Mahama is the president for the future

Every leader worth his salt must have certain superlative leadership traits, and must be able to lead a culture of change. Key among these traits is truthfulness and forthrightness.

Ghana is blessed to have H.E. John Dramani Mahama. He has been consistently truthful to the people of Ghana. For instance when dumsor was at its biting worst, unlike Opana, he accepted responsibility of the situation and promised that he will fix it, and he did fix it before leaving office.

In line with his style and forthrightness, the late former President J.J. Rawlings had this to say in a video that has gone viral recently:

"John Mahama is a president for the future. His nature and style could earn him the position of a president in advance countries such as switzerland, etc. It is unfortunate that rather than celebrate him and discuss his forthrightness and sense of discipline, some people are rather so steeped in their petty political mindedness could not bring themselves to see or recognise a role model and a gem of a man."

President Mahama's promise to change lives and transform Ghana was on course before leaving office. He built one Teaching Hospital at Legon, expanded Tamale Teaching Hospital by 400 more beds and built a brand new 500-bed Military Hospital in Kumasi.

There are more: he constructed 6 regional hospitals, at least 14 district hospitals, over 26 polyclinics, and more than 18 health centres, just to mention a few.

In the area of education, more than 1,000 different projects were executed in the second cycle level; excluding the 200-day SHS project, 73 of which were at various levels of completion before he exited office. In addition to these, countless number of classroom blocks were constructed in a bid to eliminate schools under trees to abolish the shift system.

Under his presidency, US$1.1 billion was spent on the construction of new water systems, and expansion of some existing ones across the country. 76% of the entire country, both rural and urban areas had access to good drinking water which was the second highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Furthermore, extensive major road projects went on in all the then 10 regions of the country; these include, the 3-tier ultra modern Kwame Nkrumah interchange, the eastern corridor roads, Fufulso-Sawla road, etc.

It will also interest my cherish readers to know that during one of President Mahama's visit to France, the French government provided through the French Development Agency (AfD) a 37.50 million Euro financing for the second phase of the Kumasi Roads and Drainage Extension Project which involved the construction of the Lake Road/Oforikrom bypass and the Aboabo drainage works.

Other projects of H.E. John Dramani Mahama include but not limited to the construction of an 800-kilometre fibre optic ICT backbone infrastructure in the eastern corridor to provide broadband services to over 120 communities along the route from Ho to Bawku, with links to Tamale from Yendi, expansion of Tema Port, expansion of Takoradi Port, expansion of Tamale and Kumasi Airports, Atuabo Gas plant, exploration of major oil blocs, namely: Ten, Gye Nyame, and the Volta Basin.

With these achievements, it came as no surprise when he was honoured by the Diasporan Association For Good Governance (DAGG) for being the best President Ghana has ever had since the days of Kwame Nkrumah, at their 10th annual gathering where they honoured world leaders who have helped or are involved in making Africa a model continent.

H.E. John Jerry Rawlings was right in saying that Mahama is a gem of a leader. And I don't know what you see, but I see miracles, signs and wonders in the atmosphere, and that God is going to move on behalf of JDM on December 7.

Anthony Obeng Afrane