By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
During the heat of the 2008 electioneering campaign, then-Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills vowed to bring the suspected murderers of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II to book by hook or crook. The impression created in the minds of sympathizers and supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was that, somehow, since the violent activities that culminated in the apparently brutal murder of the Dagomba overlord in 2002 occurred under the watch of the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party (NPP), logically, therefore, Mr. Kufuor and his associates and minions, perforce, had to bear the blame for that administration’s apparent inability to provide adequate protective measures for the King of Yendi.
On the face of it, of course, it appeared to make perfect sense to lay the blame at the feet of Mr. John Agyekum-Kufuor, particularly when festering hostilities between the Andani and Abudu gates of the Dagomba royal paramountcy had been known for quite some time. Nonetheless, it would, obviously, be instructive for avid students of recent Ghanaian history, in general, and the Dagomba monarchy, in particular, to examine the period spanning from 1982 to 2002, when the Provisional National Democratic Congress (P/NDC) held reins of governance, both as a pseudo-civilian dictatorship and a constitutionally mandated government, vis-à-vis the fortunes of the Dagomba royal family. In sum, the measured contention here is that the violent events which culminated in the Andani regicide did not happen overnight or out of the proverbial blue. It was almost definitely a tragedy that was waiting to happen. And it is quite certain that Monsieur Rawlings and his lackeys of the P/NDC were privy to these activities.
If such observation has validity, and there is no reason to believe that it does not, then it appears that the Kufuor administration was simply an unfortunate and involuntary midwife to violent conjugal activities that have largely been incubated under the protracted tenure of the swashbuckling P/NDC. The latter observation becomes eerily clear when one factors into the equation, as it were, recent authoritative forensic evidence presented at the ongoing trial of some of the suspects in the death of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II, to the damning effect that, indeed, the slain Dagomba overlord kept a considerable arsenal of AK-47 assault rifles and G 3 weapons that would make the eyes of the commander of the Ghana Armed Forces redden with envy (See “There Were Weapons in Ya-Na’s Palace” (Modernghana.com 10/20/10).
Now, while they are known to be quite common the world over, in Ghana, AK-47s were popularized by the emergence and dominance of Mr. Rawlings on the national political landscape. Couple the foregoing with the fact of Ghanaians having been perennially made to believe that the NPP was no credible friend of the person and interests of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II, and it immediately becomes clear precisely which of the two major governing political parties is more likely to have supplied the aforesaid weapons to the late Dagomba chieftain.
Ghanaians have also just been informed that contrary to what Messrs. Rawlings and Atta-Mills would have the citizenry and the rest of the world believe, that, indeed, it was rather the members of the Andani Gate who provoked the hostilities which culminated in the barbaric murder of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II. Significantly, we must also observe, this revelation comes from Detective-Inspector Charles Adaba, an eyewitness police investigator whose foremost and professional loyalty clearly appears to be the objective establishment of the truth regarding the violent events that led to the murder of the Yendi king. And as we have already noted, since it is highly unlikely that the Kufuor government of the New Patriotic Party supplied the reported arsenal to the Andani faction in the Yendi Skin Affair, as it were, and being also that some prominent NPP members of the Abudu Gate, including former Vice-President Aliu Mahama, have been publicly accused of inducing the rash of hostilities resulting in the demise of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II, there absolutely can be no question of the “dignified” need of the Mills-Mahama camp stepping up to the proverbial plate in order to maturely accept responsibility for the hostile events leading to the death of Ya-Na Yakubu Andani II.
It would also be quite interesting to witness the reaction of leading NDC operatives like Messrs. Kwabena Adjei and Asiedu Nketiah, once the quite predictable verdict is handed down by a judge whose assignment to the case was, literally, stage-managed by the office of Attorney-General Betty Mould-Iddrisu. It is, of course, in view of what now appears to be the striking realization of a self-fulfilling prophecy on the part of the Mills-Mahama regime that we decided to so caption this article. We can obviously not say that “a word to the P/NDC wise is enough,” because the last time that we checked, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa was still hard at the flagrant business of disinformation a la Mrs. Rawlings’ endorsement or non-endorsement of Tarkwa-Atta.
*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 the author of “Ghanaian Politics Today” (Atumpan Publications/Lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: [email protected].
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