Dr Mahamudu Bawumia should speak up for himself and demonstrate to the electorate with concrete examples that he is the most competent person to succeed President Nana Akufo-Addo as the next President to manage the safety and security of the people of Ghana at this moment of our history as falsely touted by the President at the least opportunity.

Vice-President Bawumia has had opportunities to act and has functioned as the President of Ghana in the absence of the President from the country. The claim by the President that Dr Bawumia is the most competent person to manage the safety and security of Ghanaians after the government’s current tenure needs to go beyond mere rhetoric and be supported by concrete evidence. 

The 2024 election campaign cycle is, therefore, the appropriate opportunity and forum for Mahamudu Bawumia to account for his competence and leadership skills during the absence of the President with the measures he took to preserve the lives and property of every Ghanaian everywhere in Ghana that vindicates his oath of office. He swore twice on the Quaran, – on 7 January 2017 and 2021 respectively - inter alia that: “I dedicate myself to the service and well-being of the people of the Republic of Ghana and to do right to all manner of people,” and now he seeks to be elected President himself and to take the same oath for the third time on 7 January 2025.

The least Dr. Bawumia should do is to establish that in his almost eight years as Vice-President (including acting periods as President) he has done better in managing Ghana’s human security than former President John Mahama, who is contesting for the Presidency again, did as Vice President (including acting periods as President). 

Bawku has been burning since October 2024 with an extension to the North East and Northern Regions under Dr Bawumia’s watch as Acting President in the absence of the President. The electorate must know directly from Dr. Bawumia the reasons they should prefer him over the 11 other presidential candidates including former President John Dramani Mahama as the more competent candidate for the Presidency on 7 December 2024. 

The fact that Nana Akufo-Addo had a long-term game planned even before he assumed the Presidency to hand over to Mahamudu Bawumia should he become the President of Ghana and has pursued the game plan since assuming the office of president working hard to achieve that object, has been documented by me in a series of articles on my website and has since been confirmed several times by the President himself. As Ghana Web reported, on Tuesday, 29 October 2024, President Akufo-Addo speaking on the same day, during his tour of the Ahafo Region confessed, inter alias that: “... I have one plea as you all know if every president is about to leave office, he cares about who is succeeding him.” The President then delivered himself as follows: 

“My plea is that the only person who can continue the work I have done and move Ghana forward and take Ghana to the advanced stage, I believe it is my Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and this is my plea is that you people should support Dr Bawumia to be elected as the next president of this country.”

The President’s testimony to Dr Bawumia’s competence, dexterity and skills was delivered just after his return from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in the Republic of Samoa from 19 October 2024 to 28 October 2024. The absence of the President from Ghana saw Dr Bawumia by operation of law as the Acting President supervising the gruesome death of a conservatively estimated figure by the media of twenty-three (23) people dead in the Bawku Municipality and its environs, and a further eight (8) other people dastardly murdered with vehicles burnt between Gbemsi, Sayoo, and Walewale in the North East Region of Ghana. Of the eight people who died in the North East Region, three were Frafras from Bongo. 

It had to take the President to return to Ghana to chair a National Security Council meeting to impose a curfew from 6 pm to 6 am in the Bawku Municipality and its environs. Dr. Bawumia watched the mayhem in silence whilst busying himself campaigning to be elected the next President of Ghana on the strength of expertise in digitalization, infrastructural developments, and technology as though these developments take precedence over the lives that personify the sovereignty of Ghana. 

The President upon his return started touring the country region by region from 29 October 2024 to 9 November 2024 and giving testimony why his Vice-President must succeed him at the 2024 elections without a word of explanation for the gruesome deaths and destruction of property in the two regions under the watch of his anointed heir and Vice-President. The President then, again jetted off to Azerbaijan arriving on Sunday, 10 November 2024, to participate in the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change leaving Dr. Bawumia again as the Acting President during his absence. Reminiscent of the statue he unveiled for himself in the Western Region, the President detoured to Paris to receive the highest national honour of merit of that country on 14 November 2024 whilst citizens of Ghana put in his charge as President were dying under the watch of his chosen heir and acting President. A comprador indeed! 

During the absence of the President from Ghana to Azerbaijan, Joy News reported on 15 November 2024 that despite the 12-hour curfew imposed on Bawku and its environs aimed at curbing the unrest, violent clashes persisted, with at least three people killed that week and several houses set ablaze, bringing the death toll in the renewed conflict to 26. Albert Sore, the Joy News correspondent reported, inter alia that: “.... ever since the resurgence happened, a lot of the schools and other businesses don't open. People naturally don't leave their homes because of the shootings and all that. ...” The report, however, understates the events and casualties narrated from events at Bawku. 

Bawku had been home to me since my elementary school third term of 1959 when my father was transferred from Takoradi to Lawra, and to the then Bawku Urban Council township and its environs in then Northern Territories (NT) of the Colony, renamed the Northern Region of Ghana at independence. Bawku centre itself has always been a cosmopolitan town, (as a transit and entrepôt to the neighbouring French colonial territories at the time) with different tribes and nationalities (Kusasis, Mamprusis, Bisas, Moshies, Yasis, Gurune, Builsas, Kasinas, Dagombas, the Akan groups. Ewes, Gas, Yorubas, Ibos, Zambarimas, Europeans, name it) in Ghana. My father died there in 1985 and my mother as recently as 2016. 

I, therefore, grew up with my peer group, who are now dead or dying due to October 2024 government-generated resurgent fratricide in Bawku. Consequently, I know most of the youth killing themselves from all the divides in the fratricidal conflict in the township. The youth fighting on both sides are my children’s peer group born in Bawku and attended school together in the township before my children relocated to Accra to join me in the 1990s. 

The latest information I have received from those still living in the township has been that on or about 12 November 2024 fighting erupted in the Daduri area of Bawku at around 11:00 hours when an attempt was made to burn the former house of Mma Katango which was sold to an Akan who now uses the place for baking bread. One person from one of the sides was killed in the process. Two other houses within the vicinity were also burnt. The security agencies intervened and in the process sniped from a storey building opposite my former primary school, St. Anthony’s Primary School, on which they are squatters (not renters), and killed another person from the other side. This resulted in a cease-fire that allowed the sides to beat a retreat with their dead at around 14:00 hours. The fighting, however, intensified throughout the night. The storey building is also on the way to the former Bawku Middle Boarding School that trained Alhaji Seidu Abagre, my two years senior there and where we both completed Middle School Form Four, after which he trained as a certificated teacher. 

As a result of the government-facilitated resumption of the conflict on the night of 24 October 2024 and its resurgence on 12 November 2024 when the Vice-President was again the Acting President, the movement of persons and vehicles from and into Bawku became impossible, especially for citizens living within the town centre. Consequently, on 12 November 2024, one of the sides in the Bawku conflict had to seek assistance from the REGSEC to convey about 400 continuing and fresh Senior High Schools (SHS) students out of Bawku as no vehicle could enter or leave the town centre without coming under attack.

Informants alleged that the security agencies had as a result of the plea escorted long buses to enter and convey these stranded students out of Bawku. The Bawku town centre is also reported to be under siege resulting in a severe shortage of food with reports on the telephone alleging that about seven armoured vehicles entered Bawku with foodstuffs loaded in them for the inhabitants of the town centre who are unable to visit the market let alone shop for foodstuff. 

Then on 13 November 2024, fighting erupted again in which four people were killed. When Citi News reported the incident the following day, it reported one dead without mentioning the three others dead. 

In the midst of all these deaths in the Bawku Municipality and its environs, on 14 November 2024, Joy News reported that the former President of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufour, speaking in an interview on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen, praised the capabilities and expressed confidence in Bawumia’s leadership, describing him as the ideal leader for the country at this critical moment in its history. In a very insulting and patronizing manner, Mr Kufour added: "He is also a Northerner, yet he gets along so well with everyone,” as though northerners do not get “along so well with everyone” and Bawumia is a wonderful exception. With this patronising and prejudicial perception of northerners as not having a good relationship with everyone (the Konongokaya), there was little wonder that Mr Kufuor regarded the death and maiming of the northerners in the Bawku Municipality and its environs as of no consequence in his assessment of the leadership qualities in Ghana as enjoined by the Presidential oath under the Constitution. 

Coincidentally, on the same day, Mr Kufuor granted his interview to Asempa FM, 14 November 2024, a truckload of cattle belonging to butchers in Tamale in the Northern Region was intercepted in the environs of Walewale in North East Region, the vehicle vandalised, and the cattle released into the bush. The butchers in Tamale issued a video-recorded statement on Facebook demanding the return of the vehicle with all the cattle to them in Tamale within three to four days or they will retaliate against 50 vehicles and luggage owned by natives of the North East Region en route to the south of the country. 

On the next day, 15 November 2024, the Concerned Moshie Youth Union of Ghana of the Bawku Municipality wrote a letter with reference number 01/10/24 of even date requesting for security protection and escort of vulnerable women and children in Bawku, expressing deep sorrow and condemnation of the recent incidents of violence and killing of Moshie women and children, particularly an incident which took place on 27 October 2024 at 3 pm at Adisa-Possum a Moshie community that led to the death of seven (7) named victims. The letter also referred to the burning of four houses and one Urvan car belonging to Moshies. It further referred to the separate killing of one woman, and her two children and the burning of their house within the same area. The letter expressed what they termed the “barbaric conduct of” security personnel deployed to maintain the peace in Bawku which they claimed, “begs for more answers.” As late as Sunday, 17 November 2024 two buses allegedly carrying students from the Bawku township were escorted by three armoured vehicles out of the township. Are they really students or is the town being emptied of voters for an electoral agenda? 

Under Dr Bawumia’s watch as Acting President, the conflict is gradually extending to engulf the Upper East Region, North East Region, and the Northern Region to meet the self-fulfilling prophecy of Mr Kufuor and his ilk about northerners genetically not getting “along so well with everyone” apart from the only exceptional northerner, Dr Bawumia. The fact, however, is that the executive branch of the government might have purposefully facilitated the resurgence of the Bawku fratricidal conflict as part of its long game for destabilizing the north for purely political and electoral purposes of breaking the eight. 

Mr. Kufuor who wittingly or unwittingly exposed his prejudice against northerners was the first President of the NPP under the 1992 Constitution with the incumbent Nana Akufo-Addo as his Attorney-General and later his Minister for Foreign Affairs who was angered by the inability of Mr. Kufuor to rig the 2008 elections for him. Mr Kufuor might, therefore, be supporting Nana Akufo-Addo’s rhetorics to atone for his failure to rig the 2008 election for the party candidate.

The number of Presidential Candidates registered by the Electoral Commission to contest for the Presidency at the 7 December 2024 election is 12 and Dr. Bawumia holds the position of the sitting Vice-President and presidential candidate of the incumbent ruling NPP Government which is ending its tenure on 6 January 2025. The impending election just a few weeks away is, therefore, intended by the letter and spirit of the Constitution to once more provide the sovereign electorate the opportunity to take stock of the performance of the ruling government and to decide whether to vote to retain it in power or whom amongst the contesting candidates for President and Members of Parliament they will entrust their lives and welfare to, to be managed in accordance with the Constitution for the next four years. 

The ability of Ghanaians to exercise their franchise in voting for the candidates of their choice at the impending elections in a free, fair, and transparent manner under an environment and atmosphere of peace and stability that permits the sovereign people throughout the country to take part in deciding who should rule them will be meaningless without transparent accountability from the incumbent government and its presidential candidate who has parasitised on taxpayer funds like leeches with wanton abandon. 

The design and structure of the 1992 Constitution and the spirit that animates the letter of the Constitution was underpinned by the primordial necessity to establish a framework of government to secure for us as human beings an ordered country within which our lives, safety, well-being, and security are guaranteed to enable the electorate to choose our government. “The protection and preservation of Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms, Unity and Stability for our Nation,” therefore, became a prime preamble objective, underscoring the foremost responsibility of any incumbent government to ensure the internal security and peace within which the sovereign electorate can actualize the social contract to choose their President and Vice-President, and representatives in Parliament. This explains the apportionment of the executive power to the executive branch under the President among the three arms of government, which includes the legislative and judicial branches. The President and the Vice-President have as a result the prime responsibility for national security which goes with the control of all the security and law enforcement leverages of state power. 

The security of the human person is, therefore, the foundation of every prosperous and well-functioning human society and not empty technology and infrastructural developments without the human person living in safety and peace to enjoy them. What is the use of digitization, drones, economic policies, technology, and other infrastructure on the moon which are unrelated to human existence and security? 

The decision of the Court of Appeal given on 17 October 2024 and the arrival of Alhaji Seidu Abagre in Bawku on the night of 24 October 2024 may be the immediate cause of the present round of the fratricidal conflict. But the government which had kept the fragile peace in Bawku at a low level of intensity can not escape blame for the measures it put in place to contain the present crisis or to have postponed it until after the 7 December 2024 elections. The Government by refusing or failing to be adequately represented by the Attorney-General at the Court of Appeal administratively empanelled by its dependable Chief Justice either 6 

deliberately or otherwise appeared to have facilitated the current fratricidal cycle of killings, maiming and destruction of property so close to the 2024 elections for the purpose of dispersing the population within the Bawku Municipality and its environs to other areas of the country for electoral purposes. The depopulation of the Bawku township during this election season means that a chunk of the electorate who were lucky to survive and escape are being denied their vote on 7 December 2024. The dead of course have lost their votes, because of the government-facilitated fratricide. Dr Bawumia is an integral part of the government and its electoral agenda. 

The larger issue is the uncertainty of whether the whole Bawku Traditional Council area would even be able to exercise their franchise on 7 December 2024 in a free, fair, and transparent manner. Will there be a declaration of a state of emergency, and what areas in the Upper East Region will it cover during the elections? Will the Electoral Commission be in a position to conduct the elections in all the six constituencies, particularly in the Bawku Central Constituency when it chose to locate its offices in the now nonfunctioning Municipal Assemble premises? The President has confessed that: “... I have one plea as you all know if every president is about to leave office, he cares about who is succeeding him.” I have written about the various stages of Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game to achieve his confessed objective whilst being the person to ensure a free and fair election this year. 

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is the beneficiary of Nana Akufo-Addo’s machinations to ensure that he is succeeded by his Vice-President. If as acting President there were valid reasons for Dr. Bawumia not being able to discharge and fulfil his oath to dedicate himself “.... to the service and well-being of the Republic of Ghana and to do right to all manner of persons” the electorate need to be told to enable them to make an informed decision to vote for him for his other achievements. Nana Akufo-Addo appears to have been covering up Bawumia’s weakness in the management of the security and well-being of the citizens to cajole the electorate into voting for Bawumia, his poodle, and get Nana Akufo-Addo free as the puppet master and real President behind the screen. 

Bawumia needs to move away from the Kamala Harris rhetorical style of campaigning and speak directly to the public on his security and intelligence capabilities and policies that will bring the numerous violent conflicts throughout the country where curfews have been imposed under control and stop the unwarranted and needless killing which the failure of the Government has unleashed on the country within its tenure. Dr. Bawumia should remember that allowing Nana Akufo-Addo and Mr. Kufuor to turn him into their pejorative house “Otani” (house northerner) or “house Negro” is a larger insult to his identity as my northern brother and the son of my friend, the late Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, former Chairman of the Council of State in the first and second governments of the Fourth Republic. The ancestors are watching! 

Martin A. B. K. Amidu 
November 18, 2024