MAHAMA MUST GO TO COURT IF HE FEELS CHEATED

John Dramani Mahama and Johnson Asiedu Nketia, NDC 2020 presidential candidate and General Secretary respectively, having lost the stampede game, are said to be putting together hordes of lawyers to move the game away from their initial resistance stance to civility.

It all started when they rushed to announce victory in the just-ended general elections, at a time they were in over 500,000 deficit, with the trend showing a clear victory for the governing New Patriotic Party.

By the ‘kindergarten’ calculations of the two controversial capos of the NDC, garnering enough constituency seats meant winning the presidential elections. So they put tramps onto the streets up to the premises of the Electoral Commission to cause a stampede, while their darling kids at home reveled on good food and drinks – away from harm.

Thank God that the security agencies did not behave like the days when Mahama was in power; and thank God that the pitiful hoodlums wised up and left the scene in time.

Stampede not option

Unfortunately, the NDC members still believe that they have a monopoly over violence. That is because they have lost touch with the history of Ghana.

We thought that by 2000, they would be wising up to the fact that their clutch on the northern and Volta regions – even on Zongos – was easing, with the NPP closing up on them all over into the Central, Western and Bono and Ahafo regions.

They also ignore the fact that in 2012 the NPP ‘won’ the presidential votes with only two regions, after they had conspired with the Afari-Gyan administration to attempt stealing the parliamentary seats. Again, thank God, the Supreme Court intervention was to ameliorate the situation in 2016 and, perhaps, perpetually.

That is why stampeding the processes and the NPP should no longer be considered an option on the part of the NDC. But that is also why the NDC should be thinking Ghana and not their stampede philosophy or violence as a political culture.

Credible

How credible the elections were has been amplified by the AU, ECOWAS and EU as well as the US government. Equally, how credible the security agencies and the EC had performed has been amplified by these same bodies.

This, the NDC may admit, is a far cry from the gargantuan and ridiculous fraud Mahama and Afari-Gyan perpetrated on Ghana in 2012 with the international community reacting angrily by withholding grants to the thieving Mahama administration.

Call for civility

While we at the Daily Statesman congratulate the NDC for its modest performance, we would urge the party to look forward by doing what is civil and sensible – taking its case through the processes, just like the NPP did in 2012 or even way back in 1992.

Ghanaians would not allow little boys and girls of no known station, led by John Mahama and Asiedu Nketia, to decide the destiny of our motherland. We have a constitution that determines the boundaries of political thought and action, and also deals with excesses and conflict situations.

Whipping up sentiments across constituencies and attempting to reverse the situation is criminal. What is not criminal is referring the matter to the relevant institutions of law and justice.

Beyond that, the only message Mahama may be sending across is mayhem, which we believe the security agencies are capable of dealing with.

We trust Mahama would therefore be encouraged to do what is civil, rather than attempting to execute his resistance agenda.

While the President puts together his team to work out the processes for a transition, we trust that would be another platform to look forward mutually by agreeing on ground rules for a more effective operationalisation of our legislature to facilitate development in a bi-partisan way for our national good.