We Have A Nerd In The Golden Jubilee House

Today, 7 January 2009, the presidency of the Republic of Ghana has changed hands, after a solemn and colourful ceremony, from J A Kuffour(JAK) to John Atta-Mills(JAM), the quiet, charisma-bypassed technocrat with a penchant for dogged inconspicuousness.
Unlike JJ Rawlings, who loved to have the headlights exclusively focused upon himself, John Atta-Mills by comparison likes to stay behind the scenes.
An almost avowed style of embellished silence coupled with a preference for invisibility defines this former Professor of law. A style that blends quintessentially Ghanaian humility with a streak of disguised discomfort for the limelight, JAM is first and foremost a nerd.
The average Ghanaians is used to the cowboy antics of JJ and JAK’s iffy “fa ma nyame” approach to dealing with difficult situations, however the uber-scholarly disposition of JAM has not been witnessed in Ghana’s realpolitik since the days of KA Busia, K Nkrumah, JB Danquah et al.
What are we to expect from The JAM presidency?
Is JAM a big-ideas person in the mould of K Nkrumah?
So far he has not manifested the characteristic traits of such a predisposition. Is he going to be a practitioner of classical social democratic ideology? I hope he does. However, in my opinion, he does not have the luxury of time and space to do so given the constraints of the Ghanaian economy and the unrealistic expectations of the masses.
Will he be able to bring about the socio-economic transformation of Ghana that he promised? A transformational leader he certainly is not, but if he is able to bring about some measure of positive change without destroying the foundations set by the outgoing administration I will be pleasantly surprised.
The restless wannabes in the NDC will try their damnedest to ride roughshod over everything JAK and the NPP stood for in the past eight years. Generalissimo is already waiting in the wings for the red carpet to be rolled out for him. Hopefully the true democrats within the JAM government will stand their ground from day one. The task ahead is to better the lot of Ghanaians and not the building of a platform to dramatise the hatred of JAK and the NPP.
To The Nerd-in-Chief Himself
The JAM presidency, I presume, will be characterised by a great deal of pragmatic equipoising. However as Ghanaians are not particularly known for tolerance for long-term economic policies, any attempt to employ long-tenured economic models, will be misconstrued as non-performance and the government may risk being voted out of office in the next election.
There is another lesson in the political history of Ghana that JAM needs to learn fast. And that is: every time a government had tried to implement an economic program that called for any measure of sacrifice on the part of the masses, they were voted out of office in the next election. We are allergic to all forms of sacrifice. The secret is that you must do the hard stuff whilst we enjoy the fruits of your labour with reckless abandon.
Mr president, don’t count on Ghanaians to tarry for you if you intend going for a long furlough on the mountain to workout the blueprints for our economic salvation.
We are simply a myopic and impatient bunch.
Whatever your plans, keep one thing in mind: the manna must start falling now!
Last lesson, JAM. Your tendency of overly relying on your NDC pals to take the initiative while you sneak out to cool off, as you did during the campaigns, could lead to a lapse of presidential oversight in your administration.
Hopefully you will stay at the helm of government now that you are the Head of state, Commander-in-Chief as well as Head of government.
In the final analysis, Ghanaians will be the arbiters of the JAM presidency in 2012.

I wish JAM, his government and Ghana the best of luck.
Bon Voyage Mr president!!!