STATESMAN OPINION: Dangerous Desperation For Votes

The length that President John Dramani Mahama and his National Democratic Congress government want to go in their desperate attempt to win the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections appears to have reached such dangerous heights where they are even prepared to allow lawlessness in the country.

The directive from the Inspector General of Police, ostensibly on the instructions of the Interior Minister, for the suspension of checks for documentation, road-worthiness and allied requirements of motorists is one of the desperate measures put in place to save President Mahama from the looming defeat staring him in the face.

Perceptibly, the dangerous directive from the government has the potential of increasing the already worrying car theft situation in the country, and further thwarting the efforts of the MTTD to rid the streets of Accra and other municipalities of lawlessness among motorists.

In their desperation to perpetuate their ill-administration, we have seen the President and his functionaries distributing freebies such as pans, outboard motors, among other things, across the length and breadth of the country to the electorate.

Again, Ghanaians woke up last Wednesday to the news that the indecisive President had made a sharp U-turn to assure that his government would be paying trainee-nurses their allowance, after insisting that he was ready to lose this year’s election than restore the allowance scrapped by his government.

But the fact that we have seen a cross section of Ghanaians condemning these acts of desperation means the President has already lost the plot.

Members of the Ghana Committed Drivers Association see the suspension of motor checks as a desperate political chicanery by the Mahama government to deceptively court the votes of commercial drivers.

According to them, “the decision by the IGP to us is only a lame and desperate attempt by the Mahama-led government to bribe commercial drivers to vote for the NDC following years of implementing punishing policies against us.”

Like the many increasingly discerning Ghanaians, the drivers say President Mahama and his collaborators will be living in the fool’s paradise to think that such tricks and insincere actions can cut any ice on them to cast their votes in favour of a president and a party whose actions have been very inimical to their welfare in the last eight years.

Having failed woefully in the management of the affairs of the country, President Mahama thinks what is left for him is to employ various dubious means to woo the people for their votes.

But he can be assured that the Ghanaian voter is now more discerning than ever before. Ghanaians no longer want a government that will impoverish them for eight years and seek to buy their conscience when it is time for elections.