Former President, John Dramani Mahama
Our attention has been drawn to this publication on GhanaWeb (www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/We-have-seen-and-felt-it-all-in-him-Sissaland-youth-reject-Mahama-s-s-2024-bid-1328335).
The said article which was published on GhanaWeb on Sunday 9th August 2021 is said to be traced to one Bawa Chakilia Latif (Former Special Aid to the NPP MP for Sissala East and Deputy Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources – Hon Issahaku Amidu Chinia).
While we admonish the general public to discard that poorly constructed publication with the alacrity and contempt that it deserves, we wish to emphasize that, the intentions of the author are ludicrous, ill-bred, and without a scintilla of dignity.
It is without any equivocation that, unwholesome political aspirations brewed in the kitchen of viciousness and served on the table of malice, are the underpinning reasons driving a young and overzealous Sissala man, to use a non-existing group as a decoy to advance his ill-bred political ambition, while attempting to drag the hard-won reputation of Sissala land into disrepute.
A bit of diligence and perhaps thinking beyond his nose would have drawn his attention to the fact that realities and figures on the ground do not support his schizophrenic assertion. This we think would have saved him and his hidden paymasters from the public ridicule they have drawn to themselves.
Taking the figures of the 2020 Presidential election as a litmus test can be a scientific way of testing the popularity or otherwise of His Excellency President Mahama among Sissala.
This could be an impartial way of testing the pre-matured assertion made by Bawa Chakalia.
Unfortunately for him, the official figures as authenticated by Ghana’s electoral commission prove otherwise.
For instance, in the Sissala East Constituency, President Mahama garnered 16,879 votes as against 14,750 by President Nana Addo. In the Sissala West, President Mahama had 17,599 votes as against 12,952 votes for President Nana Addo.
In the Lambussie Constituency, President Mahama had 12,736 as against 6,407 for President Akufo Addo. Lastly, in the Wa East Constituency, President Mahama garnered a whopping 21,153 valid votes as against the 13,203 votes garnered by President Akufo Addo.
Let Mr. Bawa Chakilia Latif and his faceless paymasters be guided by the fact that, these figures do not in any way portray a loss of interest for President Mahama. Rather, the figures express the trust and unalloyed commitment of Sissala land to the course of President Mahama.
We wish to affirm, that, under President Mahama both as Vice President and President, Sissala land was not blacklisted in the sharing of the national cake. The Sissala had an equitable share of it. Evidence of this resides in the Mahama E- Blocks at Lambussie, Zini and Wellembele, the Hilla Limann Snr.
High School in Gwollu, the Tumu midwifery training school, the Lambussie Polyclinic, the Small-town water projects in Wellembele and Lambussie, the massive rural electrification projects, the progressive road improvement projects dotted across Sissala Land (it is unfortunate these road projects were terminated by the current government, under the guise of doing value for money auditing).
These among a long chain of development interventions not mentioned here are the reasons that, Sissala will forever remain grateful to President Mahama.
While we respect the right that every Ghanaian has to join and project and political persuasion of his/her choice, we are of the candid opinion that, the expression of this right should be devoid of malice, rancor, and ill faith as expressed by Bawa Chakalia in his infamous publication.
We wish to emphasize that, Bawa Chakalia’s publication should be treated with the greatest disdain that it deserves.
It is a figment of his own imagination and a loud expression of his narrow-mindedness and short-sightedness.
We thus request Mr. Bawa Chakilia Latif, to do the honorable thing of coming out in contrition, to apologize profusely for attempting to deceive the general public with his ill political motives, and for presenting same as though they reflected the views of the much discerning Sissala Youth. Thank you.