It was a normal afternoon at Wesley Girls' Senior High School when I received a parcel from the General Office.
It was during the period of the WASSCE therefore my parcel had already been scanned (which I was not too happy about but it was for the good of the school).
Well, I was not really expecting any gifts from anyone because my mother had already visited me two weeks earlier hence my 'chop-box' was running over with provisions. So I opened the parcel and to my surprise the gift was from the Office of the President!
It contained an autographed copy of his book 'My first coup d'etat' (which I started reading as soon as I laid hands on it) along with a letter. Then I remembered that I had written a letter to H.E President John Mahama some weeks back.
In the letter, I gave suggestions on various topics - education, infrastructure, tourism, interaction with citizens and even went ahead to talk about the nature of the roads to most of our tourist sites which need to be improved. Even though I wrote the letter, I doubted that I would get a reply but I wrote and posted it anyway.
So it was quite surprising and humbling to know that my voice was heard. This experience along with current occurrences has taught me a lot concerning the President (some of which I would share soon).
Though I may not agree with some of the decisions and actions he took during his term of office, I would like to focus on the positives in this article.
First of all, I would say that his letter to me taught me a lot of things:
1. My voice was important. He could have ignored whatever I wrote in my letter (after all I was just a second year General Science student who had little experience about matters involving governance at the time) but he chose to respond. This made me realize the power of communication especially through letters.
2. His reply was encouraging. In the letter, he was very appreciative of the fact that I took initiative to express my thoughts and he expressed keen interest in my progress at school. He went ahead to give me some encouraging words as well.
3. His book was informative, intriguing and entertaining. I learnt a lot about leadership and decision-making through his book. From what I watch on television, I think President John Mahama has a great sense of humor and an entertaining personality therefore I wasn't surprised that I kept flipping each page with some form of excitement wishing the stories never came to an end. I also got the chance to have a peek into his youthful years of life.
These last two points are not based on my direct interaction with him but on certain events.
4. Respect for the rule of law. The Election Petition revealed a lot about the President and our country at large. However, one of the lessons I will never forget is to respect the rule of law irrespective of one's position. Even though President John Mahama was in power at the time, he went through court proceedings and allowed the systems to work as they should hence corroborating his respect for the rule of law in this situation.
5. A patriot, lover of peace and democracy. Today, I use these words to describe the President because of his courage to accept defeat and respect the will of the people despite his wishes.
This is not to imply that he is perfect. However, I believe that Ghana is blessed to have had such a president.In the same spirit of happiness and patriotism I say congratulations to President-elect Nana Akufo-Addo. I have not had the opportunity to interact with President-elect Nana Akufo-Addo but from a distance, I admire his courage,persistence and resilience.
Lastly, I am not a member of any political party; I wrote this because I believe in acknowledging good values. I want to assume he replied to many others like me, which would really be a good thing.
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Source: Naa Adzoa Adzeley Boi-Dsane
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You only observe one side of issues that occurred during his presidency. You failed to observe how the sitting president has been insulted every now and then. Please next time don't be biased in your observation. If any president in the history of our country has been vilified and humiliated then that person is Mahama. Until we begin to see things the way they are our country will be where it is. I am just wondering how people are behaving as if Akuffo Addo is an angel and will not steal from the nations coffers to pay his numerous amount of debts incurred over the past years for his quest to be president. We can only judge after four years. Please be objective in your observations.
I AM VERY SURPRISE YOU DIDN'T GET A CAR LIKE THOSE SO-CALLED "MAHAMA LADIES" RECEIVED THROUGH "FA WO TO BEGYE CAR". ANYWAY, MAYBE THE LETTER YOU RECEIVED IS A PRELUDE OR INITIATION TO BE PART OF OR GET INTO "MAHAMA LADIES". PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU CANNOT GET INTO "MAHAMA LADIES" WITHOUT "FA WO TO BEGYE CAR". I AM EAGER TO SEE THE TYPE OF CAR YOU WOULD BE DRIVING IN THE NEXT SIX MONTH.
Naa, I also think on the same lines as you, the problem with me is Who is a leader? How does we expect a leader to behave? Our leader, here the president didn't behave like a good leader because he couldn't control properly those who worked under him especially the young ones. The insults to political opponents were too much for some of us. The treatment for his appointees who were perceived to be corrupt was not good enough. Why does he remove them from their appointment only to be taken to the presidency? If they were not good at their previous post why the presidency. Anyway these were some of my observations , other than that Mr Mahama personally was a good man but not a good leader. GOD BLESS GHANA.
John lost the seat,because people didnt like him,as our president,because he is a northerner. Are dams not infrastures?The man did a good job,ghanaians lied about him. Traders who told us that,they cant pay fees,reducesd their item prices.And you know what is the meaning?Is a great cures on us,specially who voted.God dont have His Hands in npp winning. So let us prepare ourselves.
This is beautiful!!!
revealing!
Nice.