One chief, one dollar!

"Not that l believe anything Bawumia says these days, particularly when he is foaming with sweat on the campaign trail."

A sizeable chunk of the campaign promises look and sound so wiered and awkward, you would think they were manufactured after an all-night drunken feast.

The more desperate the candidate is for power, the crazier and more horrendous the promise! And here, the NPP and the NDC are partners in breaking the law of conscience.

Dr. Bawumia's latest shocking promise to pay allowances to chiefs and to proclaim a tax- free regime for churches if he wins the elections (a promise he later discribed unbashfully as a joke ) deserves a national award for its cold malice.

Not that l believe anything Bawumia says these days, particularly when he is foaming with sweat on the campaign trail.

But can we really blame the candidate's for their out-of-this-world sloganizations? The modalities for winning an election in Ghana these days include making wild,fanciful, psychedelic, unattainable promises that God Himself --- given the prevailing conditions in the country --- would be afraid to promise, let alone procure.

Somehow, our politicians, operating with limited resources (mostly loans, which they spend on themselves) think they can deliver the stars from the sky in four years--- armed with no strategy, little resources, incapable personnel, and impatient masses. Pure political myopia, if you ask me.

Akufo-Addo got away with his grandiose scheme of promises twice --- in 2016 and 2020. We all applauded him when he titillated our ears with a con plan to bring down Venus from outer space.

We were convinced good grammar alone was sufficient to lead Ghana. That's partly the reason for much of our economic decadence.

And yet, Dr. Bawumia seems to have taken a page from his master's cook book. He is polishing the old promises and manufacturing new unattainable ones too, with gusto.

I saw him the other day, trying to sing along with some jubilant fans on Paul Adom Ochere's one-sided show on Metro TV. He doesn't know the song and could therefore not sing it. Yet, he kept muffling his mouth up and down, pretending to be singing, but we heard nothing except muttering chaos. It was like a dumb show.

The cameraman did a great job by focussing his lenses on the suffering singer, he smelt a rat. We all saw the Vice President's pretentious, disharmony of lips and lyrics in motion, an action very incongruous with the rest of the choir. Why would Paul expose him to such public discomfort?

Dr. Bawumia is not alone in his vein populist promises. John Mahama claims his largely utopian 24-hour economy is our new saviour. Attitudes may remain the same, corruption and graft may endure still, but the cedi will overcome the dollar! How frivolous!

Another trial and error--- the path of Akufo-Addo -- will obliterate our economy completely. But that's what l see in the horizon.

Here is a country that has little or no interest in party manifestos. We are unable to hold public office holders accountable for their crimes. We have no national development plan or strategy. We live from hand to mouth and our pool of unemployed youth keeps mounting into the millions.

We have morgaged the destiny of this country to individuals and loot-hunting party mirmydons, who can't even govern themselves let alone govern a nation!

We are living in a jungle of political populism, where the loudest noise is applauded not for its superior knowledge or wisdom in improving the living conditions of the masses, but for its coherent misgovernance, loot and share ideals.

The management of this country's resources change hands every eight years, but they are only recycled between members of the NDC and the NPP.

Every other Ghanaian who belongs to neither party must seek the means of his own survival. How can we build our nation by such greed?

Our armchair politicians are not prepared to pay the price for this country's development. They know they can count on our votes every four years to feed their families while they hoodwink and infuriate us with trite and shameful campaign slogans and promises.

Let Bawumia give us data on all the chiefs and queen mothers he wants to remunerate; how much of the taxpayer's money he will dole out on his very annoying project; and how that money would bring our economy back from the dead.

Ghana politics has become a perfume of jokes ---- the best joker qualifies to be president!