By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
I don’t know that one’s patriotism could be squarely and solely judged by one’s wisely calculated decision to stay away from an independence anniversary festivity, especially when the host of such festivity has amply demonstrated that he is more concerned with showing his political opponents where the proverbial power lies than constructively engaging the same in a collective national development effort.
Rather, patriotism is a daily act of sacrificial and responsible leadership. Let’s take the flagrant case of the General-Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to illustrate our point. Recently, Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, who also operates by the sobriquet of “General Mosquito,” was accused of a clear case of a conflict of interest which the Seikwa, Brong-Ahafo, native vehemently denied. The latter, as widely reported in the Ghanaian media, entailed the fact of General Mosquito sitting on the Board of Directors of the Bui Dam Project (BDP), even while also actively and directly doing business with the Bui Dam Authority (BDA) in the form of supplying concrete cement blocks to the BDA for the construction of the Bui Dam.
The flagrant, to speak much less of the outright criminal, twist inheres in the fact that Mr. Asiedu-Nketia’s products are the most expensive, compared to those of his competitors. The Ghanaian public has also been credibly informed that General Mosquito sells his cement blocks, with the apparent approval of both the BDP Board of Directors and the BDA, for twice the price offered by his competitors.
Asked to explain himself publicly, the NDC chief scribe cavalierly maintained that the quality of his cement blocks was far higher than that of his unnamed competitors. Now, two questions immediately arise from the preceding narrative: One, why would both the BDP Board of Directors and the BDA, implicitly, approve the supply of relatively shlocky cement blocks from the competitors of Mr. Asiedu-Nketia, on the apparent basis of relative cheapness, when the quality of such products may be seen to clearly endanger the longevity of the Bui Dam? And two, why do both the BDP Board of Directors and the BDA allow Mr. Asiedu-Nketia to criminally inflate the price of his cement blocks, without also prevailing on the other suppliers to raise the quality of their cement blocks and thus the longevity and safety of the Bui Dam? You see, the preceding is my idea of what constitutes one’s patriotism to Ghana and/or the abject lack thereof.
What is also interesting to observe is that so far, Mr. Jabesh Amissah-Arthur, the chairman of the Board of Directors of the BDP, who has also staunchly backed General Mosquito in his flagrant act of criminality, has not presented any product-quality certification from the Ghana Standards Board indicating that, indeed, Mr. Asiedu-Nketia produces the best cement blocks available in the country for use in the construction of the Bui Dam. And also precisely how both the BDP Board of Directors and the BDA arrived at the unique pricing of cement blocks produced by Mr. Asiedu-Nketia’s factory.
Needless to say, the implication that people who deliberately consent to the unconscionable milking/bilking of the Ghanaian taxpayer and the nation at large are more patriotic than either Nana Akufo-Addo and/or the entire executive membership of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), merely because these rascally NDC operatives bothered to show up at festivities marking Ghana’s 54th independence anniversary, must give the Ghanaian voter cause for a serious sit-up in the lead-up to Election 2012 (See “Akufo-Addo Is Unpatriotic And Not Nationalistic – Okudzeto-Ablakwa” Peacefmonline.com 3/8/11).
Couple the preceding with the not-so-quite-amusing fact that in just two years of the Atta-Mills government assuming the reins of governance, General Mosquito has built himself two mansions, through his obviously shady dealings with the Bui Dam operatives, and the meaning of “patriotism” begins to really assume fuzzy semiotic connotations.
The NDC’s Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa also accuses Nana Akufo-Addo of woefully lacking in patriotism, because Ghana’s main opposition leader had decided to skip a conference with President Atta-Mills’ illegally constituted Constitutional Review Commission (CRC). What chutzpah! Indeed, as we clearly pointed out during the President’s inauguration of the CRC, Ghana’s Fourth-Republican Constitution clearly states that any decision to remarkably amend our sacred national instrument of democratic governance ought to be initiated by an act of Parliament. And so it is rather a darn shame and pity for Messrs. Atta-Mills and Okudzeto-Ablakwa to presume to facilely nose-tweak Nana Akufo-Addo into siding and complying with a legislative illegality. If the preceding constitutes the National Democratic Congress’ understanding and interpretation of patriotism Ghanaian style, then, countrymen and women, we are in very deep trouble!
*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: [email protected].
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