By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
On March 23, 2011, Ghana’s deputy minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing was reported to have told the students’ wing of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), that the 2012 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was “a Sexy old fool” (See “Nana Is ‘Sexy Old Fool’” Modernghana.com 3/23/11).
Anyway, based on the tenor of her characteristically intemperate verbal abuse, reportedly rained on Nana Akufo-Addo, the keen reader/listener gets the rather bizarrely ironic impression that, really, Dr. Hannah Louisa Bissiw, in all probability, must have been romantically given the proverbial shaft by the former Justice and Foreign Affairs minister.
Additionally, one equally gets the quite plausible impression that Dr. Bissiw lost much of her critical appreciation for the English language while studying for her professional credentials in Cuba, from which country, we learn, she was awarded her doctoral degree in Veterinary Science. If so, then, of course, what the foregoing means is that the deputy Water Resources and Housing minister may be more adept and far more comfortable in dealing with sick animals than virile and attractive human males like Ghana’s main opposition leader.
We self-assuredly register the preceding observations, because the adjective “sexy” is almost invariably used to describe people with oomph, physical charm and great appeal. And there is also absolutely no reason, whatsoever, to presume that Dr. Bissiw would imply that, indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo is a “lecher” while deliberately choosing the use of the far more salutary term of “sexy” or “sexiness” to describe the persona of the former Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa South.
If quite the contrary should turn out to be the case, then, needless to say, Ms. Bissiw might just as well seriously consider resigning her post and taking a brush-up course at one of our teeming public institutions of higher learning. I am almost certain that President John Evans Atta-Mills would cotton up to the idea, and even ensure that Ms. Bissiw secure such critical tutorials gratis. Nonetheless, to characterize somebody, anybody, to be certain, as a “sexy old fool” has an inescapable tinge of wistfulness and outright jealousy to it. For such expression is uncharacteristically oxymoronic – in other words, “sexiness” and “foolishness” do not often collocate. Which is why one readily gets the not-so-subtle impression that Ms. Bissiw, very likely, is intensely miffed by gross inattention from the very busy Nana Akufo-Addo. For it hardly gibes with common sense for the deputy Housing minister to assert that “Nana Akufo-Addo does not deserve to assume the highest office of the land,” and that the NPP flagbearer “would be a bad influence on our youths” by “providing fertile grounds for males [in Ghanaian] society to become womanizers,” when, needless to say, Dr. Bissiw, herself, has been fervently serving a government that is notorious for being a veritable cesspool for the incubation and production of youthful thugs, vandals, thieves and pathological criminals who go by such deviously sanitized terms as “NDC Foot-Soldies” and “Azorka Boys.”
Ms. Bissiw also rather mischievously and ethno-chauvinistically claims that the Nima-resident flagbearer of the NPP has no respect for “Zongo Women” because even though he has publicly acknowledged having dated several of his recent immigrant neighbors, Nana Akufo-Addo had not married any of them.
Well, could Dr. Bissiw also come out to boldly tell the Ghanaian public and the world at large that she has the relevant forensic evidence to prove that she has married every one of the men she ever dated or went to bed with during the forty-something years of her existence?
In short, we are not saying the foregoing simply because it has publicly come to our attention that Dr. Bissiw has long been at loggerheads with her immediate superior at the Water Resources and Housing ministry, and has been indefatigably scheming to have Mr. Alban S. K. Bagbin bumped since day one of her transfer to that ministry as second-bananas.
What we are saying here is that Dr. Bissiw ought to be immediately transferred to the Accra Zoo or some sort of animal shelter/hospital, where she will be able to put her veterinary training and skills to maximum use. For as it stands right now, the Havana-minted animal doctor has become a veritable nuisance and a gaping embarrassment to both the Atta-Mills government and the nation at large.
*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]. ###