By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
I don’t know what Mr. John Akologo Tia means when he calls Nana Akufo-Addo “a frustrated and desperate person who does not merit his position as the leader of the main opposition group,” but perhaps the Information Minister had better be reminded that nobody was as desperate as his own boss and now-President John Evans Atta-Mills, contesting three times for the job that he now holds (See “Information Minister: Akufo-Addo Is Desperate To Be President” Peacefmonline.com 2/21/11).
The Gambaga native also risibly claims that the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for Election 2012 has yet to explain what he means by his “All-Die-Be-Die” advisory to members and supporters of the NPP. Well, Nana Akufo-Addo has explained himself more than amply to the Ghanaian public and the international community at large. And this is what he told the audience gathered in the conference hall of the Freedom Hotel at Ho, in the Volta Region:
“Wonders, they say, would never cease. What could the leader of the National Democratic Congress of all parties have meant when he said, ‘And let no one think that inciting or priming others for violence is the way to determine the outcome of elections.’ Not only is the President out of touch with the concerns and increasing sufferings of ordinary Ghanaians, he is equally out of touch with his own political history, contemporary and past” (See “Akufo-Addo’s Response to Mills on Peaceful Elections” Ghanaweb.com 2/21/11).
And of course, that personal political history entails Dr. John Evans Atta-Mills leaving the august corridors and hallways of the University of Ghana’s Faculty of Law, as well as the Ghana Law School, to collaborate with the swashbuckling Ewe supremacist Flt.-Lt. Jerry John Rawlings to summarily execute and expropriate the legally acquired wealth of diligent Ghanaians in the name of “revolution.”
Ironically, the now-President Mills would also collaborate with Mr. Rawlings to abrogate Ghana’s Third-Republican Constitution and the rule of law, in general, and almost push our beloved nation to the brink of anomie and virtual chaos.
Further, Nana Akufo-Addo added: “Over the last two years, we have detailed a catalogue of savage attacks against [NPP] activists, which have gone unpunished. We have protested the apparently selective manner in which the law has been applied [and continues to be applied] by the State against those perceived to be political opponents of the current government. With the able support of the media, we have tried to bring the President’s attention to the impunity with which so-called footsoldiers of the ruling party have spent the last 25 months attacking people and property. We have repeatedly called on the President to take decisive action to protect Ghanaians, including our party members who have suffered such barbarity, like the victims of Agbgbloshie. We have expressed our extreme worry about violence as an electoral strategy, as was evident in all three parliamentary contests held under his watch, namely, the completion of the Akwatia election, and the Chereponi and Atiwa by-elections. The deplorable incidents in these elections were unknown in the Kufuor era, which saw the conduct of at least ten by-elections.”
Anyway, what is so complex about the foregoing catalogue of Mills-sanctioned atrocities against members, supporters and sympathizers of the main opposition New Patriotic Party that makes it too difficult for the Information Minister to comprehend? Of course, the road from Gambaga to Accra may not be quite a smooth ride, but does that also mean that this rather pedestrian question of conscience is one that Mr. Tia is incapable of fathoming?
We must also remind the Information Minister that, really, what Ghana needs is not a “father” who behaves more like an absentee sperm donor, or dead-beat dad, but a responsible leader with the far-reaching perspective of a statesman.
Then also, what politician could be more desperate than one who cuts sods for the construction of two specialized universities to be completed in seven months and be fully functional, without having officially made any budgetary provision for the same? If the preceding is not tantamount to the act of throwing stones from a glasshouse, we don’t know what else it is!
*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: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###