Former President John Rawlings
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
He has been described as a founding member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), but there is no credible evidence pointing to him or any of his relatives having been a seminal figure or figures among the vanguard ranks of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo Tradition.
The fact of the matter, as I have observed in this column time and again, is that Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe has always been an unabashed Trokosi Nationalist at heart and in practice. Else, how could a man who lived under the bloody Rawlings revolution look Ghanaians straight in the eye and tell us that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is an intolerant personality whose presidency could spell doom for the country? (See “Don’t Vote for ‘Intolerant’ Akufo-Addo – Nyaho-Tamakloe” Asempanews.com / Ghanaweb.com 12/6/16).
But, of course, for those of us who have been closely following the Machiavellian career of Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe, his morbid hostility towards the three-time democratically nominated Presidential Candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party makes quite a lot of sense.
Like President John Dramani Mahama, whose younger brother, Ibrahim Mahama, is the nephew of Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe, the former Chairman of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) thrives on ethnic chauvinism and bigotry, otherwise known as tribalism.
The fact that Chairman Jerry John Rawlings is an ethnic Ewe, at least on his mother’s side of the family, and very likely the ardent Akufo-Addo critic’s relative, means that Mr. Rawlings’ wanton persecution of Ghanaian journalists, among them Messrs. Abdul-Rahman Haruna-Atta, Kweku Baako and John Kugblenu, late, among a legion of others, did not happen. It simply could not have happened.
Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe also sounds like a European imperialist when he fatuously asserts that the New Patriotic Party is not yet ready to assume the democratic rein of governance. No such statement could be more presumptuous. But, perhaps, the most relevant question to pose to him here is as follows: If, indeed, the New Patriotic Party is not yet ready to govern the country, then what explains Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe’s decision to accept a diplomatic appointment to the Balkans under the stewardship of President John Agyekum-Kufuor?
It is quite obvious that this man is in dire need of psychiatric examination. I would not be surprised if he is one of the Sierra Leonean post-American revolutionary war transplants in our part of the West African sub-region. He belongs to a grubby breed of rascals.
Likewise, anybody who sees the reincarnation of President Kwame Nkrumah (Kofi Nwia) in President Mahama requires prompt psychiatric examination. Needless to say, both the levels of gross administrative incompetence and rank corruption in the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress are without compare in the postcolonial annals of our beloved country. Period!