We are almost there. I mean that time of that election cycle when the men are separated from the boys. On Monday, the Electoral Commission announced the filing fee for nominations to contest the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.
Every presidential aspirant will pay GH¢100,000 as filing fee, while those seeking our votes to qualify them to be under the Speaker’s orders are required to fork out GH¢10,000 each.
On paper, it is reasonable to expect people seeking these high offices of the land to meet these demands. Remember though, that not all that glitters is gold. We have had office seekers assailing our ears with their lofty ideas on the campaign trail, captured on radio, television and in the newspapers.
When the chips are down, many are found wanting. Last time round, there were embarrassing scenes of presidential candidates riding in taxi cabs to file in when nominations were closed, with their files all over the place.
Take it from this writer; it is not the time that beat those running to the finish line. The plain truth is that they could not raise the filing fees, and invariably have to put up appearances. I do not expect the likes of Akua Donkor, ODK, and others to raise GH¢100,000 and throw it into the nomination, knowing that all of them together might not galvanise one percent of the popular vote.
It is an ego trip for some of these professional campaigners. In all certainty, the race to Jubilee House is a two horse race. It is Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo versus ‘Bohyeba’ John Dramani Mahama.
If you push me further, I will state that even the former President is going to end up a long distant second. Last time round, the NDC was in a comfortable lead. That is where they ended. I am inclined to believe that the NDC and its presidential candidate would fare worse than the 2016 vote.
Mr. John Dramani Mahama is aware of the dark clouds gathering, that is why he is promising anything and everything. If your houseboy is misbehaving, you can call in ‘Bohyeba’ Mahama to come and pound your fufu and do the laundry in return for your vote on December 7, 2020.
Desperation is driving the otherwise fine gentlemen nuts. Many of the promises he is making on the campaign trail have no grounding on logistics. Most of these promises are mere rhetoric. He is apparently thinking that he would sway Ghanaians after the disaster of an administration he led last time round.
A fine gentleman, Mr. Dramani Mahama has been reduced to making vain promises and casting insinuations against the sitting President. His sound bites are becoming stale. His reference to Akyem Mafia and Sakawa, for instance, is a clear manifestation of the jitters setting in.
Many things he has said, but his running mantra of late that the Akufo-Addo regime is corrupt and promises to end corruption in this country is annoying, given the history of the person making the promises.
In communication, in which he is cited as an expert in this country, the message is as good as the messenger delivering it.
I am sorry, dear reader, if I have touched raw nerves. The plain truth is that Mahama is corruption on wheels. And I will set out to explain why. Do you remember the link between then President John Dramani Mahama and a certain Burkinabe contractor?
If the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice had balls, Mr. Mahama would have been impeached on the evidence of his corrupt deals with Mr. Kanazoe, the Burkinabe contractor. I am sorry, but I see corruption leaking from the head of the former President, all the way to his toes.
The Burkinabe contractor gave the President a Ford Exhibition vehicle in exchange for a number of state contracts. First, Mr. Kanazue was handpicked by the Mahama regime to renovate the Ghana Embassy in Ouagadougou. The tax-payer in Ghana paid a whopping US$650,000 for the said renovation.
After the former President had received the car gift, he awarded the Burkinabe a juicy contract on the Eastern Corridor Road. When the contractor began asphalting the road, the former President personally went to the site to congratulate the contractor, at which he invited Ghanaian contractors to learn from the Burkinabe.
God Almighty is never a Nigerian. Rains set in and exposed the contractor’s job as shoddy. In spite of this, the government of Mr. John Dramani Mahama awarded another juicy road contract to the Burkinabe in the Upper West Region.
The contractor abandoned the project and fled to his native Burkina Faso when his shoddy work on the Easter Corridor Road was exposed. On his campaign trail to the Oti Region quite recently, Mr. Mahama shed crocodile tears on his inability to complete the Eastern Corridor Road. That is John Dramani Mahama for you!
As Vice-President, Mr. Mahama was the subject of several innuendoes bordering on the purchase of Embraer planes for the Ghanaian military in Brazil. Later, Citizen Vigilante, Mr. Martin Amidu, emphatically stated that the late Mr. John Evans Atta Mills was about to investigate his deputy on issues of corruption, bordering on the purchase of transport planes from Brazil when he was called to his maker.
I recognise the fact that Mr. Amidu sat sheepishly before the Appointment Committee of Parliament and repudiated his own public pronouncement on the issue. My worry is that Parliament did not push the issue further.
Granted that the Special Prosecutor was loose with his tongue on the Embraer issue, what happened in the Southwark Crown Court in London and in the United States, when the then sitting President of Ghana was referred to as Government Official One in the Airbus bribery scandal, is a huge reference point. The report simply stated that a brother of Mr. John Dramani Mahama negotiated with the government, headed by the ex-President, to buy three transport planes from Airbus SE and pocketed huge kick-backs.
If that is a worry, wait until you read the following.
Forbes, the international wealth rating magazine, has listed Mr. John Dramani Mahama as the third wealthiest Ghanaian alive, with a net asset of US$900 million.
When a politician is wealthier than members of the business community, it connotes only one outcome – corruption on a gargantuan scale. We do not need any ghost to tell us that when Mr. Mahama presided over the affairs of this country, many were dubious deals.
The Alfred Agbesi Woyome saga, under which the State of Ghana paid a businessman with links to the NDC a whopping GH¢52 million for no job done, is another reference point. There were numerous others. Isofoton, Waterville, and many other dodgy deals are still standing in the name of corrupt deals under Mahama and his NDC.
Remember the catch phrase’ One Lap-top per child? One hundred million dollars of state funds was handed over to Mr. Roland Agambire, a known friend of Mr. Mahama and owner of Rlg, to produce a lap-top for every Ghanaian school kid. Not many kids benefitted from the programme. The few who did only received toys.
Mr. Agambire was also advanced huge state loans without interest. The idea sold to Ghanaians was for Mr. Agambire to build an ICT base in this country. My information is that Mr. Agambire has moved his business base to Dubai. The state never benefitted from the largesse extended to the former President’s friend.
It is not long ago when the airwaves were saturated with information that a son of the former President had married his Algerian girlfriend in Dubai. I have no proof at the moment that there is a link between the Agambire enterprise and the location of the boy’s wedding. But if I am allowed a guess, I would not be surprised if there is a correlation between the huge monies advanced to the owner of Rlg and the President’s private estate. The whole deal does not make sense to me.
Writing about the impending elections reminds me of the way Mrs. Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman is being sold, as if she is a breath of fresh air in national politics.
On the campaign trail in the Western Region, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast visited the palace of Nana Kobina Nketsiah V, Paramount Chief of the Essikado Traditional Area.
According to a report in The Chronicle, the Chief was elated at the visit of the woman who was once his boss at the University of Cape Coast. But that is beside the point. What is important is that, according to the report, Nana Nketiah described his visitor as a game changer, whose involvement as running mate to former President Mahama has changed the dynamics of the political system in the country.
I know Nana Kobina Nketsiah. As a matter of fact, I count him among my friends. As for this one, I think the traditional leader and lecturer might have struck the wrong note.
Naana is not a newcomer to national politics. We saw her as Minister of Education in the Mahama regime. At one point in time, there was no chalk, the basic item needed for any class to function.
Remember Mrs Matilda Amissah Arthurs’s encounter with teachers at Kukurantumi over chalk? If Naana is that game changer, why is her boss repudiating all that happened under her watch at the Ministry of Education? From no to free education, to no payment for teacher trainee allowances, and cancellation of book allowance, Naana was the initiator.
The plain truth is that the John and Naana Presidency is the road to disaster. Once upon an election, John and John deceived their way to the Castle and led the country astray. A word to the wise is in the Central Region.
I shall return!
Ebo Quansah in Accra
The post My God! Mahama to end corruption? appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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