‘I want Mahama to fail…’ - Enimil Ashon writes
On July 2, 2025, former Subin MP Eugene Boakye Antwi made a wish: “I want Mahama to fail so that my party can come to power in 2028.”
He was speaking in a radio interview. A journalist who did a story from the interview wrote a biting intro: “(The former MP) has sparked controversy with a blunt declaration of political loyalty”.
His back to the wall in the face of critical commentary from listeners, the MP wished he could eat his words, but listeners noted that he had only affirmed the truism, confirmed by the Christian Bible, that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”.
The reporter’s intro sums up what I have always suspected, that many of our politicians (especially those who rent macho men to beat and maim opponents) are in the political contest not to offer the nation the best minds in the grand contestation of ideas for setting Ghana on a path to prosperity, but an opportunity to fulfil their pet wish, which is, to feel important in society, enjoy the title “Honourable” and bask in celebrity status while receiving salutes from MTTD policemen who wave them on because of the MP stickers on their cars.
Worth
For the nth time since 1992, I have asked myself: are we getting our money’s worth for all the investment we make to elect so many MPs and one President every four years when the truth is that in many constituencies in Ghana, even a goat will win the seat if it is decorated in the appropriate NPP/NDC colours?
With a mindset like this, how can we be sure that we are electing the best minds for the task of nation-building?
No wonder this nation has not significantly progressed beyond the early 1960s when, under visionary leadership, Ghana had more than 100 factories manufacturing nails, matches, corned beef, glass, etc, with Sanyo and Akasanoma assembling TV and radio sets (purely as an R&D bait to transfer technology).
Ghana had politicians who went to sleep dreaming of a Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, an Atomic Energy Commission, a medical school managed by Ghanaians, Ghana Airways piloted by Ghanaians and Black Star Line ships sailed and captained by Ghanaians.
With a 1992 Constitution that promotes sychophancy over meritorious performance and conduct, brute macho muscle development over mental acuity, all we have been doing since 1992 has been over-borrowing to build infrastructure but I dare repeat that even SHS graduates, if elected President, will build toilets and bridges and roads; all it takes is to go cup in hand to IMF.
Adversarial
Meanwhile, the 1992 Constitution is too adversarial for any truly independent political and economic development because the winner-takes-all system has built violence into it.
Yet, it cannot be changed because no matter how many Constitutional Review Committees we set up, there will be resistance from a certain entrenched political class waiting for board, CEO or ministerial appointments by the President.
And now, as if the disappointing performance of our political class is not enough, we are also about to enter an era where political parties will organise all-night prayer meetings with one prayer: that the economy will crumble to discredit a party in office.
For the mass of the people, this means fetching “drinking water” from streams rendered colourful by cattle that pooh and pee into it; GH¢10 balls of kenkey and impossibly priced roast/boiled plantain.
In the thinking of former MP Eugene Boakye Antwi, all of the above will affect only NDC Ghanaians! What a mind for a man who seeks to be a leader!
I have a second piece this week. It’s about a certain man’s area, which the NPP National Youth Organiser, Salam Mustapha, has harboured in his heart about the upcoming Akwatia by-election.
This man threatens that if “we (NPP) do not get any assurances from the Ghana Police Service, we will carry pistols, cutlasses” to the polling station.
No Ghanaian who witnessed the scene of shame at the recent Ablekuma North re-run would wish this on Ghana again. It will be Armageddon, rivers of blood.
What have the masses of this country done to deserve such thoughtless cruelty at the hands of our so-called political class?
Should this National Organiser get hurt at Akwatia, he will be guaranteed a flight out of the country to the best hospitals overseas.
His compensation, on his return after recovery, can build him another house, another 4x4, leaving his classmates with whom he started school to borrow GH¢10 for the next day’s kenkey-fried fish-kpakpo shito, and stretch themselves on raffia mats for the night.
No system of governance in the world is fault-free, but the democracy Ghana is practising under the 1992 Constitution is not democracy at all: it not only worsens our poverty levels but also places daggers in the hands of people waiting for their appointment letters from the next President.
And we call this democracy!
