Jean Mensa
Honourable Madam Jean Mensa, I
admit you’re not one of my students in the American Government/Political Science
class in order to subject you to these long and boring lectures before going
straight to whatever advice I have under my sleeve. Hopefully, you will come to
accept that a sizable number of college-level lecturers are given to providing
“serpentine” contexts in many of their presentations; often the main purpose is
for contextual clarity. It’s against this backdrop that this one must be
understood.
By the way, events happened in political
space, workplaces, schools, churches, mosques and indeed in our lives all the
time. These occurrences help humanize our interactions and other endeavours. Also,
there are certain developments that play out in our midst every day that are so
bizarre and petty that finding the “head and tail” of those events/problems is
nearly impossible or it becomes wild goose chase. The classic example here is the
political pettiness and the false construct of moral equivalence the Mahama-NDC
faction is putting up in its incessant demonization of the current Electoral
Commissioner, Madam Jean Mensa.
In a normal political
atmosphere in which reasonable and relatively selfless debate of national
issues by a viable opposition party that genuinely has the country’s supreme
interest at heart, this unrequested advice wouldn’t have been relevant. But, as
Ms. Jean Mensa knows by now, the current NDC brand that is advertised by ex-President
John D. Mahama is not one’s typical opposition party with a conventional aspirant
for the presidency.
This is because it’s the first
time in Ghana’s political history a defeated-incumbent-former president is fiercely
contesting again the seat of the presidency he lost by the widest margin to his
main challenger. On that basis alone, Mr. Mahama appears to see everything
through the prism of “dog eat dog world” political campaign of a lifetime!
As many of us have written over
and over again, a sober reflection of the NDC’s 2020 flag bearer’s public
and/or behind-the-scene pronouncements/demeanours depict a leader super
nervous, paranoid, vindictive, and “mad as hell” as Americans would say. Obviously,
JDM cannot wrap his head around the reality that he lost the 2016 presidential
elections fairly.
And to add insult into injury, one
of his “gold standard legacies” in the form of Ghana’s electoral institution represented
by his specially-chosen former EC Ms. Charlotte Osei has been lawfully disentangled
under the Akufo-Addo-led NPP government. So it is as if the current president
has unleashed a merciless bodily blow onto the face of the ex-president and
right after the harmful blow the Kyebi Tough Guy tells the Bole Show Boy to
make sure he doesn’t cry loud.
Based on the humiliating scenario
above, it’s surprising on some occasions Mr. Mahama forgets he is no longer
president, so he acts/talks as if Ghana has a “co-president” and that person’s name
is Mr. John D. Mahama. Then again, this makes him presumably behave he is not
like any other presidential contestant running for the highest office of this
nation.
For some reasons, JDM and his
deep-dyed supporters seem to believe the EC through some foul means can make
one win an election and become president of Ghana in this age of prying social
media at the election collation centres. Other than that what else could have
been the driving force behind all these insults, disrespect, and accusations
Mr. Mahama, Asiedu Nketia, and many others within the NDC see in Ms. Jean Mensa
that poses threat to them or for that matter creates a stumbling block against any
party’s equal chance of winning the 2020 general elections? If today’s EC can
easily rig presidential election for a particular candidate, none of us will be
having this conversation in that ex-President Mahama’s hand-picked then EC
Charlotte Osei would have definitely made it possible for her “golden boy” JDM to
win re-election in 2016.
Any clear-thinking Ghanaian
knows the current EC Ms. Jean Mensa has absolutely nothing to do with the
self-defeatist behaviour of Ms. Charlotte Osei that conspired to ferment her
sacking as the EC. Thus, the argument that from day one the NPP top brass has
never liked Ms. Osei as then EC and that the party wanted her to go long time
ago while in opposition and in power is childishly laughable.
Ms. Charlotte Osei created her
own miserable circumstances leading to her shameful firing from the EC
position. She gave her so-called detractors in the NPP a solid legal/constitutional
basis to initiate her removal. It’s worth mentioning that the country’s
constitution is very clear regarding the right steps to remove the EC in the
event of dishonest behaviour. The occupant of that office cannot be dismissed in
any arbitrary manner by anyone, not even the all-powerful executive president
of the republic.
Yet, the NDC spearheaded by its
General Secretary Asiedu Nketia backed by the party’s flag bearer Mr. Mahama
are trying hard to create moral equivalence with fallacious underpinnings because
Ms. Jean Mensa and her predecessor Ms. Charlotte Osei have management pathways
that are poles apart, unrelated, and incomparable in terms of class and competence
levels. But this variant NDC group does not care about the falsehoods they put in
the air to mislead Ghanaians—including some of the clueless media—for power.
In fact, one of the prominent members
of the NDC, Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, is reported to have observed that his party
lost in the last general elections in part because they lacked good
intellectual base capable of framing national debate anchored in coherent
policy issues to win the hearts and minds of millions of Ghanaians.
It’s why my unrequested advice
to Ms. Jean Mensa is that she must stop (if she is doing it) taking the bait
from—especially—Mr. Asiedu Nketia and his political idol ex-President Mahama
whose campaign flourishes on propaganda, insinuations, and conspiracy theories.
The EC must not give any party the chance to drag her independent office into a
baseless back and forth accusations of unfairness. Do not allow the
ideas-bereft campaign machine of the ex-president to turn you into the P.R.O of
the Electoral Commission.
If any party honestly has
serious issues relating to the commission, the law court is there to resolve
it. The NDC will never stop cynically pushing your buttons to get under your
skin in an insulting manner. It’s one of the party’s grand schemes for 2020
elections and it was hatched by Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo with the full approval of Mr.
John D. Mahama. Rise above the pettiness of Mr. Asiedu Nketia and co. Many of
us know your quality, Ma’am.
Bernard Asubonteng is US-based writer
By Bernard Asubonteng
The post My Unrequested Advice To The EC appeared first on DailyGuide Network.
