WHY MARTIN AMIDU CANNOT SUPPORT MAHAMUDU BAWUMIA’S CANDIDATURE AT THE 2024 ELECTIONS: BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU

“If gold rust, what then will iron do? For if a priest be foul in whom we trust, no wonder that a common man should rust.” – Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

On Sunday, 24 November 2024, I read a Ghana Web reportage carried under the banner headline: “2024 Elections: If your mother is at the funeral, you cannot be denied Tuo Zaafi - Bawumia to Walewale residents.”

After reading the news report, I became convinced instantly that Mahamudu Bawumia lacked the honesty, high moral character and proven integrity demanded of the high office of the President of Ghana under the 1992 Constitution.

My memory sent me to a document I had been privy to as the Special Prosecutor in which the first of Nana Akufo-Addo’s guiding principles which he told to a friend who restated them in a handwritten recollection was as follows: “Ohene sℇ wo foro akoŋwa yi na sℇ wo aŋya sika a, wↄ bℇka sℇ wo yℇ okwasanpa ni”, however, that does NOT mean that ONLY ... [name] and ... [name] alone should make ALL the money ... the money must spread.”

I have tried to type out the twi words in twi characters as written in hand using a computer as accurately as I can, which translated in my understanding means that: “A chief who ascends a stool and does not get rich, would be said to be a foolish old man.”

I shall explain how I came by Nana Akufo-Addo’s guiding principles in due course.

But I was flabbergasted, as I least expected that Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the son of my late friend, Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, a two-time Chairperson of the Council of State under the 1992 Constitution, an honest and leading northern politician who fought tirelessly for the development of the British Protectorate of Northern Territories of the Gold Coast Colony and Ashanti (NT) until the North became part of a unitary Republic of Ghana would be so unlike his father and exhibit the highest degree of moral turpitude and selfishness in public office as a Vice-President wishing to become the next President of Ghana.

I was puzzled at how this could happen to Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia’s son years after his demise and burial when the John Agyekum Kufuor government ignored the sad event without any state participation in the burial and funeral rites of such an honourable and distinguished Northerner of impeccable character and integrity.

As I pondered upon how this could happen, my bank of knowledge brought to the fore the fact that the trait exhibited by Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia was an adulthood acquisition attributable to socialization through association with persons of a culture that endorses the new philosophy he propounded at the Walewale rally.

The answer to the puzzle surfaced when my bank of knowledge rebooted to an incident which occurred in 2018 when I was the Special Prosecutor at the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

One morning I was presented, without my asking, through an anti-corruption activist friend of mine, with a document with the subject matter: “GUIDING PRINCIPLES???” which was a memorandum addressed in hand to President Nana Akufo-Addo recounting a conversation between President Nana Akufo-Addo and a friend of his when he was the Foreign Minister then residing at his East Legon residence on the Ambassadorial Road just next to my late friend, DCOP Mr. J. A . Adams’ residence.

I was so alarmed by the content of the document that instead of destroying it after reading it as I was instructed by the sender, I rather sent the document by special delivery to the United Kingdom for safekeeping in case anything untoward befell me as the Special Prosecutor. I had to refresh my memory with the exact words used in stating Nana Akufo-Addo’s guiding principles that rhymed with Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s pronounced “guiding principle” should he become President of Ghana.

The reader who has been following my discourse on the 2024 elections and the competence of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as the anointed successor of President Akufo-Addo to be the sixth President of Ghana will recollect that I have been doubtful whether the Vice-President and flagbearer of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) was going to be any different from the governance style and principles of his mentor and promoter the President.

Bawumia’s declaration of principle of one’s mother being at the funeral ensuring that one cannot be denied Tuo Zaafi, rhymes with Nana Akufo-Addo’s guiding principles before he became President as contained in the document I received when I was the Special Prosecutor in 2018.

I, therefore, propose to set forth what Dr. Bawumia was quoted as having said to the residents of Walewale in his native West Mamprusi Municipal Assembly area alongside the message that was delivered to me in 2018 to put this matter into proper perspective.

Ghana Web with source as 3news.com quoted the NPP flagbearer and incumbent Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia as stating that:

“We have just two weeks to elect a president for Ghana. Imagine the feeling when they say the President of Ghana is from your home. God has given us a great chance, and that power can be beneficial because, per our constitution, whatever the President says is final. Just imagine that the power is in your own house.”

The news report paraphrased Dr. Bawumia as: “Citing a local proverb which means that if one has their own in the right places, what they deserve will not be denied them, the NPP flagbearer urged them to vote for none other than him,” and quoted him in the following words:

“That is why we say, if your mother is at the funeral, you cannot be denied TZ (Tuo Zaafi). You will just be enjoying TZ with good soup every day. ... Therefore, we must not joke with this opportunity. God has given us a great gift. God has given us a penalty and chosen a goalkeeper for us to score. John Mahama has been President before, and he can only do four years, but I can do eight years by the grace of God,”

President Nana Akufo-Addo’s “GUIDING PRINCIPLES???” I received which was dated 18 April 2018 contained three (3) distinct guiding principles, the first two of which the written recollection of the conversation listed as follows:

(i) “.... that on the aircraft from Mali/Niger? to Accra, you told K4 that,..”Sir, wo ayℇ mistake” ...you should NOT have bought the Hotel on your name and should have used a TRUST to acquire it...and the answer was very simple; that K4 did NOT trust anybody (to do just that). ...”

(ii) ...” “Ohene sℇ wo foro akoŋwa yi na sℇ wo aŋya sika a, wↄ bℇka sℇ wo yℇ okwasanpa ni”, however, that does NOT mean that ONLY ... [name] and ... [name] alone should make ALL the money ...the money must spread.”

I have left out the names of the two persons named as not being the ONLY people alone to “make ALL the money... the money must spread.” I have also left out the third listed principle out of discretion and caution. My intention is not to vilify everybody in the government. I am just stating why, in my considered view, the electorate should not vote for Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to replace Nana Akufo-Addo as President of Ghana on 7 December 2024.

When one puts Nana Akufo-Addo’s suggested “GUIDING PRINCIPLES???” alongside his anointed successor Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s guiding principles, one cannot escape the conclusion that Dr. Bawumia has internalized a new cultural, economic, political and social process of socialization that forms his present character through association with the President from 2008 when he chose him as his running mate to date.

After refreshing my memory with what I read as Nana Akufo-Addo’s guiding principles I could not resist the fact that his government of family, friends and cronies from 7 January 2017 has reflected the principles contained in the document I received as the Special Prosecutor in 2018. Nana Akufo-Addo’s right hand man in actualizing the create, loot and share philosophy he espoused while he was John Agyekum Kufour’s Foreign Minister and throughout his contest to be President and assuming the Presidency has been none other than Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia.

Nana Akufo-Addo actualized his guiding principles during his eight-year tenure of office with Bawumia and still wants more of those governing principles to continue by choosing to anoint his Vice-President and poodle as successor through their long game of election rigging for the succession. My responsibility as a constitutional activist is to inform the electorate of the facts to enable them to make an informed choice of the next President of Ghana.

When Mahamudu Bawumia as Vice-President saw the opportunity to locate a STEM Senior High School in the northern sector of Ghana he sent it to his late mother’s home village in Kpasenkpe, in his native West Mamprusi Municipal Assembly Area. When there was an opportunity for a public/private partnership to develop the watermelon industry in the northern sector of Ghana, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia ensured that the factory was sited at Logri within the environs of Walewale in his native West Mamprusi Municipal Assembly Area. The citizens of Ghana living in the North East Region where Dr. Bawumia hails from have had occasion to complain bitterly of discrimination in the distribution of development in that region. In an article headlined “One-Sided Distribution Of Development In the North East Region,” published on Modern Ghana, one author lamented as follows:

“The North East has experienced some massive development over the last 7 years in the sector of Education, Health, Roads, Sports etc. The question is how are these developmental projects fairly distributed among the various vulnerable and deprived Districts?"

The author answers the question as follows:

“Obviously no, because, some districts have been denied and neglect their share of the Regional Developmental Agenda base on some political merits while others had their shares. All the developmental projects have been shifted to one of the Region, some Districts have had tremendous growth and development while others still remains deprived and neglected. This (sic) simply the division of the Region into two, the Mamprugu areas and non-Mamprugu areas.”

The author then highlighted the inequality in distribution of development projects in the region by writing that:

“West Mamprusi Municipal, East Mamprusi Municipal and Mamprugu Moaduri have gained some massive development in all sectors compare to Chereponi, Yunyoo-Nasua and Bunkpurugu-Nakpanduri. Several people have been asking why the three Mamprugu Districts gained much development than the others. The question remain unanswered....”

The foregoing rhymes with the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia principles as stated by Bawumia at his hometown of Walewale in the West Mamprusi Municipality: “That is why we say, if your mother is at the funeral, you cannot be denied TZ (Tuo Zaafi). You will just be enjoying TZ with good soup every day.”

As acting President of Ghana Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has shown zero competence for the protection of the citizens’ human security as evidenced by his inability to manage on-going conflicts in the country in the absence of the President from Ghana. This contrast very sharply with the character, honour, integrity and selflessness of his late distinguished father.

Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, the father of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, worked with the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government from 1988 to 7 January 1993 as Ghana’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The NDC Government of Jerry John Rawlings appointed him as the first and second Chairperson of the Council of State under the Fourth Republic during the two tenures of that government. I was present as Deputy Attorney-General representing the Attorney-General at a Council of State requested meeting to discuss matters affecting the development of Ghana which was convened at the Castle Gardens.

Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia took everybody by surprise when, out of the blue, he raised the question of why the former NT which became part of independent Ghana in 1957 still could not boast of one single justice in the Supreme Court of Ghana responsible for adjudicating on cases for the whole country when the 1992 Constitution had enshrined regional balance in appointments to public office. Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia demanded to know whether the government was telling the public that there were no competent lawyers from Northern Ghana qualified to be appointed to the Supreme Court all those years since independence.

President Jerry John Rawlings told the assembled gathering that Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia had made a valid point but he would have wished that the issue had been raised privately and not to the glare of the media with GBC-TV and other TV houses capturing what he had said.

Jerry John Rawlings undertook to handle the aberration in the appointments to the Supreme Court which was not representative of the whole country at the time. The first Supreme Court Justice from Northern Ghana was nominated, opposed by the Ghana Bar Association and the NPP, and appointed to the Court in 1995. Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia after performing his duty to the North as he had done during the colonial era and since independence, never got himself involved in who was nominated from the North to the Supreme Court.

I was most humbled by Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia’s integrity and selflessness for equality in Mother Ghana’s non-discriminatory power distribution in appointments to public office as mandated by the 1992 Constitution. I have tried to follow in the footsteps of the honesty, integrity, selflessness and service of our forebearers from the NT which later became Northern Ghana after independence. This contributed to my shock and trauma when I read Dr. Bawumia’s guiding principles.

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and his siblings during the lifetime of their father were known NDC sympathizers with Dr. Bawumia’s mother being the women’s organizer for the West Mamprusi Constituency of the NDC. Young Mahamudu after his father had arranged with President Rawlings for him to return home and to be employed at the Bank of Ghana in 2000 became restless in 2004 when the NDC at its delegates congress in Kumasi decided that the next NDC running mate should be a northerner and a Muslim. Mahamudu Bawumia lobbied behind the scenes with Jerry John Rawlings to be nominated, as I was informed by the late President, whilst at the Bank of Ghana but lost out. The choice was for Professor Mills to make and not former President Rawlings.

Nana Akufo-Addo had identified and groomed the restless and ambitious Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia whilst he was at the Bank of Ghana and lobbying to become the next Vice-Presidential candidate to the NDC and the NPP simultaneously. The established loyalists of the NPP tradition objected to Nana Akufo-Addo’s proposal to make Dr. Bawumia his running mate for the 2008 elections but lost the contest once Nana Akufo-Addo won the presidential primaries to represent the NPP in those elections. The process of grooming, cloning, and the socialization of Dr. Bawumia as Nana Akufo-Addo’s poodle began leading to the sharing of the similar governance principles Bawumia espoused at the Walewale rally.

Nana Akufo-Addo has so succeeded in grooming Dr. Bawumia in his own character and image that he can rest assured that when Dr. Bawumia succeeds him as President, the fruits of “Ohene sℇ wo foro akoŋwa yi na sℇ wo aŋya sika a, wↄ bℇka sℇ wo yℇ okwasanpa ni”, however, that does NOT mean that ONLY ... [name] and ... [name] alone should make ALL the money ...the money must spread” will be protected from auditing for his family, friends and cronies under his regime to sleep in peace.

The choice that faces the electorate on 7 December 2024 is, therefore, to vote Mahamudu Bawumia as Nana Akufo-Addo’s anointed successor and continue suffering under the create loot and share principle they both hold in common or vote for change to enable probity and accountability as demanded by the Constitution to prevail.

I cannot as a person born in the then NT recommend Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as a person with the trait of honesty, integrity and selfless service exhibited by our forebearers from the NT to the Republic of Ghana to be elected on 7 December 2024 as President symbolizing a representation of northerners on an NPP ticket for Ghana. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is not only an opportunist and pretender, he has lost track of the high moral character associated with his own biological family and the forebearers of Northern Ghana.

The Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia principle of “That is why we say, if your mother is at the funeral, you cannot be denied TZ (Tuo Zaafi). You will just be enjoying TZ with good soup every day,” is inconsistent with and contravenes the Presidential Oath which Mahamudu Bawumia took as Vice-President which from his own Walewale confession he will abuse again should the electorate vote for him on 7 December 2024.

Ghana needs a President from one of the two dominant political parties who can audit the economic mess the Nana Akufo-Addo/Bawumia inept government is going to leave behind. I have demonstrated hereinbefore that Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is a clone and poodle of the incumbent President and is incapable of doing such an audit. With Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, it is the same old wine in a new bottle! We may as well put lipstick on a pig, as the saying goes.

John Dramani Mahama is not a saint, but he is nobody’s poodle. He has the experience as a former President to audit the mess the Nana Akufo-Addo/ Bawumia government will leave behind. I have had problems with John Dramani Mahama in the past which are documented on my website. The constitutional situation on our hands, however, demands pragmatism to ensure probity and accountability after an eight year tenure of government. We need a candidate who can command a sizeable parliamentary representation to actualize an audit of the previous government. John Dramani Mahama whose audit Nana Akufo-Addo fears ought to be the best bet for the integrity of the 1992 Constitution in our present circumstances. The 1992 Constitution does not enshrine dynasty or inheritance by cronyism, that is why the electorate should aim for a change in government on 7 December 2024 to defend and preserve the Constitution of our Fourth Republic. Ghana must always come first!

Martin A. B. K. Amidu

3 December 2024