Dear John Dramani Mahama!

You are a funny character! The irony is that, your theatrics do not amuse the audience any further, thanks to your consistently inconsistent posturing.

The IEA has served notice to all political parties and their candidates to participate in a debate the think tank is organizing.

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said time without number, that he would love to participate in this debate as long as you, his main competitor in these elections, are willing to participate in it.

You have rejected the calls to debate Dr. Bawumia on several occasions with flimsy excuses. Your party’s National Chairman and other top brass have all emphatically stated that you are not debating Dr. Bawumia at the IEA-organized programme.

Dr. Bawumia has invited you to engage him in a debate over the economy and other important topics, you have refused to do so.

Today, you are asking Bawumia questions about the economy and some other topics. Why are you asking these questions and expecting answers from Dr. Bawumia from the sidelines?

You typify a football player on the touchline who was always criticizing the players on the field. Nothing the players did was good enough for him. In fact, the players scored 3 goals, this one player on the sidelines, was never happy.

The player was very particular about the striker of the team, the number 9-shirted player who scored the hattrick. He was superb on the field, but the one on the touchline said he wasn’t a good player and wasn’t doing much.

Frustrated, the coach decided to make a substitution which would see the striker, the number 9, out of the game, and bring in the noisemaker (number 14-shirted player) on the touchline.

The coach beckoned to him to ready himself to play since he was taking off the striker. The player, the noisemaker, said ‘No’. He wouldn’t get on the pitch to play to display his talent and to justify why he said the striker was bad and he could do better.

This is exactly what you are doing. You are on the sidelines making noise about how the economy was booming under your tenure. You are berating this administration for the challenges being faced by the economy. You have been asked to enter into the debating ring with Bawumia to ask him all these questions. You say ‘No, I will not get into the ring to debate with him’.

Does this make sense to you? Come to the debating arena and ask Bawumia these questions, and he would respond to you with data, hardcore facts.

You are running away from debating him because you can’t withstand Bawumia’s intelligence and prowess in the field of economics. He will ‘kill’ you with verified facts and figures to make nonsense of your questions.

Stop throwing stones onto the field and come and debate Bawumia. If you are not afraid of Bawumia, accept the challenge to debate him at the soon-to-be-held IEA debate.

P.K.Sarpong, Whispers from the Corridors of the Thinking Place.