By Issifu Seidu Kudus Gbeadese
(Youth Imam from Laribanga)
0244198031
The 2024 general elections are over, and the rejected stone (President Mahama) has become the corner stone. He has won with a landslide victory. Ghanaians today feel as though we have just had our second independence.
Just when we thought the agenda-setters who found not their voices in the last 8 years, have been baptized by the worsened economic condition under President Akuffo-Addo, they have just woken up and have found their voices again.
They have started building their stock of conspiracy theories meant to put clogs on the way of H.E John Dramani Mahama beggining with the astute Dr. Callistus Mahama. This time, they are trying to net out the negative effect of the extreme nepotistic conducts of President Akuffo-Addo, by playing a game of equalization.
As expected of a desperate group who went deaf and dumb in the wake of the visible practice of family and friends under the Nana Addo’s administration, they are accusing President Mahama of jetting off with family and friends administration. This time around, their shots have been directed at the venerable Dr. Callistus Mahama—claiming that the latter is a family member of the Mahama’s by dint of the fact that he bears the same surname as the Mahama’s.
This is the weakest claim ever made by the so-called elites who saw nothing wrong with Gyankroma Akuffo-Addo’s appointment to the Creative Arts Board. How could anybody assume that because a Gonja has Mahama as his surname, it automatically makes the person a family member of President Mahama? Has the name Mahama been customized by President John Mahama and his family?
For the records, President Mahama and Dr. Callistus Mahama are from the extreme ends of Gonjaland—the former from the Western part of Gonja (Bole-Damongo) while the latter is from the Eastern Part of Gonjaland (Kafaba). So, the conversation of family and friends cannot fester on such a weak ground.
Let’s put this in proper context—yes, Dr. Callistus is a Gonja just as President Mahama but not a family member. Yes, a Gonja from any part of Gonjaland is a brother to another Gonja, but within the context of what has come to stay as political jargon in Ghana as “family and friend’s government”, Dr. Callistus and President Mahama relationship doesn’t fit in such a description.
Let’s even roll back into recent history. After President Akuffo-Addo assumed office in 2017, and the subsequent appointment of his family members including his own biological daughter, baby Mamas and direct cousins into very sensitive positions, we were told that those family members were qualified and that their qualifications should be the only standard measure and not their close relationship with President Akuffo -Addo. Even when Ken Ofori Atta fell short of his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Yale University and a Wall Street Banker, by plunging Ghana’s economy into a junk status, we were still told that he was such a successful investment banker and so we should overlook his incompetence and poor performance and suffer the by-products of his unbridled borrowing for consumption.
Assuming without admitting that Dr. Callistus Mahama were a family member of President Mahama and same rod is to be used to measure the direction of the above proposition, won’t Dr. Callistus qualify to occupy any position in government? In any case, what is the noise about? Just appointed to serve as the secretary to the Transition Team and the so called centre-neutrals can’t take a nap?
Before he took the appointment as the Head of the Local Government Service under the first regime of H.E John Dramani Mahama, Dr. Callistus Mahama was an accomplished academic with the KNUST Department of Land Economy. Between 2009 and 2013, he served as the Deputy Director and Head of the Accra Campus of the Institute of Local Government Studies after serving in a similar capacity in the Tamale Campus of the same institute between 2006 and 2009.
Equally important to note is that Dr. Callistus holds PhD in Land Law and an MPhil in Land Economy both from the University of Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. Indeed, Dr. Callistus is a silent achiever—in St Augustine’s in around 1994, he came out as an outstanding student (best student) in Ghana. These are hidden achievements Dr. Callistus won’t boast about.
In office as the head of the Local Government Service, Dr Callistus initiated and supervised the current Administrative Decentralization Policy that has seen the effectiveness in local authorities in the performance of their decentralized functions.
Dr. Callistus is a disciplined administrator whose sterling reputation and hard work earned him the current position as one of the closest aide in the office of H.E John Dramani since the latter became Former in 2017. So, if competence, academic qualification, integrity, honesty and dedication to duty were just the standard measure for anybody to occupy any position, why should anybody question Dr. Callistus Mahama’s appointment?
Let me even beg to ask, between Dr. Callistus who has expanded expertise and experience in public life and Ken Ofori Atta who was only a private investment banker with leading demonstrations and processions as the only experience in the public life, who should be appointed to occupy very sensitive public office?
Let this caution be thrown to the smear-campaigners and agenda-setters that not even their propaganda pulpits can pull down the towers of reputation built by Dr. Callistus. And if they try to get his name smeared as they did to President Mahama in his first regime, they should get ready to face it off with a tinted firewall built by some of us to defend the likes of Dr. Callistus Mahama and President John Dramani Mahama.
If these so called neutrals and patriots kept quiet and never spoke against the nepotism practiced in it’s worse form under Nana Akuffo-Addo, why should they have a problem with Dr. Callistus Mahama even if the latter were a family member of H.E President John Mahama? Dr. Callistus is here to stay, and so, I will humbly request them to brace themselves for his presence in H.E John Mahama’s administration.
Shalom!!!
