By Abdul Razak Bawa
The Vice-president, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has become like a decorated, who is paraded for public amusement and then will be thrown to the dogs, after he finishes serving his purpose. In short, he has become a means to an end.
Many may not know or have chosen to forget, but in the lead-up to the 2016 general elections, we were told and rightly so, through his public lectures that, he was the messiah to take us out of our economic mess. The promise land envisaged by our founding fathers for a country flowing with milk and honey, is within reach, because Providence, has sent us our Moses.
In many of his lectures, he played very well to the gallery, he did not express his opinions and the diagnoses as a Ghanaian, but a politician, who had his eyes set on merely helping his party to win an election and not one who sincerely believes that for our country to flourish and live up to the dreams of our forebears, the interest of every part of the country called Ghana, should be factored into the decision-making processes of government.
Dr Bawumia, became a household name, a poster boy for economics, he was at that time the best vice-president this country has ever had, until the New Patriotic Party won the 2016 elections.
We have come to understand that, you don’t rush development, you plan it. When President John Dramani Mahama, came into office in 2013, he slowly and practically embarked on silent rejuvenation of our governance template; in fact, he didn‘t come up with anything novel, he harnessed the policies and initiatives on ground to achieve results.
The scales begun to fall off the eyes of Ghanaians and Dr Bawumia himself. Since 1992, when we ushered in the Fourth republican dispensation, the office of the vice-president is generally considered to be the graveyard of political careers. It is a lonely office.
It is also a miserable office. The name vice, means “in place of”. It typically serves as a pro-tempore (Latin) for the time being to the president.
Former US vice president, Walter Mondale, says “since the start of our nation, the vice presidency has been an awkward office, its occupants have, by and large, been notoriously unhappy”.
Vice presidents suffer and endure in silence and the worst thing is that there is little they can do about it.
Getting out of sight is a solution most favoured by presidents, hence, most often the job schedule of vice presidents is to attend funerals, birthdays, anniversaries, lectures, seminars, retreats, etc. They do not really belong to the inner caucus of the president. If anything goes wrong they are always suspects.
Between 2005 to 2009, the most powerful person then apart from president John Agyekum Kufuor, is not his vice-president, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, but Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani, his Chief of Staff and minister of presidential affairs.
Dr Bawumia, who played a significant role in the 2016 electoral victory of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, , cannot be claimed to belong to the so-called cabal, the inner caucus ruling the country, made mostly of family members and friends of the president, who have become stupendously rich in the last six years.
I do not know what the current Vice-president, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia is going through. But talking generally of the office, it is a dead-end job.
Dr Bawumia has become like the human appendix, a vestigial organ on the body politic, with no relevance and say.
It has been said in different ways that the future is not predictable and there was nothing in the lead up to the 2016 election to suggest that, all the suggestions, and recommendations Dr Bawumia, regarding how to steer the economy out of the quagmire we found ourselves at the time, will not see the light of day, when his party comes to power.
Ghanaians had hope in Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP, because of Dr Bawumia, no one can convince me or any political watcher that, Dr Bawumia’s lectures did not make a difference in the 2016 elections.
The economy, has been run down by Akufo-Addo and his family members. There is no end in sight to the suffering of Ghanaians and things are not getting better anytime soon, only until the NPP is out of office.
The person who is taking the blame for the economic mismanagement is Dr Bawumia. As if that is not enough, when the vice-president realized, he will not get his way with the president and his family and sometimes friends, he decided to channel his energies into something meaningful and relevant and that is digitalization.
Digitalization is what runs the world today. Every country, has natural resources, they have human capital, what makes the difference between country A and country B, is digitalization.
Dr Bawumia, has decided that, he will commit himself to ensure Ghana will not be left behind in the digital world. The country he believes should reap the benefit of digitalization and we have already seen the fruits of his effort.
The Minister of Communications, Ursula Ekuful Owusu, is also making sure that, the effort of the vice-president goes to waste with her Gestapo approach towards the Sim card re-registration exercise.
Like Ken Ofori-Atta the minister of Finance, she is also desperately undoing everything he has done and as we say in local parlance, she is pouring sand in his gari.
Next year’s National Delegates Conference of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) election to elect its flagbearer, will be significant and consequential. Unfortunately, for Dr Bawumia, that election will be a make or break for him, remember he is inheriting all the enemies of president Akufo-Addo, and as they say, the sins of the father will be visited on him.
He is a good man, with a bad boss. Akufo-Addo, his family and friends, want to go down with an innocent man. It is obvious the president does noto take the vice president completely into his confidence, if he does, the economy won’t be in tatters.
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