By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Jan. 8, 2016
E-mail: [email protected]
I wrote the caption of this column in red-ink while drafting it for press preparation and publication, because this article deals with the most dangerous decision to be made by any postcolonial Ghanaian leader since independence. But that such decision was taken by President John Dramani Mahama, a man who succeeded to the presidency a la the politically prejudicial decision of the Wood Supreme Court, on the blind side of national public opinion, makes the subject of our present discourse all the more disturbing. On this occasion, though, we must quickly point out, it was a fellow “Northerner Brother” by the name of Justice William Atuguba who handed over Mr. Kofi Antubam’s Chair to this most reckless, unconscionable, benighted, callous and dangerous leader of postcolonial Ghana.
Indeed, I am deeply embarrassed and disconsolately ashamed to have to be forced to write these words, against my best wishes and intentions. And here, of course, I am talking about the spirit-shrinking and soul-cringing decision by this most reprobate of Ghanaian leaders to accept two of the most dangerous terrorist inmates of the globally infamous Guantanamo Bay Prison on the island of Cuba, a prison that was specially and specifically established by the United States Government in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 apocalyptic attacks on New York City’s Twin-Towers of the World Trade Center that saw the genocidal destruction of the lives of some 3,000 humans from all corners of the globe, although by citizenship identification and affiliation most of the victims were Americans.
As of this writing, quite a remarkable number of New York City residents continue to suffer the deadly after-effects of the sanguinary legacy of Al-Qaeda and its Chief Architect, Mr. Osama Bin Laden, and the latter’s sometime Taliban Islamist hosts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Indeed, what all levelheaded and progressive-thinking Ghanaians ought to be asking themselves and their fellow countrymen and women is why the United States’ Congress passed a special edict, called The 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, just this past November, in order to ensure that no hardcore Islamist terrorists like Messrs. Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby, both Saudi-born Yemenites, from setting foot on American soil. Needless to say, the United States has, perhaps, the most advanced and best-funded national security apparatus in the world.
Guess what, dear reader: even the Trokosi Nationalist Militants, those notorious gun-running Aflao thugs, the closest Ghanaians come to having a pre-Atef and Al-Dhuby terrorist presence in our midst, are crying foul. One quite prolific agitprop tout among them who has written and published reams of filthy propaganda pieces celebrating the slain Libyan terror sponsor, Col. Muammer El-Qaddafy, and currently teaches at an inner-city campus of a private university right here in New York City, wrote and published a rambling self-righteous tirade questioning why President Mahama had not deemed it ideal or appropriate to publicly consult with the Ghanaian people before making the patently lame and unwise decision of having Ghana serve as a veritable dumpster for Guantanamo Bay – aka Gitmo – rejects. This would be obstreperously amusing if Mr. Mahama’s decision was not so morbidly and inexcusably criminal.
Now, let’s get to brass-tacks. What we have here in these two Gitmo rejects is the deadly weapon of a personality disorder that their scandalously naïve Ghanaian advocates and “Muslim Brothers,” such as Mr. Irbad Ibrahim (see “ ‘Gitmo Transfer: Ghanaians Fussing Over Nothing’ – Irbad” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/8/16) prefer to sweep under the proverbial carpet or rug. And it is the fact that Messrs. Bin Atef and Salih Al-Dhuby are carrying around with them, each of them, to be certain, at least 13 years of pent-up rage that could well explode during the 2 years that they are contractually bonded to be guest-hosted by the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Let no one be fooled or make any costly mistake; it was exclusively the key operatives of the so-called National Democratic Congress who contracted with the American government – I hope President Barack Obama’s public expression of affection for Ghanaians, and he has a maternal historical links to back it up, in retrospect, did not play any major part in this harebrained decision – to make our beloved country the veritable dumping ground for the deadly nuclear waste that are these two Gitmo rejects.
Then, we also learn that some of their Arab kinsmen and women, generically speaking, will soon be joining them on state side, under the murky guise of Syrian-war refugees. Farcically, though, dubious “security experts” like Ghana’s Mr. Irbad Ibrahim have been telling the nation that the ominous arrival of these hardened Islamist terrorists comes with “a lot of goodies” that should make this entire criminal and deadly racket seem like a godsend. We hope “Brother Muslim” is correct in his “expert” assessment of this most dangerous of very bad situations. We shall be studiously watching and informing our readers of what we think and feel.
*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs