In a stunning admission on Monday, the President, Mr. Nana Akuffo Addo told Ghanaians in unambiguous terms that he couldn’t possibly fulfill all his ambitious campaign promises. He explained that four years or one presidential term is too short a time for him to bring his grandiose dreams of transforming Ghana to fruition.
“I have ambitious promises but I don’t know if I will be able to fulfill all of them.” Mr. Addo said.
The one important takeaway from the president’s blunt and honest admission is that campaign promises are just that, promises:, empty and without substance and are in most likelihood made to hoodwink/throw dust into the eyes of gullible, undiscerning voters.
Lets just say the president is caught between a rock and a hard place; Ghanaians were expecting him to bring some semblance of relief to their difficult living conditions with sound economic and financial policies.
However, Mr. Addo appears to be distancing himself from the promises he made to voters which amply suggests that he is clearly in no position to satisfy voters’ expectations. And that is tremendously sad.
Mr. Addo sounded contrite, awfully sorry that he had made promises that he can’t now translate into action/ fulfill. But he does not deserve our sympathies whatsoever. It may be recalled that during the heated election campaign last year, Mr. Addo attacked his predecessor, Mr. John Mahama with a bitterness and zeal never before seen in Ghanaian politics.
The central theme of his verbal assault was Mahama’s alleged failure to bring financial relief to Ghanaians. Oh yes, Mr. Addo couldn’t just resist the temptation to take potshots at Mr. Mahama at the least opportunity.
All what mattered to Mr. Addo was electoral victory. He had to win the elections at all cost, even if that meant peddling half truths and falsehoods about his opponent and issuing outlandish promises.
Despite his assertion that it will be difficult to fulfill all his campaign promises in just one term, the president did not hesitate to dangle yet another tantalizing promise before Ghanaians, especially before our young men and women.
In the 2018 budget he rolled out on Wednesday, Mr. Addo promised to create 100,000 jobs for our university graduates. The president is clearly overreaching here; our economy is still anemic, and as a direct consequence, has not been able to create plentiful jobs for all who need them.
Both private and public sectors aren’t absorbing our university graduates fast enough because there just aren’t jobs for them. And Mr. Addo thinks with the wave of his magic wand, 100,000 jobs will be established. That is a far-fetched idea. All the president should do is grow the economy first, make it strong and resilient enough, and then, you can move on to the task of creating jobs.
Harsh political reality is beginning to hit the president like a sledge hammer. He is fast realizing that campaign promises are cheap to make, and wooing unsuspecting potential voters with pie in the sky promises is an easy undertaking. But when the true test comes — that is—-turning these promises into realities and tangible pieces, the story is totally different.