Ghanaians have commended the former President John Mahama for displaying exemplary leadership and intellectual inquisitiveness the nation needs at this crucial time.
The former President has demonstrated through his suggestions and advice to the government and appeals to the citizenry on the coronavirus pandemic that he is best equipped to lead the country. The former President managed to balance a cool, showed confidence throughout his address with uniquely inspirational oratory in a manner that has not been seen in the last three years. The former President, demonstrated a clear and secure grasp of the issue.
According to most Ghanaians, President Mahama’s show of maturity and genuine support for government at this crucial point will have a lasting impact and influence on the fight to eliminate the pandemic totally from our country.
For sometime now, Ghanaians have developed and evidenced features of political animosity, passivity and indolence. Such traits are easily found among the citizenry and politicians alike. Individual politicians have adopted and tied themselves to political parties, political philosophies and beliefs held by their party. The citizenry have also built a bias that could be suggested to have impacted their ability to judge the astuteness or otherwise of political leaders correctly. The former President’s attitude has taken our politics to another level. He placed the interest of Ghana above all other issues throughout his presentation and displayed genuine love for his country and respect for the establishment.
Addressing the nation via social media, the former President said he has instructed his communication team and public health advisors to support any efforts by the Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Health to kick out the coronavirus. According to the former President, he has asked all former appointees of his administration who assisted in our readiness efforts during the Ebola epidemic to aid the government in whatever way they can if requested to do so.
The former President appealed to all Ghanaians to rise above partisanship and politics to enable us combine our energies towards the fight against the devil called coronavirus. He called on government to make public, a comprehensive plan on how it intends to handle this emergency and assured government that he and party will be supportive of all measures and actions the administration takes but will at the same time hold it accountable.
The former President appealed to government to establish isolation centers in all the 16 regions and give assurance to our front line workers and insurance package for personnel who may become severely infected in their line of duty. He also asked government to provide adequate testing kits and protective equipments to our health personnel. He also advised government to respond to the associated economic challenges as other nations are doing to protect the country’s economy.
The former President also mentioned misinformation, panic and fear and the need to establish online networks and other digital connections to relay information and more importantly, dispel false claims with facts.
The economic consequences of the outbreak may well be more significant for Ghana and other African countries than the epidemiological impact. With China’s economic growth predicted to drop at least from 6.1 to 5.6 percent as a result of the coronavirus, African economies will also be affected. This was the reason why the former President appealed to government to consider our economic responses as well as our health safeguard. Australia is losing over AU$1 billion monthly as a result of the pandemic.
Over the past few months, former President Mahama has crafted a clear vision for the nation of the type of change he represent and what he is going to add to what he achieved in office. He has defined a series of fundamental reforms to our nation’s health and education systems including government support for private schools, scrapping of the double track system, cancellation of teacher licensure exams etc.