Statesman Opinion: Mahama becoming too infantile

How infantile John Mahama could be was reflected in his miscalculated reference to President Akufo-Addo and his administration as “super incompetent”, and recommending the use of ‘an Obinim Sticker’ to cure the “incompetence.”

Media reports have John Mahama addressing party supporters on Saturday after a 'unity walk' in the Upper West Regional capital, Wa, where he was reported to have said the opposition National Democratic Congress must not be complacent and think that “the poor performance of the current administration” would secure them victory in 2020.

The joke, however, about Mahama's statement is that the President, who has become the toast of the whole world for his excellent performance in only eighteen months of his administration, should secure an “Obinim Sticker”, as sticker of non-effect, to enable him deliver on his campaign promises to the nation.

It is interesting how people like Mahama could still find their balls to wade into arguments about competence, when the verdict about incompetence had already been passed on him by the good people of Ghana during the last polls - by a fantastic margin.

Yes, Mahama is still visible. However, his party folks even know that each recollection and sighting of him reminds them only of his incompetence that led to the defeat of the party and the agony they have to go through to recover lost grounds.

So, if a few cheered at him, they were only doing so for a piece of the loot he is spreading, and not because he had any message. Indeed, if he had, he would have translated that into winning the decisive 2016 elections, after he had wobbled through the Election Petition with tears on his pillows.

The life and biography of John Mahama is about scheming and dribbling; not about accomplishment and capacity to deliver, much more to excel, which is reflected in the wasting of a huge legacy left him by his predecessors.

John Mahama may be like the man who was crucified together with Jesus Christ on the cross; instead of looking forward to what fate had for him, he was engrossed in a useless, unproductive joke about the man who had crossed that bridge which trapped many a fanciful character.

Again, like Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned, John Mahama is not even aware of the liability he has become to his party, which is compelling otherwise laid-back stalwarts of the party to move in to clear him out of the flag bearer slot. Instead of helping rebuild his crippled party, he is engaging in the same rubbish that he surrounded himself.

Poor John – grow up into a man! Corruption may not only be about greed and graft; it is also about deficiency of thought and action. Anywhere Mahama pops up, it is about one form of corruption or the other - from Kenya to Sierra Leone.

That should be his biggest worry, not Obinim or his sticker – and, certainly, not the NPP or the Nana Akufo-Addo government that is fixated in his imagination.

Finally, we at the Daily Statesman join the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, and other well-meaning Ghanaians, in urging him to refrain from lowering the standards of the nation’s political discourse and behave like a former president of the nation, who is supposed to be a statesman.

Many people are not happy – our former president is becoming too infantile for their liking.