This nation does not need lectures from a disappointed Nigerian politician, who has made Ghana his abode, as a result of moribund state officials showering state largesse on him. This nation has always welcomed foreigners, but we do not take delight in taking useless lessons from them.
According to various versions of the same story, Chief Dele Momodu, Nigerian Publisher of the Ovation Magazine, officially launched his publication at Koforidua at the weekend, and invited Ghanaians to retain President John Dramani Mahama in power, because the present occupant of the Jubilee House has brought tremendous transformation to the country.
The Nigerian journalist is reported to have said that Nigerians are clamouring for Ghana’s President to assist Muhammadu Buhari to fix the challenges bedeviling the economy of Africa’s most populous nation.
In the words of the failed Nigerian politician, Mahama can help revive the economy of oil-rich Nigeria and boost its infrastructure. “With all the resources available to some West African countries, I don’t see these anywhere. In fact, right now, Nigerians are saying that they want to beg President Mahama to come and work for them for three months. Yes, that is how serious it is.”
We do not believe there are many Ghanaians who would object to President Mahama abdicating and leaving for good. Nigerians are welcome to have him forever.
In the early 1980s, when Jerry John Rawlings seized power through the butt of the gun and was slaughtering human beings as if no blood was in them, a section of Nigerian journalists suggested that the former Air Force pilot was the best thing to happen to West Africa. When the chips were down, Jerry Rawlings was accused of taking a whopping $5 million of Nigerian money from Abacha, as bribe to do the bidding of the ‘Butcher’ of Nigeria.
This nation would not take any lecturers from a failed Nigerian politician. If Chief Dele is that good at judging the mood of human beings, he would have been the Nigerian Head of State. His rejection at the polls indicates that his judgment is flawed. That is why we take exception to his directives to Ghanaians to retain President Mahama after the December 7 vote.
We, Ghanaians, have our views about what constitutes development. If you squander the people’s money, and borrow hugely for a few projects costing the moon, that does not move the ordinary Ghanaian.
The Chronicle is aware of how state advertisements have been showered on the Ovation Magazine, at a time Ghanaian publications are stifled of the oxygen of advertisements. We know, for instance, that ministers of state of this Republic have gone out of their way to write introduction letters for Chief Dele to go out there to solicit advertisements, at a time operators of the state apparatus have deliberately ensured that the few advertisements placed in the critical press are not even paid for.
The elections offer the way out of the mess for a large section of our people. To suggest that President Mahama has brought the moon, and should, therefore, be retained in power, is to insult the sensibility of our people.
That is why The Chronicle is asking Chief Momodu to apologise to the good people of this country for his unwarranted political campaign at Koforidua. If the development projects executed by Mahama are unprecedented, it could have its genesis in undeserved largesse being showered on Chief Momodu and his Ovation Magazine.
We are seriously offended by the statement by the editor of the Ovation Magazine – that the Ghanaian media has refused to show the beautiful things happening in the country – hence the move by Ovation Magazine to make them available.
At a time that the Ovation Magazine is making these assertions, the Psychiatric Hospital in Accra, and many institutions providing special services for the underprivileged throughout the country, are short on funds. Many inmates at our prisons are virtually going to bed hungry. Weigh this against the fact that Woyome is walking the streets of Ghana with a whopping GH¢51.2 million of state funds oiling his expensive life-style.
For the attention of Chief Dele, billions of Ghana cedis, and considerable amounts in foreign exchange earnings, have been doled out to companies and individuals in very strange judgment debts. Birds at many guinea fowl farms in the north, established with state funds, have migrated to Burkina Faso. And that is official.
The hands of the President himself are soiled in a murky deal, in which US$650,000 state funds have been doled to a Burkinabe contractor, who gave out a four-wheel drive vehicle in return in a naked bribery scandal. The fact that men and women without balls who sat at the Commission on Human Rights Administrative Justice brought out a wishy- washy report, does not exonerate the Head of State from blame.
These are very trying moments for all Ghanaians. Foreigners, who have arrived in Ghana, ostensibly to service their stomachs, have no business interfering with our vote on December 7.
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