By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
I sincerely don't think that President John Dramani Mahama quite appreciates the fact that the dire situation in which the stability of Ghana's fledgling democratic culture finds itself, and the "challenges" facing our country, has absolutely everything to do with the cynical and dastardly decision by Mr. Mahama and the Electoral Commissioner to unconscienably rig the 2012 Presidential Election (See "Election Petition Is A Challenge To Our Democracy - Mahama" Radioxyzonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/12/13).
It is, therefore, unpardonably mischievous for the President to blasphemously pretend as if Divine Providence had anything to do with the currently tense political situation in the country. But what is even more annoying is for Mr. Mahama to imperiously blame the very people whom he so criminally robbed at the polls for simply refusing to accept raw injustice, by not lying prostrate for the "thief" to ride roughshod over their backs, all in the dubious name of "peace and tranquility."
On the preceding score, Mr. Mahama clearly knows that he is not telling Ghanaians the plain and naked truth when, on the one hand, he bitterly complains that the Election 2012 Presidential Petition is giving him migraine and a lot of sleepless nights; while within the same breath, he would lamely have the rest of the world believe that all is well and honkydory in the country.
His devious attempt to draw the Muslim community into the fray must be roundly condemned. And here must be recalled the fact that addressing a visiting Muslim Parliamentary Caucus at the Flagstaff House on Friday, July 12, 2013, Mr. Mahama reportedly "called on Muslims in the country to use the holy month of Ramadan to pray to God to sustain the peace that exists in the country, regardless of which verdict is delivered by the Supreme Court, as far as the election petition trial is concerned."
Indeed, that Mr. Mahama was peevishly being disingenuous can hardly be gainsaid. For not very long ago, the president embarked on a "screaming tour" of the country and insisted, rather quixotically, that the judicial verdict on Election 2012 was a foregone conclusion, because it was Divine Providence Himself who had declared and sworn in Mr. Mahama as President of the Democratic Republic of Ghana, and not Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the criminally minded Electoral Commissioner with whom the former had willfully colluded to rig Election 2012, as has glaringly been proven on global television by Mr. Philip Addison, counsel for the petitioners.
Needless to say, Muslims all around the world, like other religious people, are great lovers of justice; and so we hope that diverse ideological suasions and proclivities aside, that Ghanaian Muslims will use this year's Ramadan season of peace and soul-searching devotion to pray for justice to reign as the overriding ethical factor in Fourth-Republican Ghanaian political culture.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
July 12, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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