The Politics of Insults and Intimidation will not Work this Time Around
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Ordinarily, I would have left this task for the Secretary or Public Relations Officer of the Asantehene to undertake. Unfortunately, when a clinical idiot going by the nondescript name of Anthony Kumah cavalierly presumes to reduce the status, stature and the personality of His Imperial Majesty, The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu II, to the troglodytic level of this NDC-hired cretin, then, of course, we have absolutely no choice but to respond in the only language that fools and savages like Mr. Anthony Kumah understand.
The tirade appeared in a long school-boyish article titled “Not Again, Asantehene!!” and pretended to render a dispassionate analysis of the role of Chieftaincy in postcolonial Ghanaian governance. In reality, the stinky-mouthed writer – for one could readily smell from his verbal breath that, indeed, Mr. Kumah suffers from a quite acute and unique case of Halitosis – had arrogated to himself the sanguinary and regicidal job of thoroughly dismantling our Great Akan Culture, particularly that aspect which is majestically symbolized by the Asante Monarchy. And just what was the writer’s raison d’être in, literally, calling for the head and vital organs of the Asantehene to be delivered, post-haste, to either Anloga or Dzelukope? Well, simply that constitutionally speaking, the Asantehene has no business, whatsoever, in openly endorsing the presidential candidacy of Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), even in the hallowed privacy of Manhyia Palace!
What got my proverbial horse, though, was the following heretical vitriol spewed from the fetid pen of Mr. Kumah, which the writer rather stolidly claimed was intended to drum common sense into the supposedly addled skull of Otumfuo: “One need not swallow such absurdities as portrayed by the Asantehene [in endorsing the Presidential Candidacy of Nana Akufo-Addo?], because one ought to recognize that the emerging threat of political chaos is connected to posturing and biased public utterances of people like this Asantehene who glibly denounce political violence in one breath[,] only to turn round to do what promotes it in the same [sic] breath” (Ghanaweb.com 9/15/05). What is also curiously fascinating is the writer’s ignorance of President Nkrumah’s extreme carefulness in not unleashing the wrath of Asanteman against his odious CPP government; and that is why the writer stupidly remarks that of the last three Asantehenes, including Otumfuo Osei-Tutu II, it is only the latter who has been bold enough to challenge an unjust and repressive central government. Mr. Kumah may be interested to know that my own great-granduncle, Ahene Mensah (a.k.a. Sintim-Aboagye) was private secretary to Sir Otumfuo Osei Agyeman-Prempeh II, and that while, indeed, Mr. Kumah might have seen his pictures in either Ghanaian newspapers or on television, the writer clearly knew absolutely nothing about Nana ’Sei Agyeman!
And now more to the point of this rejoinder. And here may be recalled the fact that early this year, I personally called on the ruling New Patriotic Party to be fully prepared to usher Ghana into our next epic stage of political development, which may yet entail an all-out battle, or civil war, aimed at the inevitable and salutary reclamation of the soul of Ghana from the Dzelukope terrorists, should it become absolutely necessary! And then just last week, the Butcher-of-Dzelukope took to the air-waves and the print media and lunatically accused the Kufuor Government of having stockpiled arsenals of weaponry in various, unspecified, strategic points around the country. Then, less than 24 hours later, Mr. Rawlings was widely reported by the mainstream Ghanaian media to have conferred with several former national security capos. Couple the preceding with my recent article highlighting the perennial SIEGE MENTALITY of one particular ethnic group in Ghana, as prophetically envisaged by Dr. J. B. Danquah, vis-à-vis the imperative need to organically re-demarcate the geopolitical boundaries of Ghana, the Ivory Coast and Togo, and my critical submission may not, after all, appear to be all that paranoid. And here, also, must be recalled the fact that my call for the NPP to fully prepare to flex its muscles for the long haul, came right on the heels of an illegal anniversary celebration of the June 4th anti-Akan ethnic cleansing fiesta of 1979 by the Dzelukope Mafia at Somanya, a township believed to be the maternal radix of Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.
Perhaps it also needs to be pointed out, in no uncertain terms, to Mr. Anthony Kumah that most democracy-loving Ghanaians have absolutely no respect for a Constitution deliberately written for one half-Ghanaian lunatic and clearly functionally hobbled by hedges of Indemnity Clauses aimed at guaranteeing that diehard and congenital criminals like the Rawlingses, Tsikatas and Anyidohos, among a legion of others, continue to run riot across the country perpetrating untold atrocities against the law-abiding people of Ghana. And so, perhaps, it is quite right and temporally ripe for Ghanaians to presently set up a time table by which to once-and-for-all SETTLE THE RAGING EWE MENACE, as adumbrated by Mr. Anthony Kumah’s intemperate article impugning the constitutional and civil right, sanity and dignity of the Asantehene. We must also point out, even as Dr. Danquah sagaciously pointed out to Mr. Kwame Nkrumah, that no traditional Ghanaian sub-polity, including even Anloland, was created, ex-nihilo, by the British-supervised 1957 Constitution. And also significantly that long after modern Ghana has passed into history, God willing, there will still be Akans, Dagombas, Mamprusis, Gas, Guans and even Ewes on the face of planet Earth. Indeed, if criminal idiots like Mr. Kumah suppose that they can simply bully their way to power once more as they, twice, successfully did in 1979 and 1981, they had better ask the British about the latter’s protracted military encounters with Asanteman. Or better yet, these incorrigible miscreants had better devour the countless pages of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century history of Ghana and prepare themselves for the Mother-of-all-Battles!
As a bona fide grandson of the Asiakwahene, Osabarima Okoampa-Agyeman, I am also by tradition (going back to the Eighteenth Century) the bona fide grandson of the Asantehene. And I can vouch, without consultation, or fear of contradiction, that Mr. Kumah and his Dzelukope Mafia thugs would pay dearly if they make any stupid attempt to either hijack or undermine the outcome of Election 2008.
What is clear, though, is that the only thing that can stop the P/NDC butchers and assassins in their tracks is a decisive showdown. Anybody who doubts the preceding observation had better read the following guff from Mr. Kumah’s article: “Add the numerous chieftaincy disputes to this volatile political situation[,] and you can see the danger that lies ahead. Within this context, I consider it highly impolitic for the Asantehene to make such invidious utterances. I don’t begrudge Asanteman for hosting[sic] the NPP gravy train to a durbar at Manhyia, but will the Asantehene [whom Mr. Kumah calls “stupid,” by the way] honestly say that he and his Manhyia cabal[?] will accord other political parties that kind of recognition and attention when they show up in the Ashanti Region (beginning from Kumasi) on their campaign trail?”
I make bold to riposte for Otumfuo without permission: “Hell, no!” Mr. Kumah, if you and your Dzelukope Mafia thugs are prepared to duke it out on the battlefield, “Kum Apem, Apem Beba” are also prepared! I speak as one whose ancestral home of Barekese originally housed the celebrated Golden Stool, although I am quite sure that Mr. Cameron Duodu, who has per an E-mail note prohibited me from calling him my paternal uncle, may also vehemently contradict me on the latter score. And, by the way, Mr. Kumah, invoking George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” in order to impugn the majestic dignity of the Asantehene would not save your skin. Asanteman Shall Never Be Vanquished!
*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 the author of 18 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005) and “Reena: Letters to an Indian-American Gal” (Atumpan Publications/lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: [email protected].