The quality of persons who represent the President across the country, be they District Chief Executives (DCEs) or their municipal counterparts, is critical in the maintenance of the reverence of the presidency and indeed the authority of the state at those levels.
When such persons behave like clowns and exhibit crude impunity, then questions begin to be posed as to whether these were the most qualified the President could appoint to represent him in those areas.
The story of the Tweea DCE is still fresh in our memories as our plates are being filled by the theatricals of another batch of the president’s representatives misbehaving in some districts and municipalities in a manner unbecoming of persons holding those exalted positions.
President John Mahama appears not to be bothered by such shortcomings perhaps because these persons fit into the ilk of the Akua Donkors: their relevance best known to him.
Such mockery of governance is perhaps the reason why things have fallen apart in the country.
We must take governance and the presidency from the abyss to which it appears to have been sent by such characters who understand next to nothing about the role they are expected to play in their various duty points.
The past few weeks have exposed more and more of such drawbacks about which all Ghanaians must work hard to reverse.
The Obuasi Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) was reported to have taken a swipe at the traditional rulers in his municipality. His reaction to the report, as carried by a private newspaper, was as queer as it was inappropriate.
Cursing the reporter and saying he would die before reaching a certain age is not commensurate with his status as a representative of the President.
Richard Akwasi Ofori, as he is called, took to singing to make his point on a local radio station and had a lot of people laughing their hearts out.
Gone, it would seem, are the days when the president’s representatives were men of appreciable level of timbre and caliber.
These are persons who chair district and municipal security councils and vested with the authority to order certain security actions. The rest can only be imagined.
A DCE who asked “who said tweaa” and boasted about his prowess and another, who cursed a reporter and said he would be killed by a car cannot be good enough to be entrusted with the authority of the President. And for the President to settle on such caliber of persons to represent him suggests the poor quality of advice his aides give him regarding such critical appointments.
When the case of the tweaa DCE gained public opprobrium and ridicule and the appointment withdrawn, the latter was eventually reversed as a the result of pressure.
From the Brong Ahafo Region comes the story of Kwesi Opong Ababio MCE for Sunyani, who has branded his official car in his campaign colours.
He says he is following the footsteps of the President in an apparent reaction to critics.
See why we are questioning the quality of some of the representatives of the president?