Last week, former President John Dramani Mahama appeared to have rocked the boat of state with a politically incorrect message on an FM radio network in Techiman.
Though he didn’t speak Chinese or Russian, but Akan and English, his aides insisted that he was misunderstood by majority of Ghanaians.
Indeed, Mr Mahama also insisted that either Ghanaians heard the wrong thing or are stark illiterates, just like his 2020 polling station agents.
He therefore had to make a great deal of effort seeking to explain what he meant by the “do or die” charge he gave to his party members, going into the 2024 elections.
Mischievous references
At the same time, his former appointees and boys and girls from the National Democratic Congress had widely expressed support for the fatal slip with mischievous references to a military coup in Guinea, arguing that the coup against the former President was popular.
The Guinean situation, they insinuated, was like that of Ghana, and that President Akufo-Addo’s administration should equally be stampeded out of power. Ironically, the NDC appears so terrified over the speed and scope of development they are seeing that they are in court seeking to delay the implementation process of a critical development intervention such as ‘Agenda 111’.
The people’s verdict
Ghanaians, wise and God-fearing as they are, have roundly condemned the Mahama ‘Do-Or-Die’ jibe and the odious, irrelevant linkages to the controversial Guinea coup detat.
From all segments of our civil society, including academia, through the religious and traditional communities to the regular media, the statement from no less a personage than a former president and flagbearer of a leading political party had been seen as childishly offensive, unbecoming of a leader.
Indeed, pollster Ben Ephson, usually forthright on such issues, felt that John Mahama could have used the platform to make himself, as aspiring flagbearer, more relevant for 2024 by raising the right issues, since it is not parties that manage polling stations but independent institutions, including the police and other security agencies.
Additionally, as far as independent observers were concerned, voting in 2020 was largely free, fair, peaceful and credible.
Stampede in 2024
Unfortunately, Mahama and his men still insist that they are right, and that stampede is the weapon they are going to use for the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections.
With Asiedu Nketia still leading the voices of cacophony into 2024, it is therefore our opinion that the same Ghanaians, who have shown how responsible they are in condemning the Mahama statement, will express in concrete terms their disapproval of such leaders whenever they get the time.
Mahama may be desperate enough to act desperately each time he gets into his jitters; that, however, is no excuse for him to attempt to wreck our communal and national peace and stability.
Cherish peace
He must be told in plain language, like former Finance Minister Dr Kwabena Duffuor intimated, that no sane, sober Ghanaian would support such excesses from the former President.
Again, it is instructive to bring to the fore that majority of Ghanaians have expressed in plain language that they will continue to cherish the peace they enjoy currently in the country, which still remains the envy of their counterparts in many parts of the African continent, and the world at large.
It is therefore clear that they are not ready to allow themselves to be used by any self-seeking and desperate politician to undermine the peace they enjoy. That is certainly the wisest decision they can ever make, given that peace is a sine qua non for the development they aspire for.
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