A Deputy Communications Director of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Ernest Kofi Owusu Bempah Bonsu, has called on the electorate not to give any chance to former president John Mahama in his attempt to reclaim power.
According to the firebrand politician, public pronouncements of Mr Mahama, who is currently campaigning to become the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) flagbearer for the third time in succession, “have passed the point of no return.”
“The Mahama phenomenon and the desperation of the NDC ought to be confronted and the likes of me would rather focus on this than anything else,” Owusu Bempah-Bonsu wrote on May Day, 2023.
He added: From the day he was thrown out of office in 2016 through to his return as presidential candidate in the run up to 2020 and in recent times, Mahama has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that Ghana needs from its presidents.”
Below is the full writeup:
Mahama is unfit for the presidency. Ghanaians must ignore him
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Let’s face it, and let’s say what needs to be said, former President John Mahama has rhetorically crossed the Rubicon. His jabbering has jumped the shark. His public pronouncements have passed the point of no return.
We are now beyond debating whether Mahama’s comeback bid has merit or whether he is fit for purpose.
Indeed, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle was right when remarked that “it is not possible to rule well without having been ruled.”
This Aristotle theory seems to have a perfect correlation with the antics of former President Mahama, who having failed to rule Ghana well when he had the opportunity is now engaging in evil machinations and inferior tactics to stage a comeback.
Mahama, once in a casual political conversation remarked that Ghanaians have a short memory, and as such, he feels his politics and political memory has faded.
This is a man who had it all – political power and mandate, and he squandered it. We all know how it all ended – He was thrown out of office in the wake of massive corruption and ‘Dumsor Economy.’
In actual fact, Mahama was indescribably messy the last time he was at the Presidency. He broke the presidential code and was simply embarrassing at the job.
Truly, Mahama was so tired on the job, and was so inadequate, so unpleasant and so very shabby. And yet he feels like staging a comeback by deploying inferior tactics against the very office he is seeking to come back to.
The Mahama phenomenon and the desperation of the NDC ought to be confronted and the likes of me would rather focus on this than anything else.
From the day he was thrown out of office in 2016 through to his return as presidential candidate in the run up to 2020 and in recent times, Mahama has demonstrated repeatedly that he lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that Ghana needs from its presidents.
Whether through indifference or ignorance, Mahama has betrayed fundamental commitments made by all presidents since the dawn of the fourth Republic. He has stirred bigotry and ethnic-based political sentiments in ways that can’t be erased by any possible means
Above all, Mahama has built his political campaign on appeals to bigotry and xenophobia, whipping up resentment against our avowed democratic institutions and norms – from the Electoral Commission(EC), the Police, the Armed Forces, the Judiciary, our traditional rulers and even moral and civil society.
Mahama has been on so many sides of so many issues that attempting to assess his policy positions is like shooting at a moving target. He simply spouts slogans and outcomes. He is ill-equipped to be commander in chief.
Ironically, Mahama is attempting to build his come back candidacy on his so-called achievements as a former president. He claims he did this and that and want another shot at the presidency. But when you go beyond the rhetoric, you will find out that the Mahama era was the worst period in our governance history.
In a rational world the NDC first cut their wrists when they nominated Mahama as vice presidential running mate. Then they took poison when they selected him again in 2020 after his disastrous outing in 2016.
Now he has them on a temporary version of life support.
It is in this light that I see the attempt by the NDC to breathe life back and legitimacy into a politically dead Mahama as utterly farcical.
What Ghana need is clarity, purpose and competence, and not a man who offers only incompetence and angry defiance.
Every good disaster movie has a scene in which the characters realise that they are in mortal peril, that the threat they all fear is much closer than anyone had thought. Whatever you do as a Ghanaian, resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue. Mahama is of no good. His record of lying and incompetent makes him unfit to be President again.
And I believe a second stint for him at the Presidency would be even more of a disaster than the first one,
His return would split, and possibly destroy, this country.
It’s time for the people of Ghana to seriously consider that Mahama is unfit to be president again.
Ernest Kofi Owusu Bempah Bonsu- Deputy Director of Communications, NPP
