JDM set to become Ghana’s first magician - Enimil Ashon writes

On his way to the Jubilee House is a man in whom the nation has invested its future, but from whom over 60 per cent of the population is expecting very little transformation. 

Don’t blame Ghanaians: Eight years ago, in 2016, they made a similar choice at the poll, pouring unprecedented tonnes of goodwill into this man’s predecessor.

Eight years later, the people’s verdict on Akufo Addo’s performance is summed up in the margin of defeat suffered by both his party and its flag bearer, Dr Bawumia, in the 2024 election: a total repudiation of their confidence in 2016.

Ghana is at the point where biblical Israel was, 3,000 or so years ago when a certain Finance Minister doubted the ability of even God to turn the situation around “tomorrow by this time”.

In his first 100 days in office, the problem that will become a gnawing toothache for John Dramani Mahama is not how he will be able to solve the problem of inflation, breathe hope into the country’s macro-economic indicators.

It is how soon he can return the size of kenkey to pre-COVID-19 level; how long before the cedi recovers its strength against the dollar, and how to arrest fuel price increases.  

To whom shall Mahama turn? Magic?

The mention of magic brings up a question: where have all those magic “professors” disappeared to? Magicians strutted the stage from the 60s through the 80s with “Obu-yaya”.  They could conjure everything into existence.

As children and adolescents, we looked forward eagerly to their next visit; at least, we could get an egg conjured from the backside of people they called to the stage.

Come to think of it, where are they? Have magicians become an endangered species?

At least, the Americans still have David Copperfield, the man who could “command” an aircraft to disappear, the Statue of Liberty to vanish and reappear, who could walk through the Great Wall of China and fly on stage for several minutes.

Sadly and disappointingly, all these “miracles” were (are) classified as illusions – unreal.

Magic doesn’t (can’t) solve human problems.

But the God of Mahama can turn water into wine; He fed 600,000 men (not counting women and children) as Biblical Israel journeyed across the desert.

For all that he promised Ghanaians, including adding public schools to the Free SHS coverage, even his best friends are wondering, where is the money going to come from?

E-Levy offers hope but Mahama has pledged to cancel it, in addition to COVID-19 levy and “nuisance taxes”. Brethren, let us pray.

Meanwhile, can we spare a minute or two to look at the conduct of the 2024 elections, or all elections since 1992, for that matter?

On Friday, December 6, there was news of armed “soldiers” cocking their rifles against policemen who had been called into a building in Accra where bundles of thumb-printed ballot papers were being kept.

Mid-morning of December 7, social media reported the discovery of 500,000 thumb-printed ballots in a house at Kwadaso in Kumasi.

Who were these criminals? To which police stations were they sent? Are they still in cells? When are they to be put before court?

For me, the overarching question is, where did they get the ballot papers from? Remember the leakage that compelled a reprint for Western and Central? Ghanaian police can retrieve buried bodies under concrete slabs; surely they trace the source of the leakage.

But, it will bear asking: with all the tightness of election security in Ghana, with the days of opaque ballot boxes gone, and with the eagle eyes of Election Observers and party agents at the polling station all trained on the ballot box placed in the open, how can over 800,000 thumb-printed extra ballots find their way into ballot boxes?

Finally, even if they had succeeded in pouring them into the ballot boxes, wouldn’t this act have reflected as over-voting?

If the deals are cooked at the Collation Centre, how will it be possible when agents of all the parties have their own copies of pink sheets on which have been entered voting results from the polling stations, and signed? 

LGBTQI

On Sunday, a few minutes after Bawumia’s concession speech, a member of the Family Values Coalition called me. He was reminding me that the LGBTQI Bill passed by Parliament last February remained unsigned. He wanted me to remind Mahama…

Flagstaff, Jubilee House?

Meanwhile, is this nation not too hungry and broke to be threatened (or promised) with arguments over whether to maintain the name, Jubilee House or return to the colonial legacy of Flagstaff House? Did Mahama really promise a change of name?

If he fears the God of his Assemblies of God church, my advice is that this change of name is absolutely unnecessary, totally petty and economically burdensome. We would have to redesign and reprint all stationery.

Tread cautiously, JDM. Your wife will tell you about the Akan saying that, to know how death looks like, take a look at sleep.  

The writer is Executive Director,
Centre for Communication and Culture.
E-mail: ashonenimil@gmail.com