Ghana: Mahama, a truly African President
http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/24435.html

This Day (Nigeria), by Farooq Kperogi* / Monday, 04 November 2013

On September 30 this year, Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama was a guest at Kennesaw State University in suburban Atlanta where I teach. He came here to deliver a public lecture to crown the "Year of Ghana" country program, a year-long exploration of the history, culture, and peoples of Ghana through lectures, exhibitions, visits, etc. at KSU.

When I got an invitation to attend the public lecture (which also featured a Question and Answer session), I was reluctant to go. I'd frankly grown tired of listening to witless buffoons from Africa coming to make a fool of themselves and their countries before Western audiences in the name of delivering public lectures. I didn't know what to expect of the Ghanaian president because I had no familiarity with his pedigree, so I chose to err on the side of cynicism.

But a friend dragged me to the event at the last minute. I'm glad I attended it. President Mahama turned out to be one of the most inspiring and knowledgeable presidents one can ever wish to meet. He was a superb orator who was also thoughtful, incisive, insightful and supremely self-assured.

His speech was about the "role of democratic governance in sustainable economic development in Ghana," but he veered off on high-minded intellectual excursions, on the discourses of Afro-pessimism; on the perniciousness of alterity; on the role of dominant historical narratives in the construction and reconstruction of the consciousness and image of a people, etc. The speech was certainly conscious of its audience because it read like a paper at an academic conference. Its profundity and high-flown, intellectually fashionable phraseology impressed students and professors alike.

Well, you might say he didn't deserve much credit for the speech because it was written for him by his speech writers, but one couldn't help but admire the smoothness, naturalness, and rhetorical dexterity of his delivery. He was earnest, eloquent, and confident. But his true brilliance came out even more boldly during the question and answer session. He answered questions from professors and students with ease, grace, panache, depth, conviction, and creative humour.

Everyone in the hall was bowled over by his brilliance, humility, and intellectual agility. This was evident from the rapturous applauses and good-hearted guffaws that greeted his responses to questions. I came away from the lecture proud of and overawed by the alertness and fecundity of the Ghanaian president's mind. All of us Africans in the lecture hall raised our heads high.

While basking in the euphoric afterglow of the Ghanaian president's brilliant performance, I couldn't help recalling Nigeria's then Acting President Goodluck Jonathan's first official visit to America, which I wrote about in an April 17, 2010 article titled: "Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, that was Embarrassing."

Among other things, I observed that in his speech and during the question and answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations, President Jonathan "couldn't articulate a coherent thought, hardly made a complete sentence, went off on inconsequential and puerile tangents, murdered basic grammar with reckless abandon, repeated trifles ad nauseam, was embarrassingly stilted, and generally looked and talked like a timid high school student struggling to remember his memorised lines in a school debate." I concluded that Jonathan "came across as unfathomably clueless."

I certainly would never have attended the public lecture at my school-or anywhere else for that matter- if President Jonathan was the guest. I would never be able to survive the embarrassment of listening to a barely literate president who can't even read a speech much less answer unscripted questions from students and professors.

President Mahama of Ghana has only a bachelor's degree while Nigeria's president claims to have a Ph.D. Nigerians like to describe ignorant people with grandiose paper qualifications as "educated illiterates." I've heard that phrase used several times to describe President Jonathan. Well, I think it is more appropriate to call him a highly credentialed ignoramus-if he indeed has a Ph.D.-than to call him an "educated illiterate; it is unfair to mention "educated" in the same sentence with "President Goodluck Jonathan." I know this sounds harsh, but it's true.

I'm aware that the usual line of counter-attack from defenders of mediocrity in Nigeria would be that I am hung up on appearance at the expense of substance. Beautiful, confident verbal delivery is not a good measure of leaders' effectiveness. That is certainly true, except that President Jonathan, apart from being an inconceivably uninspiring and colorless president, is also notoriously ineffective.

I would have been one of the staunchest defenders of his seeming illiteracy and depthlessness if he had a clue what governance entails. Alas, he does not; he has not the vaguest idea what it means to truly govern-much, to be fair to him, like many of his predecessors. So we have the tragedy of being burdened with a leader who neither inspires confidence nor knows what it means to lead.

For inexplicable reasons, while Nigeria's elites have a habit of choosing the worst in their ranks to lead the country, Ghanaian elites are infinitely more discriminatory in their choice of leaders. I know of no Ghanaian leader in recent memory who isn't intelligent, inspiring, confident, and well-spoken. That's why Ghana has always been a far more progressive society than Nigeria.

However much we might wish it weren't true; the reality is that there is a link between inspirational leadership and national growth. When will modern Nigeria produce an inspirational president, a president we all can be proud of anywhere?

*Kperogi is an assistant professor of Journalism and Citizen Media, Kennesaw State University, Atlanta Georgia, United States.

Posting things on Nigerian sites make you feel better about your ghana inferiority complex.

You should stop posting your ghana-shits on the Nigerian sites, you dumb a. s. s little, ghana jungle rat.

SantaMafia is a Ghanaian who is posting on this site to degrade Nigerians and disunite Nigerians.

SantaMafia is one of these Ghanaians who would stop at nothing to say and write bad things about Nigeria and Nigerians.

Be aware of SantaMafia and his likes, Nigerians.

The born beggars are always confused. Don't worry IMF will school them about basic economic management

Seun, find a way to detect someone's location before registering on Nairaland. Make it solely for Nigerians.

SantaMafia:
Ghana: Mahama, a truly African President
http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/24435.html

This Day (Nigeria), by Farooq Kperogi* / Monday, 04 November 2013

On September 30 this year, Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama was a guest at Kennesaw State University in suburban Atlanta where I teach. He came here to deliver a public lecture to crown the "Year of Ghana" country program, a year-long exploration of the history, culture, and peoples of Ghana through lectures, exhibitions, visits, etc. at KSU.

When I got an invitation to attend the public lecture (which also featured a Question and Answer session), I was reluctant to go. I'd frankly grown tired of listening to witless buffoons from Africa coming to make a fool of themselves and their countries before Western audiences in the name of delivering public lectures. I didn't know what to expect of the Ghanaian president because I had no familiarity with his pedigree, so I chose to err on the side of cynicism.

But a friend dragged me to the event at the last minute. I'm glad I attended it. President Mahama turned out to be one of the most inspiring and knowledgeable presidents one can ever wish to meet. He was a superb orator who was also thoughtful, incisive, insightful and supremely self-assured.

His speech was about the "role of democratic governance in sustainable economic development in Ghana," but he veered off on high-minded intellectual excursions, on the discourses of Afro-pessimism; on the perniciousness of alterity; on the role of dominant historical narratives in the construction and reconstruction of the consciousness and image of a people, etc. The speech was certainly conscious of its audience because it read like a paper at an academic conference. Its profundity and high-flown, intellectually fashionable phraseology impressed students and professors alike.

Well, you might say he didn't deserve much credit for the speech because it was written for him by his speech writers, but one couldn't help but admire the smoothness, naturalness, and rhetorical dexterity of his delivery. He was earnest, eloquent, and confident. But his true brilliance came out even more boldly during the question and answer session. He answered questions from professors and students with ease, grace, panache, depth, conviction, and creative humour.

Everyone in the hall was bowled over by his brilliance, humility, and intellectual agility. This was evident from the rapturous applauses and good-hearted guffaws that greeted his responses to questions. I came away from the lecture proud of and overawed by the alertness and fecundity of the Ghanaian president's mind. All of us Africans in the lecture hall raised our heads high.

While basking in the euphoric afterglow of the Ghanaian president's brilliant performance, I couldn't help recalling Nigeria's then Acting President Goodluck Jonathan's first official visit to America, which I wrote about in an April 17, 2010 article titled: "Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, that was Embarrassing."

Among other things, I observed that in his speech and during the question and answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations, President Jonathan "couldn't articulate a coherent thought, hardly made a complete sentence, went off on inconsequential and puerile tangents, murdered basic grammar with reckless abandon, repeated trifles ad nauseam, was embarrassingly stilted, and generally looked and talked like a timid high school student struggling to remember his memorised lines in a school debate." I concluded that Jonathan "came across as unfathomably clueless."

I certainly would never have attended the public lecture at my school-or anywhere else for that matter- if President Jonathan was the guest. I would never be able to survive the embarrassment of listening to a barely literate president who can't even read a speech much less answer unscripted questions from students and professors.

President Mahama of Ghana has only a bachelor's degree while Nigeria's president claims to have a Ph.D. Nigerians like to describe ignorant people with grandiose paper qualifications as "educated illiterates." I've heard that phrase used several times to describe President Jonathan. Well, I think it is more appropriate to call him a highly credentialed ignoramus-if he indeed has a Ph.D.-than to call him an "educated illiterate; it is unfair to mention "educated" in the same sentence with "President Goodluck Jonathan." I know this sounds harsh, but it's true.

I'm aware that the usual line of counter-attack from defenders of mediocrity in Nigeria would be that I am hung up on appearance at the expense of substance. Beautiful, confident verbal delivery is not a good measure of leaders' effectiveness. That is certainly true, except that President Jonathan, apart from being an inconceivably uninspiring and colorless president, is also notoriously ineffective.

I would have been one of the staunchest defenders of his seeming illiteracy and depthlessness if he had a clue what governance entails. Alas, he does not; he has not the vaguest idea what it means to truly govern-much, to be fair to him, like many of his predecessors. So we have the tragedy of being burdened with a leader who neither inspires confidence nor knows what it means to lead.

For inexplicable reasons, while Nigeria's elites have a habit of choosing the worst in their ranks to lead the country, Ghanaian elites are infinitely more discriminatory in their choice of leaders. I know of no Ghanaian leader in recent memory who isn't intelligent, inspiring, confident, and well-spoken. That's why Ghana has always been a far more progressive society than Nigeria.

However much we might wish it weren't true; the reality is that there is a link between inspirational leadership and national growth. When will modern Nigeria produce an inspirational president, a president we all can be proud of anywhere?

*Kperogi is an assistant professor of Journalism and Citizen Media, Kennesaw State University, Atlanta Georgia, United States.

Wonderful Article. I couldn't agree more.

Laughin...is lik havin a new car witout a gud engine...been a gud orator does it make u a gud manager...all his intelligence hav plunge ghana into economic hardship..so wots de essence..of his big big grammar

anomsodi: Laughin...is lik havin a new car witout a gud engine...been a gud orator does it make u a gud manager...all his intelligence hav plunge ghana into economic hardship..so wots de essence..of his big big grammar

Thank you, he may give great speeches and what not, but when it comes to actual work he is just as clueless as Goodluck.

OP
If I may ask who is going cap in hand now?

A.........P..........C...........PROPAGANDA. good job but you failed woefully. Please go get another story. Banza kowoi

Only insecure men and people of low self esteem spends so much claiming claiming what they are not. Great and Successful men do their thing and people all over the world will see their greatness and compare them with the best.

anomsodi: Laughin...is lik havin a new car witout a gud engine...been a gud orator does it make u a gud manager...all his intelligence hav plunge ghana into economic hardship..so wots de essence..of his big big grammar

don't mind the fOol

Ashantiking:

Thank you, he may give great speeches and what not, but when it comes to actual work he is just as clueless as Goodluck.

believe me, despite the foreign investment influx and economic growth, we in Nigeria still believe that GEJ holds the monopoly in cluelessness i know of people that will fight with you here in nigeria if you say dey behave like goodluck. But that doesn't mean we wont be the on sponsoring Ghana's flight ticket to the IMF. That gas stuff really affected you guys didn't it?. Oh we re sorry we re tired of hearing mahama talk about the EPA agreement as if he really has anything tangible to export to the EU

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President mahama of Ghana begging the European union with fine speeches and grammar since 1901. Why didn't he just apply for a lecturing job in the university.
Santamafia. Making mockery of his president in a NigerIan site. If not for your government low self esteem why would he be giving a speech in an American university. Is that how jobless he is. Sometimes he will even visit our cross river state governor just to enjoy the hospitality of nigeria's most hospitable city and probably go back home with some of imoke's second hand suits and trousers. Yes that's how low that guys self esteem is. Will mahama ever organise a lecture for African universities, probably no. But when it comes to teaching American students he became the Dean of students affairs .

As clueless as Mahama

overhypedsteve: believe me, despite the foreign investment influx and economic growth, we in Nigeria still believe that GEJ holds the monopoly in cluelessness i know of people that will fight with you here in nigeria if you say dey behave like goodluck. But that doesn't mean we wont be the on sponsoring Ghana's flight ticket to the IMF. That gas stuff really affected you guys didn't it?. Oh we re sorry we re tired of hearing mahama talk about the EPA agreement as if he really has anything tangible to export to the EU

Sorry oooooo you are alone. I certainly do not see GEJ as clueless. because I tried the same tactics he uses on several people and it worked like charm. just play mugu until you get what you want.
you Apc bastardos will never see anything good in him so I am not suprised. look at little Ghana he could not manage and you fools are comparing him to the president of a whole Nigeria.

Check out the tribe that have the highest residents in ghana, its the ibos, check those that have attacked the the op so far, most of them are ibos, check out those that are dragging Nigeria down and backward, they are ibos, check out those that have contributed a great quota to the economy problem ghana is having right now, they are ibos from Nigeria, as bitter as it is, this is the reality on ground.......waste ur time and attack me, be assured you are talking to the air.

lonelydora: Seun, find a way to detect someone's location before registering on Nairaland. Make it solely for Nigerians.

I totally agree with u

djfaithy: Check out the tribe that have the highest residents in ghana, its the ibos, check those that have attacked the the op so far, most of them are ibos, check out those that are dragging Nigeria down and backward, they are ibos, check out those that have contributed a great quota to the economy problem ghana is having right now, they are ibos from Nigeria, as bitter as it is, this is the reality on ground.......waste ur time and attack me, be assured you are talking to the air.

check out the bigot post ever...

Your fathers and mothers were drug mules in the 80's.

Your tokunbo achievers that nearly wrecked the NHS were responsible for tighter immigration laws into the UK. Prior to that with a Nigerian passport will secure you 2 weeks free Visa entry.

Check out the default political leader of the yorubas; he is confirmed bastard, drug peddler and forger

Naijaproud: Posting things on Nigerian sites make you feel better about your ghana inferiority complex.

You should stop posting your ghana-shits on the Nigerian sites, you dumb a. s. s little, ghana jungle rat.

Chineke, you are the most phucked person in the whole wide world. Clueless, bombastic and fuelish
Vulture-eating wizard with a brain of a two-day old baby! Kiss my arse, ugly bastardz!

omo naija generator republic!

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shitnigeria is equal to this=

Naijaproud: SantaMafia is a Ghanaian who is posting on this site to degrade Nigerians and disunite Nigerians.

SantaMafia is one of these Ghanaians who would stop at nothing to say and write bad things about Nigeria and Nigerians.

Be aware of SantaMafia and his likes, Nigerians.

foooooooooooooooooooooooolish foool. I know your lack of intelligence will be exposed soon. that article was written by your fellow shitnigerian MUMUgerian. eeeediots!

This Ghanaian don't learn.

The Op must be a clown!
How can you compare Ghana and Nigeria.
Who even allowed this person here?

tit: The Op must be a clown!
How can you compare Ghana and Nigeria.
Who even allowed this person here?

what do you mean by "how can you compare Ghana and nigeria?" nigeria is last in every thing good and first in everything bad, so yes Ghana cannot be compared with nigeria. one is a shithole and the other one is a progressive country on the road to somewhere. By the way, the OP only posted an articles written by a shitnigerian. or are you fvcking blind?

lonelydora: Seun, find a way to detect someone's location before registering on Nairaland. Make it solely for Nigerians.

and who gives a fvck about your sh1tty nairacursedland or whatever sh1t yu call it. the only thing that brings me to this forum is Ghana. the only time you'll see me on this forum is when Ghana/Ghanaians become an issue. otherwise what will I be doing here? SMH!

overhypedsteve: President mahama of Ghana begging the European union with fine speeches and grammar since 1901. Why didn't he just apply for a lecturing job in the university.
Santamafia. Making mockery of his president in a NigerIan site. If not for your government low self esteem why would he be giving a speech in an American university. Is that how jobless he is. Sometimes he will even visit our cross river state governor just to enjoy the hospitality of nigeria's most hospitable city and probably go back home with some of imoke's second hand suits and trousers. Yes that's how low that guys self esteem is. Will mahama ever organise a lecture for African universities, probably no. But when it comes to teaching American students he became the Dean of students affairs .

hahahaha your president had gone to the same university a few years earlier to deliver a similar speech so what nonsense are you talking about? shitnigerians and inferiority complex! SMH! I guess you English competence level is a major suspect,huh?

SantaMafia: hahahaha your president had gone to the same university a few years earlier to deliver a similar speech so what nonsense are you talking about? shitnigerians and inferiority complex! SMH! I guess you English competence level is a major suspect,huh?

what do i care about english? Na my papa tongue?i want to put a question forward to you. What do you think would happen if ghana faced with so much economic instabilities is faced with the world most dangerous and destructive terrorist group. At this point in time in nigeria our defence budget surpasses the cumulative budget of some african states

overhypedsteve: what do i care about english? Na my papa tongue?i want to put a question forward to you. What do you think would happen if ghana faced with so much economic instabilities is faced with the world most dangerous and destructive terrorist group. At this point in time in nigeria our defence budget surpasses the cumulative budget of some african states

at least you have admitted that you are an illiterate,huh? nothing surprising considering the fact that even university graduates in your country can't speak English

Well let me explain. In principle, the Ghanaian economy is doing fine, growing nicely at nearly 7 percent. The only problem is that there is what economists call macroeconomic instability as a result of overspending by the Mahama govt.

hahahaha the Ghanaian economy had gone through worse situations in the past and survived. As a Ghanaian, I am very excited about the economic future of this country. Shine your eyes and you will see that beyond the short-term challenges the opportunities ahead are endless. why do you think we continue to see huge foreign capital inflows despite the current challenges. I know any "bad" news about Ghana is good news for shitnigerians, but you ediots forget you have your own major challenges,huh? even your own economy is not doing any better.

SantaMafia: at least you have admitted that you are an illiterate,huh? nothing surprising considering the fact that even university graduates in your country can't speak English

Well let me explain. In principle, the Ghanaian economy is doing fine, growing nicely at nearly 7 percent. The only problem is that there is what economists call macroeconomic instability as a result of overspending by the Mahama govt.

hahahaha the Ghanaian economy had gone through worse situations in the past and survived. As a Ghanaian, I am very excited about the economic future of this country. Shine your eyes and you will see that beyond the short-term challenges the opportunities ahead are endless. why do you think we continue to see huge foreign capital inflows despite the current challenges. I know any "bad" news about Ghana is good news for shitnigerians, but you ediots forget you have your own major challenges,huh? even your own economy is not doing any better.

you re very optimistic of the future a future that will see your president and his cabinent members seeking for job in the famous nigerian site JOBBERMAN. I agree with you my man it is indeed a promising future.
Last bullet: president mahama would be better paid if he was an executive in Dangote group of companies.
Imagine a country with a defence budget of $301mil in a region riddled with terrorism and violence is telling me that is country has good news. Check the nigerian defence budget,

Comparing President Mahama of Ghana and President Jonathan of Nigeria is like.....

Comparing Africa and Europe.

Imagine, as small as Ghana is, Lecturer Mahama still find it difficult to preside! Anybody close to Mahama should advice him to resign as Ghanain president and apply to one of the varsities in Ghana as Dean of Students Affairs.