Saturday,
December 1, 2012
If Ghanaians make the mistake to elect
the NPP’s Akufo-Addo into office next Friday, they will be sealing their own
doom and confirming long-held opinions that they are the architects of their
own plight. And that they don’t learn useful lessons from experience to do the
right thing in choosing their leaders.
Having complained bitterly about
the late President Mills’ inability to fulfill the 2008 electioneering campaign
promises—and using that as the main grievance against him, based on which most
threatened not to vote for him—what justification will there be for the
electorate to vote for Akufo-Addo who is doing nothing different but glibly
pouring out promises to lure votes? Vote for him because of his promises?
Take it from me. Akufo-Addo hasn’t
given us any convincing justification to warrant his being elected President.
All he has done is to bandy about extravagant and fulsome promises, hoping that
they will be snapped up by the electorate. He is more invested in dangling
promises than demonstrating that he is a more capable candidate for the job. Extravagant
and politically motivated promises don’t build countries!
For all these years that he has
been campaigning, nothing concrete has come from him to recommend him as a
better substitute. It’s all about promises. Take away the promises and he falls
flat on his face. What is the compelling reason to endorse him, then? None, I
say!
Ghanaians deserve better than such
a monomaniac as their President!
Akufo-Addo hasn’t given enough to
confirm that he is a better quality administrator to be at the helm of affairs.
Despite all the huge promises he is making and the vociferous acclamations
coming from his followers, I daresay that he still comes across as ill-suited
for the highest office of the land. And he has nothing to recommend him apart
from his fly-blown promises.
Every sane person should be very
much shocked if the electorate buy into these vain promises to elect him. The
explanation is simple.
I repeat that having complained
bitterly about the late President Mills’ inability to fulfill the 2008
electioneering campaign promises—and using that as the main grievance against
him, based on which most threatened not to vote for him—what justification will
there be for the electorate to vote for Akufo-Addo who is doing nothing
different but glibly pouring out promises to lure votes?
Haven’t Ghanaians been bitten
more than once to be more than twice shy of such empty promises as a political
bait to lose their guard and be ensnared by this conman parading as their
saviour?
What is troubling is that
Akufo-Addo hasn’t anything new up his sleeves to offer anybody apart from those
promises. Rejecting him will serve a better cause.
Since leaving Kufuor’s government—driven
by the morbid ambition he is now pursuing after an unimpressive performance—he
hasn’t added any value to himself nor purged himself of all the obnoxious
impressions that have dented his public image thus far. I reject him and won’t
have him as my President!!
If, however, the voters go ahead
to give him their mandate, it will lead to only one conclusion: that Ghanaians
will deserve the kind of government to be formed and led by him. Based on the
bombastic and extravagant promises that he has so far made, I am tempted to
conclude that any electoral decision that favours him will only confirm my
hunch that Ghanaians like being deceived and led to the gallows!
Aren’t Ghanaians ever going to be
tired of saying “Had we known”? This is the time to break away from that
self-defeating trait.
Some may fault President Mahama
too for basing his campaign on promises; but I disagree with them for the
simple fact that unlike Akufo-Addo, the President isn’t waxing in promises and
gushing them out at will. He isn’t using that approach as the main political
bait, unlike Akufo-Addo who is all over the place, effusively making promises
just to hoodwink the gullible segments of the electorate.
President Mahama is only reiterating
existing promises yet to be fulfilled or others already being fulfilled to
reassure Ghanaians that a renewal of his government’s mandate will help him
pursue the “Better Ghana” agenda to its logical conclusion. He isn’t adding anything
new. Not in the case of Mr. Freeman Akufo-Addo.
The other day, he said he would
build hostels for “Kayayei”; then, he looked the Asantehene right in the eyes
and told him that he would build the Kumasi Airport into an international one;
not long thereafter, he was abroad with the promise to find a solution to the
Dagbon crisis that he himself helped escalate; then, he would re-name the
Tamale Sports Stadium after the late Aliu Mahama; and just yesterday, he
announced the promise to build industrial parks for all the regions to promote
local business ventures.
All these promises to be
fulfilled in 4 years—or if he survives to have a second term, in 8 years? All
coming against the background of his own claim that no government can
drastically improve living conditions in less than 10 years, which the NPP’s
national Chairman, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey corroborated!
It is not just the act of making
the promises that bothers me, but the quantum of promises so far made—and the fact
that he is not done yet. Indeed, there is little wrong with promise-making as a
political manouevre, but what has issued forth from Akufo-Addo so far is not
only dizzying but it is clearly a cheap means to reach out to the electorate.
Having made the promise of free
SHS education the prop of his campaigns, he has done nothing to assuage
concerns on how funding for that venture will be done. Merely telling us that
revenue from the oil industry will support it is woefully disappointing.
And arrogantly insinuating that
even if all the all revenue is exhausted in pursuing that agenda he would be
happy that his government had used it to educate Ghanaians is insulting and
unbecoming of a politician who should have known better not to inflame passions
with such unguarded utterances.
Is education at the SHS level
more important than the major problems bedeviling Ghanaians?
That’s not the problem with Akufo-Addo.
One expects that having made the free SHS education the main campaign message,
he would by now have broken issues down to provide specific cost-benefit
analyses and to reveal to Ghanaians how this promise will be fulfilled in the
short- and long-terms.
We have been told by his
opponents that any rush into implementing anything of the sort will not only
distort the economy but it will also collapse the system of education entirely,
apparently because of the huge expenditure that the policy entails and the fact
that there is no clear planning being done for it.
The existing structures can’t
support such a “huhudious” venture. Akufo-Addo hasn’t even given us any idea on
how he will add new structures to the existing weak ones. He is not even
talking about strengthening state institutions to support his administration.
All he is doing is making one promise after the other till Election Day. What
sort of madness is that? And is that what should attract anybody’s vote?
We already know how difficult it
is to provide much-needed services or even pay remuneration to public-sector
workers, including teachers who Akufo-Addo is targeting to ensure his fee-free
SHS education. If the economy were strong enough, why would that be a problem?
In fine, then, Akufo-Addo’s
fee-free SHS education is bogus. It is designed to fool the electorate. The
danger is that the economy doesn’t
have the momentum or capacity to absorb the shock from such a venture without
going into a devastating tailspin. Akufo-Addo’s venture will suck life out of
the economy.
Those NPP simpletons referring to
the Woyome judgement debt as evidence of availability of funds to support such
ventures are abysmally ignorant.
I reiterate that Akufo-Addo hasn’t
sufficiently explained how he will do what he is promising all over the place
and doesn’t deserve anybody’s nod to be in power.
I am being brazen here and won’t
bat an eyelid over the usual insults that I expect from his followers. My hunch
is that they just don’t know where they are pushing themselves and their sacred
cow. I reject Akufo-Addo; so should you too.
I am Michael J.K. Bokor; and I
approve of this message!
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E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
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me on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/mjkbokor
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