Campaign Themes Are Not Constructive Economic Policies, Dr. Omane-Boamah!
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
What Dr. Edward Omane-Boamah ought to be worrying himself about in the lead-up to Election 2016 is the criminal conversion of the Ghana Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, into a gambling casino by the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, and now by President John Dramani Mahama. Birds of similar feathers, it has been long observed, flock together.
Instead, the Okwawu-'Bomeng native appears to be more worried about the absence of a clearly stated theme for the New Patriotic Party's congressional primaries taking place in the Northern Regional Capital of Tamale (See "We'll Use the Ammunition NPP Has Given Us - Omane-Boamah" Peacefmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/12/14). I sincerely don't believe that Dr. Omane-Boamah, a professionally trained physician who ought to be diligently engaged in the noble business of healing the sick and afflicted, does himself or his party any good by facilely presuming good governance and economic development to be about the mere selection of themes for party primaries.
Rather, what he ought to be doing right now is a sober soul-searching into why political propaganda labels like the "Better Ghana Agenda" have done a diddly little to advance the material fortunes of Ghanaian citizens at large. It is also rather laughable for the Communications Minister to assume that capitalizing on internal squabbles among NPP operatives jockeying for executive positions in the country's largest political party, would be reckoned as a great mark of NDC governance success by Ghanaian voters come Election 2016.
But what is even more absurd is the subtextual implication that, somehow, internal acrimony and incrimination and recrimination are the especial preserve of NPP operatives. Who has so soon forgotten the incessant charges of rank corruption among the top-echelon membership of the National Democratic Congress by the very founders of the country's most violent political party, Mr. Jeremiah John Rawlings and his wife and partner-in-crime, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the country's longest-reigning first lady?
And did such forensically sustainable charges of corruption cause the NDC to crumble and fold up? Of course, we both are fully aware of the fact that but for the tactical undermining of the fortunes of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party by Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the superannuated Electoral Commissioner, and clinically attested by scandalous revelations before the Atuguba-presided Supreme Court, there absolutely would have been no way for the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress to have kissed the engagement ring of victory in Election 2012.
What is also the use of upgrading the Tamale Teaching Hospital, as Dr. Omane-Boamah smugly brags about, when not a single indisposed cabinet appointee, including the Communications Minister himself, can be counted upon to use the same? Rather, super-privileged Ghanaians like Dr. Omane-Boamah and President Mahama prefer to fly our presidential Gulf-Stream jet to either South Africa or Europe and the United States for even routine medical check-ups. Besides, the last time that the Tamale Teaching Hospital made the banner headlines, it was about the woeful understaffing of the same.
As of this writing (4/12/14), the Northern Region's flagship medical center had been reported to be operating at nearly 60-percent below capacity. And there is absolutely no reason for any levelheaded Ghanaian to believe that this abysmal state of affairs is apt to be remarkably meliorated anytime soon. And then, also, what is the practical value of the construction of a lavish edifice in Tamale for the National Communication Authority, when electricity supply is virtually non-existent during most of the busiest working hours of the day?
You see, so intellectually and psychologically wasted and bankrupt is Dr. Omane-Boamah that one begins to wonder by what criteria he secured his appointment from Little Dramani; and even more curiously, precisely how he passed muster before the parliamentary vetting committee.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
April 12, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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