When we go to the polls, we vote for a president and a member of Parliament, it ends there.
As far as people in power are concerned, of the thousands appointed, every individual has the power to influence the selection of two, the President and the MP.
It is then up to the President to make appointments into various sectors. These positions are not advertised for other competent citizens to vie for them, he selects from the very few pool of people around him. If they perform, he gets all the credit and so if they fail, he is to be held responsible.
In the previous administration, when SADA happened, we all came out to lambast the former President, there was the bus branding, former President was fingered, there was SUBER and what have you, in all of these, he was faulted. In fact, if a DCE in Asakragua misbehaved, Mahama was conspicuously grafted into it. Every single scandal was directly blamed on the former President.
These allegations contributed to his embarrassing electoral defeat.
Today, power has changed hands and the narrative has changed drastically, when there is a scandal, we condemn those in change of that specific sector without mentioning the President. There was allegations against his two deputy Chief of Staff, right at the seat of government and the focus was firmly on just the two of them, cash for seat and it was the ministry even though he was the object for patronage, BOST happened, it was about Alfred Obeng, GMA, it was about Kwame Owusu.
Even when the Cedi falls and the economy is struggling, we are comfortable calling out the Veep than the President himself.
It appears that of all the people in government, the one we expect the least from is the President himself.
In deed, we cannot say the President was responsible for some of the scandals but the question is, who appointed them? What went into the decision to appoint them?
The PLA boss exposed is a financier of the NPP, he paid money to help Nana get elected, the GMA Boss was a financier, same with the BOST, same with the Metro Mass boss who was exposed and sacked. Most of the scandals are linked to people who sponsored the party in opposition.
Now, can’t we say the President was compromised in his appointments? Can’t we say positions were given based on who paid what in opposition? If you give sensitive positions to political investors, don’t you expect them to recoup their investments? This is what his happening
Many positions were sold in opposition before power was won, those people have to raise the money invested and make profit.
In the past, party financiers were given contracts, today, they are given sensitive state institutions so they can steal every day to make up for the money spent.
In view of this, our president is not a victim of the ongoing wrongs, like Mahama, he is responsible for each of them.
We can’t substitute men of integrity for men with deep pockets in leadership positions and ensure that we’d have patriots at the helm of affairs.
Until the people we appoint know that they will pay the price for the wrongs of their appointees, we are never going to see the much needed change.
In a country with weak institutions like this, it takes calling out the man who calls all the shots to get things done right.
We cannot change the narrative because there is a new guy in town, as it was in the NDC days, so should it be today.
I voted for Nana to right the wrongs of Mahama, he has rather pushed us to extreme left, Ghana is bleeding with corruption like never before under this government. Whoever thought this would happen in a government presided over by the ‘much feared Nana’?
But he is there clearing people of wrongdoing.
Companies are losing contracts because party boys are forming same and taking over. This is the country our President is presiding over but we are all pretending our president is clean and that his appointees are bad.
No, he must be held responsible so that he will realise the need to act.
In the end, it is only the President who is accountable to us, he is the one presented to us to assess, this is why we have a duty to put him on his toes. If we blame others for wrongs but him when he is the one who put them there, the we are getting it wrong.
We have to be honest in this nation, I am shocked by the posture of the media in all of these, I know how together we took on the previous adminstration, why have we suddenly shunned the very principles and standards used to measure the previous government?
I’m just imagining how we’d have reacted if Mahama appointed over 120 Minister’s and gave more than 10 relations positions including his daughter.
But we say it with decorum because power has changed hands.
Some of us will take a stand for Ghana and speak truth to power regardless of the cost, we have to bequeath a better country to our children to give a little means to our insatiable quest to procreate
There is an Akan proverb that says: “ɔpanin a ɔtena hɔ ma nkwalaa wi nanka no, yebu nnankawefoɔ a, ɔka ho”.
An adult who sits ideal for children to eat python is counted as a python eater.
Our President Nana Akufo Addo is a python eater.
isaackyeiandoh@yahoo.com