By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 5, 2014
E-mail: [email protected]
At the Second Annual Atta-Mills Memorial Lecture, Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, the former Deputy Foreign Minister in the Jerry John Rawlings government, is reported to have admonished Ghanaians to be proud of the legacy of the late President John Evans Atta-Mills (See "Ghanaians Must Be Proud of Late Prof. Mills' Legacy - Dr. Chambas" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/24/14). I missed news of the first lecture, not that it really matters anyhow.
What I am wondering about right now regards which of the Atta-Mills "legacies" the Special United Nations Representative for the African Union and Darfur was alluding to. For instance, was Dr. Chambas referring to President Mills' expedient and luridly opportunistic relationship with the bloody Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, a relationship which enabled the subject of his lecture to condone barbarous atrocities perpetrated against innocent and defenseless Ghanaian citizens at the old Osu Slave Castle?
Of course, the reference above is to the infamous "Identification Haircuts" meted any Ghanaian citizen accused of having crossed Mr. Rawlings and his wife, the cantankerous and insufferably impetuous and self-righteous and devious Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings. Such ID-Haircuts entailed the crude and criminal use of broken bottles - largely beer bottles - as scissors in the bloody shaving of the heads of the victims.
There is that one outrageous instance in which the former boyfriend /lover of the eldest of the Rawlingses' daughters was reportedly given the aforementioned haircut. And just what was the crime of this young victim? Well, simply for calling off his relationship with Ms. (now Dr.?) Ezanator Rawlings! The Selassie (or some such named) man had not been given to understand from the get-go that he had absolutely no human or democratic right to leave Ms. Rawlings as and when he so determined the said relationship to have exhausted itself of its original purpose and meaning. And just where does Prof. Atta-Mills get into this? Well, he was the Vice-President with his office right next to his boss in the Castle, where these unspeakable atrocities were being carried out day-in and day-out.
In essence, when I think of an Atta-Mills legacy, these are some of the scandalous images and memories that come to mind. And I am glad to have lived most of my life outside Ghana and, most especially, outside the reach and political influence and geopolitical domination of the infamous murderous pair and their cronies and associates.
To be certain, what I strongly suspect Dr. Chambas to have been alluding to, when the Legon- and Cornell-educated political scientist and diplomat talked about the late President Atta-Mills' having conscientiously forged and steadily developed a style of governance that was supposedly predicated upon concilliation and inclusiveness, or inclusivity, is the fact that over the course of time, the former University of Ghana tax-law professor had learned to subtly and suavely distance himself from the violent and flagrant and downright criminal ways of his mentor, the ruthless godfather of what has widely come to be known as the Sogakope Mafia.
And, indeed, if the late Prof. Atta-Mills had anything inclusive about his policies as substantive president of our august Republic (which I sincerely don't buy), this was largely because Chairman Rawlings had spent most of his two protracted decades in the seat of power playing one Ghanaian ethnic and sub-ethnic group against another, even while also hermetically ensuring that his Ewe ethnic minority group effectively dominated our national affairs.
Indeed, some of Chairman Rawlings' critics have even suggested that if he had found it sociopolitically feasible to impose the Ewe-language as Ghana's lingua franca, Chairman Rawlings would not have hesitated to do so. And all this while, both Messrs. Atta-Mills and Chambas either stood mischievously askance or simply pretended not to be in the know, while the bloody tablehead literally reduced innocent and defenseless Ghanaian citizens to the ignoble status of some nineteenth-century Russian serfs.
And so, clearly, it is quite understandable, albeit not necessarily morally edifying, that Dr. Chambas would so deviously attempt to slap the proverbial lipstick on a pig. Indeed, the first order of business when President Atta-Mills assumed reins of governance, was to indiscriminately and vindictively cause the summary seizure of vehicles belonging to his most formidable political opponents, including the man who had evidently made the most flagitious error of fiercely challenging him for the presidency in 2008, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
President Atta-Mills would also prosecute at least three former cabinet appointees of his predecessor, President John Agyekum-Kufuor. Interestingly, not a single one of these defendants, vindictively charged with causing financial losses to the state was found guilty by the courts. Is this what Dr. Chambas wants Ghanaians and the rest of the world to unctuously interpret as President Atta-Mills' nonesuch concilliatory and affable demeanor?
And then also, there was this inexcusably disgraceful moment at a durbar hosted by His Majesty, The Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori-Panyin II, in Kyebi, the hometown of his political arch-nemesis, in retrospect, when the newly sworn President Atta-Mills was widely reported to have flatly, conspicuously and deliberately refused to shake hands with Nana Akufo-Addo. Now, Dr. Chambas can fool himself about President Atta-Mills' having sported the demeanor of the most concilliatory of the leaders of Ghana's Fourth Republic.
I mean, we are talking about a man who, together with the late Prof. Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor, was summoned to the residence of the British High Commissioner in Accra, to explain why these two "gentlemen" would threaten to fire-baptize the country Kenya-style, if Candidate Atta-Mills, then running for president for the third consecutive time, did not win Election 2008!
There are, of course, a legion other Atta-Mills "legacies" that we could both passionately and dispassionately debate, including the Aveyime Rice-Plantation Scandal; but we prefer to reserve them for future columns, as and when these become relevant and appropriate.
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