MANASSEH’S FOLDER: Jose Mourinho, John Mahama and Osama Bin Laden

Sacked Chelsea coach, Jose Mourinho

Jose Mourinho is one of the most successful coaches of the Chelsea Football Club. He won the English Premier League with Chelsea last season. This season, however, things went very bad for the Blues. This week, the team fired him.

I have watched a number of the matches Chelsea lost in the Premiership this season. I am not a football expert and my analysis of the game is very limited. But in some of the games, Chelsea played all the football but could not get a goal. Hard luck. What is happening in Chelsea is inexplicable. Some football analysts I listen to have not been able to wrap their heads around a solid reason for the dramatic fall of Chelsea from grace to grass.

But owners of the team thought it was the coach’s fault. So they fired him.

Let us return home to the Republic of Ghana. In 2012 a man called John Dramani Mahama​ put himself up for election. He and his team campaigned very hard and fought hard to be given the mandate to rule this country. Mr Mahama promised to solve our problems.

Our topmost concern was the fact that we did not have power. President Mahama said that in the first year of his Presidency, he would solve the power crises. We were happy.

Those who were so passionate about him joined the campaign train. Some suffered fractured skulls. Others, broken limbs. Just to ensure his election. On December 7, 2012, Ghanaians went to the polls. We queued for hours. And voted him as our leader. He became the custodian of our collective interest, the trustee of our nation’s wealth. And the keeper of the billions of dollars he has borrowed and continues to borrow in our name. And we look up to him to deliver what he promised us.

Our elders say whatever a man says in the night can be taken for a drunken talk, but what he says in the morning should be taken seriously. Why? No man remains drunk till the following day.

So are political talks. Whatever a politician says on a campaign platform can be likened a drunken talk. But whatever he says after the election must be taken seriously. So President John Mahama continued with the promises. We believed him. And some of us whose faith is greater than the biblical prophets of old still trust him.

President John Dramani Mahama

The power crises are still with us. Corruption has become synonymous with the Mahama administration. Mismanagement has become the order of the day. And no one is held accountable for the mess we are deeply in.

When Mahamudu Buhari was elected President of Nigeria, he told Nigerians not be afraid of him. “As I said in my inaugural speech, I bear no ill will against anyone on past events. Nobody should fear anything from me. We are not after anyone. People should only fear the consequences of their actions,” he told Nigerians in his  address on the nation’s 50th Independence Anniversary.

Under President Mahama, however, no one is responsible for any action. Don’t fall for the few scapegoats that are often used to fool us. I mean the situation such as Clement Kofi Humado being used as a witness against Abuga Pele in the GYEEDA scandal. Under President Mahama, the GYEEDA scandal, which revealed the looting of almost ONE BILLION CEDIS between 2009 and 2012,  was broken. SADA was meant to help the poor people in the North, but that too was hijacked and looted. SUBAH thought us that one can be paid for barbering someone’s hair when the one whose hair is supposed to be barbered has never seen the barber. About GHc100 million was paid before the SUBAH actually connected their machines to the telcos it was supposed to be monitoring. All those who signed these contracts are free. No one loses sleep over these endless slideshow of scandals that keep rocking our poor republic.

I am not a governance expert, but what I know is that if a leader is not successful in tackling corruption, nothing in the government will work. Corruption grinds every moving machine of the state to a halt. And that is what corruption has done to Ghana.

When we blame the president for the rot under his watch, we are reminded that he cannot be responsible. All Ghanaians should be blamed, his supporters tell us.

When we blame the government, we are reminded that all of us are all part of government. The NDC government!  This is rubbish. I am a journalist. I am a Ghanaian, but not a member of the government. When they say “the government and the people of Ghana”, I belong to the latter.

When we complain about corruption, we are reminded that all Ghanaians are corrupt.

I wish to state that I am not corrupt. I wish to state that I know Ghanaians who are not corrupt. I wish to state that majority of Ghanaians are not corrupt. We have only a few thieves who are looting what belongs to all of us. Not all Ghanaians are corrupt.

If you are corrupt, own up! If you are a thief, own up! If you are part of the rot, own up! Don’t seek solace in tagging every Ghanaian as corrupt. Don’t roast “momoni” and push it into our mouths. Not all Ghanaians are corrupt.

And if you are one of those who think that the leader of the nation should not be blamed for our mess, then let me remind you about three things:

Jose Mourinho was not on the pitch. He was not the striker for the team. But he was fired for the failure of his team to score. Mahama is the coach of Team Ghana.

Kumasi and the Ashanti Region became so insecure that armed robbers were able to move in a convoy in broad daylight. When DCOP Kofi Boakye took over as the Ashanti Regional Police Commander, things changed. The region is no longer a safe haven for any criminal or lawbreakers. We saw the arrests of Kwaw Kese,Baffour Gyan and other high profile people who thought they could take the law into their own hands. With the same amount resources, Kofi Boakye’s leadership has made Ashanti the best policed region in the country.

When America killed Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda became very weak. Security experts say one of the surest ways to defeat ISIS is to eliminate their leaders. What does this teach us?

Leadership is key to the success or failure of any entity. And Ghana is no exception.

If you still think that we should not blame the President and his government for our woes, the question I ask is: “Should we blame my father in the village who has no power to stop the stealing and order the prosecution of the thieves?”

Let’s get serious. And begin to reason with the contents of our skulls if this nation will progress.