By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 22, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
He is on ground zero and says that he is privy to information alleging an assassination plot by Messrs. Kwadwo Mpiani and Richard Anane in the form of the poisoning of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; and so we have no other alternative but to accord Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong the prime benefit of the doubt (See "Mpiani, Three Others Fingered in a Plot to Poison Akufo-Addo" Peacefmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/22/14).
Indeed, I have personally indicated in the recent past that unarguably the two most significant personalities to the political fortunes of Ghana's former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice under the Kufuor-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are Messrs. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong and Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie. There are quite a significant number of others, of course, but for the purpose of this particular column, I intend to squarely focus on Messrs. Agyapong and Owusu-Afriyie. For instance, it is an open secret that "Sir John," as Mr. Owusu-Afriyie is widely known, is rabidly detested by the likes of Messrs. Mpiani and Anane primarily because of Sir John's unwavering loyalty to Nana Akufo-Addo.
And so in reality, it is rather ironic for the Assin-Central NPP-Member of Parliament to have hedged his proverbial bottom-dollar around the scribal candidacy of Mr. Kwabena Agyapong in the lead-up to the Tamale congressional primaries. And I believe him, when the firebrand NPP-MP for Assin-Central bitterly registers his regret for having doggedly championed the political ambitions of the current NPP General-Secretary. I saw it coming, though.
What intrigues me about the subject under discussion regards why they would wait for Nana Akufo-Addo to be elected President of Ghana before dastardly attempting to assassinate their widely known nemesis; this is what I have a little difficulty in fully appreciating. About the only plausible way to understand the rationale behind the alleged timing of the assassination plot of Messrs. Anane and Mpiani is the apparent realization by the alleged conspirators that there is a diddly little that they can do to stop the Akufo-Addo electoral steamroller, as it were.
What fascinates me, however, if only because I have been unexpectedly but fairly frequently been confronted with a similar question in the recent past, is the curious notion that, somehow, an Akufo-Addo Presidency is a figurative contest between Asante Supremacy and Akyem Superiority in terms, or contexts, that have never been clear to me. Never been clear to me, because I have not encountered anybody claiming Akyem ethnic descent/affiliation who has exhibited such bizarre paranoia or neurosis.
I also don't know to what extent such apparent Asante neurosis is vividly captured by the following maxim which an elderly Asante woman of Akyem fatherhood once told me: "Asantes speak in terms of might, but Akyems speak in terms of law and justice." Well, this Asante-Dwaben (Juaben) woman also once categorically declared to me on the phone that I needed to thoroughly disabuse my mind of any romantic intentions that I had towards her daughter, because there was no way that she would consent to any long-term relationship with Dina (not her real name). This was shortly before I accidentally discovered that my own late father, unbeknownst to him, had been a full-blooded Asante royal of Dwaben descent via Akyem-Asiakwa and Adansi-Fomena.
What I guess I am driving at is that most Akyem(s) - royals and non-royals alike - have always been well aware of our bona fide "Asanteness," in addition to our inviolable "Akyemness" and "Adanseness." I am almost invariably not quite certain that the overwhelming majority of the Asantes that I have befriended and interacted with have this rich Akyem cultural awareness and/or sensibilities. I also don't know of many Akyems who detest Asantes, but I know of a countless number of self-professed Asantes who morbidly and rabidly hate Akyems.
And so I am none the least bit surprised to learn that Messrs. Mpiani and Anane would be scheming to poison-assassinate Nana Akufo-Addo on the basis of perceived disrespect for Asantes. I shall have more to say about this delicate issue, upclose and personal in due course.
We also know for a fact that Dr. McHypocrite has written effusively and fondly about his Tweneboa Kodua secondary education, and how this academic experience, as well as him having been raised in the Asante Region, makes him feel great affinity for his fellow Asante political truckers among the teeming ranks of the New Patriotic Party. We have also witnessed Dr. McHypocrite's inveterate animosity for Nana Akufo-Addo publicly for at least some six years now. And by the way, McHypocrite once described yours truly as "a charter member of the Akyem Mafia." Well, let the dear reader connect the dots, as it were.