Bawumia shouldered by two hard tacklers
The Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia looks like the attacking footballer held in check by defenders. His political backyard and enemy territory appear to have assigned two hard tacklers to him in a bid to stop him in his tracks. The two on the Bawumia case are the Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central, Mr. Isaac Adongo, and the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyepong.
The Vice-President, obviously one of the frontrunners in the race for the ticket to become the flagbearer of his party in the 2024 elections on account of the strong support he enjoys from the establishment, had made it to the political spotlight for the past ten years owing to lectures on finance and the economy. He has been ”ambushed” by opposing voices who pin him on what they claim to be his ”failed promises and ineffective management of the economy.”
A popular catchphrase used by Vice-President Bawumia on his opponents, ”if the fundamentals are weak the exchange rate will expose you” caught fire on the political front, became a tonic booster, scuppered a ruling party’s chances of being reelected, and eventually brought into government his New Patriotic Party.
Six years down the line, the chicken has come home to roost, and now his mantra has come under critique. Ghana’s foreign exchange rate has worsened with Dr. Bawumia at the helm of the economic management team. The economy run out of steam, and Ghana rushed to the Bretton Woods for a bailout.
The government blames the challenges within the economy, such as high-interest rates, galloping inflation, and depreciation of the national currency, the Cedi on the Covid-19 pandemic in the year 2020 which threw economies around the world out of gear.
The two political figures giving Bawumia strong sliding tackles ostensibly to expose his alleged ineptitude have never ceased barking and roaring at him. Mr. Isaac Adongo of the main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress, NDC, is as endowed as Dr. Bawumia in financial knowledge but is diametrically opposed to the Vice President every step of the way, referring to conditions of people as the litmus test of his success or otherwise.
The tough-talking Bolgatanga lawmaker often launches a tirade at Dr. Bawumia as he debates the figures. That achieves the purpose of weakening the perception that the Vice-President is a veritable financial guru or economic fortress. Adongo often says he has led the country into the pit. He satirized the political atmosphere by calling Dr. Bawumia a man who made a sudden jump into digitalization when his hands got burnt by the heat in the economic kitchen.
The other person breathing fire and brimstone on the neck of Dr. Bawumia is Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyepong, a maverick politician from the Vice-President’s political stable. He is on record to have pooh-poohed the current economic figures and held his own party which Dr. Bawumia is a key part, accountable. Kennedy Agyepong who also commands a large following in his party, perhaps joined the flagbearer race to clip the wings of the Vice-President.
Mr. Agyepong is not enthused by a Bawumia candidacy and has called out his bluff. He says it does not add up that Dr. Bawumia who was among the leading voices that urged Ghana to shun the IMF led a whole government backtracking on its initial position due to certain failures.
It is heading down the wire as the two firebrands close in Dr. Bawumia in the fever-pitch race to become the next president of Ghana. The hard-tacklers have bared their teeth at the eleventh crucial hour, the camp of the Vice-President says the bombardments are of no effect on the Bawumia hysteria and that he has set off in a whirlwind, and gathering momentum toward his ambition.
Awaiting him is former President John Mahama, the flagbearer of the NDC who info-analytics polls have placed ahead so far. The battle for the Jubilee House of Ghana is clearly winding up on trust, standards of living, the brain box, and most importantly, communication.