of power to get their favourites appointed to positions in the new government and I am quite sure this might have begun already.

Though not bad, but often times, this is how square pegs normally find their way into round holes and mess up the system because some of the appointees may not get their positions on merit”. He stressed.

Therefore, he appealed to Mr. Mahama not to use just his discretion but also his huge experience in appointing those he could work with to bring the needed massive expected change the people voted for.

“In view of this, I believe strongly that Mr. Mahama must stand firm as the man I have always known and deal decisively with some of these external pressures that are likely to come on him. More importantly, he only has just a term of four years therefore if any of his yet to be appointed misbehaves in government, he will bear the consequences and retire with same”. Nana Ofori Atta explained.

Consequently, he called on the president-elect to carefully choose appointees whose attitudes and dealings would reflect his persona but not those who would make his government a scandal prone one.
He added; “Let me say it again that since the inception of the fourth republic, appointees of past and successive governments are the people who bring disgrace to the governments and this is not something new to Mr. Mahama”.

He further encouraged Mr. Mahama to select his appointees on merit and choose only those with unblemished characters who would not condone acts of corruption which continued to be a bane of the country.

By Bernice Nkrumah