Former Deputy Transportation Minister, Ms. Joyce Bawa Mogtari
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
The former Deputy Transportation Minister, Ms. Joyce Bawa Mogtari, says that she has absolutely nothing to do with the raging rift between Ms. Otiko Afisa Djaba and the latter’s mother, and that the Mahama Spokeswoman flatly and adamantly refuses to delve into and expose their proverbial dirty linen in the public market square (See “I Didn’t Cause Friction Between Otiko and Our Mother – Bawa Mogtari” Starrfmonline.com / Modernghana.com 3/8/17). The former Deputy Transportation Minister may be absolutely correct, except that she still has a case to answer, because the National Democratic Congress’ minority members on the Parliamentary Appointments Committee (PAC) had made a major issue out of the strained or virtually nonexistent relationship between the Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister and her mother, when Ms. Otiko Djaba appeared before the PAC to be confirmed into her present cabinet position.
Ms. Djaba says that in the run-up to the December 7, 2016 general election, her mother, at the instigation of Ms. Bawa Mogtari, had caused her belongings to be thrown out of the house which both of them had been sharing for some time now. She says that people who were not immediate members of either their extended family or household had been called in to remove her belongings from the house. Well, to fully appreciate the apparent political edge to this conflict, one also has to fully appreciate the fact that in the run-up to Election 2016, the National Democratic Congress, of which Ms. Bawa Mogtari is a senior member, was the ruling party. I have, so far, avoided defining the exact relationship between Ms. Otiko Afisa Djaba and Ms. Joyce Bawa Mogtari because the couple of news reports on which the present column is based had qualified the relationship between these two women with quotation marks. My assumption here, therefore, is that these two women have one and the same mother but are clearly the daughters of different fathers.
If the foregoing observation has validity, then Ms. Otiko Afisa Djaba and Ms. Joyce Bawa Mogtari are sisters in the traditional sense of the expression. Had they shared the same father but different mothers, then they could have aptly been described as “half-sisters.” There is absolutely no need, therefore, for the members of the media to have qualified or marked out the consanguineal relationship between these two women with quotation marks. Ms. Otiko Djaba calls Ms. Bawa Mogtari her younger sister and rightly so. As well, the former Deputy Transportation Minister calls Ms. Djaba her sister (See “My Sister Bawa-Mogtari Caused Rift with My Mum – Otiko” Classfmonline.com / Modernghana.com 3/8/17). But even more significant to point out here is the fact that both women appear to be first cousins with former President John Dramani Mahama. I had also intended to add that there is absolutely no good reason for anybody in the media to qualify the relationship between Ms. Otiko Djaba and Bawa-Mogtari with quotation marks, because there are far many more Ghanaian adults who have one parent in common than those who share both parents.
What is also obvious here is the fact that Ms. Otiko Afisa Djaba may very well have been victimized for electing to cross party lines to join the then-main opposition New Patriotic Party. We are told that Ms. Otiko Djaba became a bona fide member of the NPP in 2008, and so the obvious assumption here is that prior to the latter date, the Children, Gender and Social Protection Minister had been a member of the Rawlings-minted National Democratic Congress, which would be a bit strange, knowing what many of us know about the shabby treatment meted the late Mr. Henry Djaba, Otiko’s father, by the key operatives of the Rawlings Revolution.
Whatever the quiddities of the real case scenario may be, Ms. Bawa-Mogtari well appears to be the hypocrite here, although I also sincerely believe that Ms. Djaba was rather harsh in telling off her mother in the following bone-chilling terms: “You’ve evicted me from your house, you’ve evicted me from your life.” Her deep hurt, however, cannot be lightly ignored, and I hope a prominent and distinguished Ghanaian leader and citizen like President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo could step in, one of these days, and amicably facilitate a repair of the rift between mother and daughter, if not possibly the entire family.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
March 12, 2017
E-mail: [email protected]
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