Some thoughts and reactions on President Akufo-Addo’s maiden SONA – Part 4

By: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

The unprecedented wholesomeness of the maiden State of the Nation Address (SONA) by President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is clearly evinced by the fact that a little more than 24 hours later, the key operatives of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) could only throw potshots at the contents of the speech. Not a single statistical evidence has been remarkably refuted or contradicted by even former Deputy Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson, who virulently accused Nana Akufo-Addo of tactical cherry-picking. Consequently, I was amused in no small measure when Mr. Koku Anyidoho, the notorious foul-mouthed Deputy General-Secretary of the NDC upbraided the President for failing to apologize to Mrs. Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei, the controversial Chairperson of the so-called Independent Electoral Commission.

The lingering euphoria stemming from the massive victory of then-Candidate Akufo-Addo, one fervidly hopes, has not blinded the key operatives of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) into facilely taking the widely remarked efficiency of Mrs. Osei and her Associate Commissioners of the EC for granted. Needless to say, it was equally the hermetic vigilance of the key operatives of the NPP, this time around, that ensured that the appropriate judgment calls were made. We must also not forget the significant and timely intervention of the globally reputed Mr. Kofi Annan, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and retired United Nations Secretary-General, whose call on the EC Chair to promptly announce the results of the polling, in order to reduce simmering tensions between the members of the two major political parties, may well have preserved the integrity of the nation in ways that might not have occurred in the absence of the same.

If I have any beef with any aspects of both Nana Akufo-Addo’s presidential inaugural address and his State of the Nation follow-up, as it were, it was the glaring omission of the mention of Mr. Annan. I am not on Ground Zero and so I cannot presume to second-guess Nana Akufo-Addo’s speechwriters, although I have every good reason to believe that Messrs. Annan and Akufo-Addo are on the most cordial of terms, even if they do not happen to be buddies. At any rate, the basis upon which Mr. Anyidoho wanted President Akufo-Addo to render an apology to Mrs. Osei clearly appears to be grossly misplaced. It is quite incontrovertibly evident that the former “unconstitutionally” transferred Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), by her much -remarked erratic behavior and recalcitrant and downright rude attitude towards Supreme Court rulings seeking to ensure a free and fair electoral process, clearly demonstrated that she was far more attuned to primarily serving the especial interests of her primary benefactor and paymaster than anything else.

And so as far as many of us avid watchers of the Ghanaian political scene are concerned, the jury is still pretty much out on the professional competence and integrity of the EC’s Chair. Once again, I want to take this prime opportunity to review the tenure of the EC Chair and those of the Commission’s Associate commissioners, with the view to possibly limiting their terms of service to not more than 10 years, in order to considerably prevent what may be aptly termed as the “Afari-Gyan Syndrome” or disease, whereby a tenure overstay ossifies both the integrity and dynamism of the EC Chair, in particular, but all the key operatives of the Commission in general. Needless to say, the fabled story of how one former NASA computer whiz-kid scientist called Joe Anokye ensured that the EC operatives would not take Nana Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party for a ride the third time around is too much a matter of public record for anybody to pretend that the outcome of Election 2016 was a purely organic act of Nature or Divine Providence.

I don’t rule out the Hand of Providence, but I also believe in the tired old Akan maxim that God helps only those who help themselves. The key players of Team Akufo-Addo worked indefatigably and around the proverbial clock to help themselves, and so God added His/ Her in indispensable weight to the efforts of the twice-trounced New Patriotic Party operatives. Mr. Anyidoho, these are simply not the characteristic markings of an apologetic story, it has all the hallmarks of a heroic achievement.

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