The National Democratic Congress just arrived from a democratic journey. A journey that delivered it a person to present the message of the party to the electorates in next year’s elections.

It was a family battle of ideas among seven party big wigs which ultimately produce one winner. Former president Mahama was roundly endorsed by delegates affirming what many knew since the medieval era.

The preponderance of votes that made him a victor over the six vanquished means a lot than a mere approval. John Mahama is the apple of NDC’s eye save his renowned defeat in the last elections which some think it qualifies him to be a bête noire on the minds of the non-NDC Ghanaian voter. If National Democratic Congress was National Democratic Congress Plc, John Mahama would have been the group president. This is unassailable truth to even the founder of the party.

Without any modicum of honesty left in me, I would like to put on record that former President Mahama did much but there was still much more to be done. From fighting graft to maintaining a resilient economy, reflective in income levels of citizens, his performance was substandard. History is replete with the wrongdoings during his tenure. From one scandal to another, ray of hopes to unseat him by the opposition NPP continued to get heightened.

The airwaves were engulfed by corruption allegations. The New Patriotic Party saw an opportunity to make a political fortune. The relentless communicators made sure John Mahama became the desired evil they wanted him to be in the eyes of the Ghanaian elector. The press conferences by the communication machinery, the interviews by party activists and the lectures strategically manned to a successful end by the then running mate of the NPP, Dr Bawumia, were the role players in making Akufo-Addo a president.

Most of these interviews, press conferences and lectures were political setups bereft of researched data and facts purposely aimed at giving the dog a bad name. Never on this earth would a politician allow a crisis to go waste. You recall the SADA scandal which brought us the famous ghost guinea fowls. This was a scandal that made the current Zongo Minister cry like a sophomore whose provisions have been stolen from his chop box.

Politics can make adults become children in the blink of an eye. Like a boxer discovering a weak spot of a rival in a boxing ring, NPP kept punching and eventually, the bout was won with one million points.

Immediately the former president declared his intention to run for the office he last voluntarily donated out, supposed sanguine sympathizers of the NPP think 2020 elections would be a walk in the park. I always guffaw at that line of reasoning. They delude themselves into thinking that John Mahama and the NDC have never heard the “once bitten, twice shy” proverb. Not even Honorable ABA Fuseini, the NDC Member of Parliament for Sagnarigu, they think.

They adduce all manner of justifications for this singularly held conviction without being intrepid. How incredible can that assumption be if not for politics' sake? I often grimace when an NPP communicator sits on live TV and say John Mahama is not a force to reckon with -- simple; because he has been trounced before. In fact, this has never failed to rankle me.

 Unsolicited counsel to NPP sympathizers: you should not be bamboozled by mealy-mouthed party communicators who think a victory for NPP in 2020 is a foregone conclusion. Anything less than this is akin to giving yourselves out to be bowled over by a John Mahama’s victory in 2020. 

Many Ghanaians still see this change as regretful despite the existence of the ghost factories, fractured Free SHS, a convicted US dollar, the prestige attached to walking in an Accra of no piles of rubbish, a lean government and the rut-tat-tat sounds of unregistered machine guns in wrong hands. One thing ignited the interest of the former president: he realized that his campaign was the deficit in fatty promises and deficient in flowery language vis-à-vis the then bespectacled candidate of the NPP.

NPP should stop tickling themselves by always projecting former president Mahama as a loser in the 2020 general elections unless they have a special election rigging machinery in place already unbeknownst to everyone. Functionaries and serial callers of NPP should know that booting out a party that has served only a term is not novel in the realm of politics.

 A political party serving two terms might be familiar with Ghanaian voters but it is not an ironclad status quo. With all due respect, the current president is the most insincere politician the flagstaff house has ever housed. He is a real virtuoso in the use of political chicaneries on the campaign trail.

He promised to run the government without cronies only for us to see a government with a record 123 ministers with the inclusion of daughters, uncles and nephews.

In conclusion, for anyone to say John Mahama would win without becoming a saint reincarnated is nonsense and to say Akufo-Addo would easily beat John Mahama is nonsense on stilt.