It is said that no one is perfect - and that we all have our faults and foibles. However, up until he allowed the more cynical individuals amongst the people around him to have their way, in convincing him to dismiss Mr. Martin Amidu - apparently to save their regime from imploding, they thought - I always genuinely believed that President Mills was good for our country.
And I actually felt that he was the most sincere leader to rule our country, since Nkrumah's overthrow, in February 1966.
However, when the dismissal of Martin Amidu was announced - after he had denounced the criminal conduct of those in the Mills administration committing gargantuan crimes against the people of Ghana and their country - the scales quickly fell from my eyes: and I suddenly saw what ex-President Rawlings had been seeing all along, since the Mills administration came to power in January 2009.
Clearly, it is pointless being thankful that Ghanaians have an honest leader ruling their country - when his regime is dominated, not by him, but by powerful individuals who are not so honest themselves, and don't particularly care much about Mother Ghana either: preferring instead to devoting their energies to feathering their own nest.
The dismissal of Martin Amidu drove that point home forcefully, to many ordinary people in Ghana (my humble self included), who then promptly became disenchanted with the Mills-Mahama administration.
It is that negative perception that many Ghanaians now have of the Mills regime, which informs the point made by some, that were the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to be so foolhardy, as to attempt to go into the December 2012 presidential election with President Mills and Vice President Mahama, standing on its ticket, the party would end up losing power after only one term in office.
Politically, the negative perception that so many Ghanaians now have of President Mills' leadership, mainly as a result of Martin Amidu's dismissal, means that despite his regime's many undoubted successes and achievements to date, if he stands, President Mills will still be roundly defeated by the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, in the presidential election this December.
Indeed, as an example of the weak leadership, the unending cynicism and lack of principle that they now associate with the Mills regime, many discerning and independent-minded Ghanaians point to the fact that discredited individuals, such as the Deputy Attorney General, the Hon. Ebo Barton-Oduro, and the Deputy Chief of Staff, Mr. Alex Segbefia, continue to hang on to their jobs, regardless.
In their view, in any of the established democracies of the West, such officials would have felt obliged to resign - because remaining in their positions after trying to explain away and justify a major scandal, such as the Woyome judgement-debt payment scandal, would have been regarded as untenable: morally and ethically.
For such patriotic and independent-minded Ghanaians, whose crucial swing-votes now decide who becomes our country's president during elections, the continued presence in the Mills administration of the Ebo Barton-Oduros and the Alex Segbefias, is symbolic of the cynicism and lack of principle, which they believe underlies much of what goes on behind closed doors, in the regime of President Mills - a leader who many unfortunately feel is much too timid and indecisive to deal effectively with wrongdoing in his regime.
Now, as things stand, most Ghanaians are determined to vote Mills and Mahama out of power in December, for their nation's sake.
Yet, the fact of the matter, is that overall Mills' regime has done very well for Ghana - despite the overwhelming odds ranged against it when it first came to power and had to grapple with a deficit of unprecedented proportions.
And if truth be told, the alternative would be far worse for Ghana - as things would be even more dire for our country, were Kufuor & Co.'s New Patriotic Party (NPP) to return to power again: judging from the scale of corruption, endless abuse of power, outrageous tribalism, despicable nepotism and the sheer greed we saw during their 8-year tenure in office.
Perhaps the question one ought to pose to the NDC's bigwigs is: Are they not yet aware of the fact that the dismissal of Martin Amidu dealt a terminal blow to President Mills' prospects for being re-elected?
Or, like the Kokou Anyidohos and the Alex Segbefias, they too have now become so beguiled by the thought of being in the retinue of the Emperor-with-no-clothes, and so besotted with the idea of regularly being able to trod on red carpeting, in the corridors of power, in the Alice-in-wonderland fantasy world of the Osu Castle, that the reality that the total disenchantment of millions of ordinary Ghanaians with President Mills and Vice President Mahama's "weak leadership" represents, also escapes them?
Ex-President Rawlings and the NDC party, whose birth he is said to have inspired, must understand clearly that if their party fails to be bold, as well as sufficiently ruthless, and does not act quickly to find a lawful way of replacing President Mills and Vice President Mahama, with a President Martin Amidu and Vice President Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, they will realise, when it is far too late in the day, that in fact they are heading straight back into the political wilderness once again, after the December presidential elections.
The best outcome for the NDC, and our homeland Ghana, would be the voluntary resignation from office of both President Mills and Vice President Mahama. Failing that, the NDC must be prepared to even resort to expelling both incumbents from their party, if need be, as a last resort.
For, alas, this time round, if they were to lose the election and end up in the political wilderness, they may very well end up staying there for decades - as their party will literally disintegrate: were their candidate to lose the next presidential election.
Surely, they do not want to commit the political equivalent of harikiri - by allowing President Mills and Vice President Mahama to stand in the next presidential election?
Clearly, no sincere Ghanaian who is independent-minded and discerning, would want the NPP of the perfidious Kufuor & Co. to return to power again any time soon - for the sake of the well-being of Mother Ghana.
And which Ghanaian nationalist and patriot can ever forgive and forget Kufuor & Co.'s brutal and repeated gang-rape of Mother Ghana? Simply put, that monstrosity and abomination must not be allowed to recur under any circumstances.
That is why our nation's salvation lies in that veritable political game-changer: the resolute and incorruptible Martin Amidu standing for president as the NDC's candidate, with the equally tough, imaginative and hard-working Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, as his running mate.
And the sooner they get that particular "Lets-give-Ghana-a-fresh-start" Yutong-bus campaign on the road to criss-cross Ghana with their message of discipline, hard work, hope, honesty and a happy tomorrow for all who labour for Mother Ghana's betterment, the better it will be for them and for the rest of us: come the December presidential election. A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana, which actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
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