President Mahama Must Caution His Close Friends & Family Members

President Mahama's closest friends and favourites amongst his extended family clan have a moral obligation not to engage in any activities that will cause him embarrassment. And the president has a duty to warn all his close friends and family members that if they "mess up", they must not expect Ghana's president to come to their rescue. That is not what he was elected into office for.

On that basis, Ms. Victoria Hamah must be strongly condemned for bringing President Mahama's name into disrepute - for allegedly saying openly in the presence of others (gathered around a senior police officer who had apparently invited her boyfriend for questioning in a gold deal over which a dispute had arisen) that she was going to call President Mahama. Why involve Ghana's President in such a shabby affair?

The idea that a young and inexperienced politician, who was sacked from her position as a deputy minister for communications -  when a secret tape-recording of a phone conversation in which she intimated that her goal was to amass a fortune of at least a million dollars, was made public - is now involved with  individuals  engaged in a questionable gold deal, and had had the temerity to say publicly at a police station to which her boyfriend, involved in the said gold deal, had been invited,  that she was going to call the president of Ghana, is intolerable.

With respect, it is time this empty-headed and vain woman was read the riot act by the presidency - before her foolishness ends up bringing President Mahama's presidency crashing down unexpectedly, in a fall from grace, from which it will never  be able to recover.

 Yes, for all we know, it is entirely possible (as some would say in mitigation for her) that openly claiming that she was going to call President Mahama was merely a foolish ploy to intimidate officers of  the Dansoman District Police Command - thought up on the spur of the moment by an arrogant and malleable character whom, alas, it would appear is not blessed with much wisdom.

However, whichever way one looks  at the latest scandal that Victoria Hamah is involved in,  the very fact that she was so brazen as to mention the president's name openly in public, and in the circumstances in which her boyfriend found himself (having apparently been invited to a police station where a complaint had been lodged against him: that he had sold 6lbs of gold - reportedly worth  as much as some U.S.$260,000 - in the U.S. and failed to give the proceeds to its owner), should be of grave concern to the presidency.

 Who is to know that  her greed for money will not end up leading her into the arms of the criminal syndicates involved in illegal gold mining and its handmaiden illegal logging? How are we to know that the unfathomable greed that drives her will not lead to her being used by super-wealthy criminals who evade taxes, sell gold  illegally and launder money?

 One's prayer, is that perhaps some good can come out of this pure nonsense on bamboo stilts: If indeed she did also say that she would call the Inspector General of Police, as she is alleged to have threatened, then let all the men and women of the Ghana Police Service regard her arrogance and presumption (that she could get the top brass of the police to do her bidding), as a watershed moment - when they finally resolved to be like their counterparts in the police forces of the U.K., for whom the law is no respector of persons, and is consequently strictly enforced: no matter how high up in society those who fall foul of the law might be.

The police in Ghana must show the world that they are proud professionals who now refuse to become the hirelings of our ruling elites. They must show by their deeds that they are strict enforcers of the laws of Ghana - a constitutional democracy in which all are equal before the law: and in which all law-breakers, be they from the top strata  of society,  or from the base-of-the-pyramid demographic, are treated exactly the same.

Above all, the time has come for some plain speaking from President Mahama to his closest friends and blood relations. Enough is enough.

He must warn each one of them that if they "mess up" and abuse their relationship with him, they must not expect to be rescued by him, when they get into trouble: be it over GYEEDA; Subah; SADA; judgement debt fraud; state institutions paying huge sums upfront as rent advance to private landlords in return for kickbacks;  paying millions to ghost-workers and sharing that cash monthly; etc.;  etc. - for in the Ghana of today, no one, including even he the President, is above the law.

He must never forget that it is him that history will judge - not his closest  friends and members of his family clan, who would have sunk into oblivion by then, and been long forgotten: which is why he must not allow them to "mess up" his legacy. A word to the wise...