Because John Mahama is a Northerner, he was vilified over ‘dumsor’ by Mensa Otabil, Sarkodie, and others – Kojo Twum Boafo

 Kojo Twum Boafo, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Free Zones Authority, some prominent personalities including clergymen and entertainers for unjustly criticizing former president John Dramani Mahama and his administration over the dreaded erratic power supply which hit the country under the erstwhile administration.

According to Kojo Twum Boafo, the fierce criticisms against the former president by the said prominent personalities and celebrities were expressions of their dislike for Mr. Mahama because of his ethnicity and place of origin.

He said the former president and his administration would not have suffered such vilifications and name calling from those celebrities if he were a member of a different ethnic grouping particularly the Akan ethnic group.

Mr. Kojo Twum Boafo described notable clergymen and entertainers who criticized the former president and his administration over the power crisis as hypocrites operating on the basis of tribalism and elitism.

While chastising them for supposedly mistreating Mr. Mahama whom he described as a good man, he questioned why the said celebrities have totally gone silent despite the fact the country is currently experiencing unstable power supply.

“We live in a country of hypocrites who operates on the basis of tribalism and elitism. So power problems under Mahama who is a Northerner is different from power problems under Akufo-Addo who is a Twi-speaking Akyem person. That is all what this is about. If John Mahama was called Kwame Osei, the kind of invectives that he suffered when we had dumsor would never have happened. Yes, they would have criticized him, people would have spoken about the problem but all these vilifications wouldn’t have happened.

Shame on all of us for treating President Mahama the way he was treated. Where is Yvonne Nelson? Where are the celebrities? Are they not experiencing Dumsor? Where is Sarkodie? Why hasn’t he made a song about the current dumsor? Where is Yvonne Nelson? Why is she not holding a lantern and marching like she did under Mahama’s regime? Shame on all of them. May the plague be over their heads for treating a good man the way you treated him,” he stated on Pan African Television.

Ghana between 2013 and 2016 was hit with the worst form of power crisis leading to the collapse of businesses and the loss of lives as hospitals could not effectively take care of patients as result of never-ending power outages.

The then government was criticized and called on to take action to resolve the power crisis as almost all sectors of the economy were badly hit by the ripple effect of the crisis.

Although the government had given assurance of working relentlessly to resolve the problem and had actually instituted measures aimed at ensuring stable power supply, Ghanaians wanted more than that and as a result, there were series of demonstrations notably the ‘Dumsor Must Stop’ demonstration which was organized by actress, Yvonne Nelson, to drum home their demands for the government to fix the power challenges.

Some musicians including rapper Sarkodie also composed songs criticizing and calling on the government to fix the power situation.

Clergymen also added their voices to the calls for the government to act promptly in finding solution for the problem.

The situation was subsequently resolved sometime around the end of 2016 and the early part of 2017.

But recent power outages in parts of the country have raised concerns among the general public as they fear a possible return into the doomed days of ‘Dumsor’.

Government and the power management agencies have, however, assured that the current power outages are cautioned by system upgrades and not as a result of power rationing.