By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Unless he is looking to be named winner of the Mo Ibrahim African Leadership Prize this year (no former African leaders have won it for two years running), no principled statesmanship tenets may be logically envisaged to subtend Mr. John Agyekum-Kufuor’s rather unfortunate decision to break ranks with the executive membership of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) by attending the presidential inauguration for Mr. John Dramani Mahama which has been scheduled for January 7, 2012 (See “Kufuor’s Decision Is a Wise One – Kpessah-Whyte” JoyOnline.com/Ghanaweb.com 1/3/13).
What makes the decision even more unfortunate is the fact that it enables those who have always insisted that the former Member of Parliament for Atwima-Nwabiagya, in the Third Republic, is first and foremost a political opportunist, above all else, to feel vindicated.
Actually, contrary to what Dr. Michael Kpessah-Whyte, the University of Ghana political scientist, would have the global Ghanaian public believe, the decision by former President Kufuor to attend Mr. Mahama’s presidential inauguration could not be more circumstantially suicidal to both the moral credibility and legal cause of the New Patriotic Party. Very likely, it would be used by forensically cornered operatives of the National Democratic Congress to shamelessly insist to the Supreme Court that even the most distinguished member and former leader of the NPP is fully convinced that, indeed, the Mahama-led NDC won Election 2012 fair and square.
And if the foregoing happens, the Akufo-Addo legal team would have a hard time convincing members of the highest court of the land that all the available evidence points to the fact of the Afari-Gyan Gang of the Electoral Commission having flagrantly railroaded the real aspirations of the Ghanaian people. What Mr. Kufuor ought to be doing right now, instead, is to be wisely advising Mr. Mahama and his minions to suspend their January 7 inaugural ceremonies until the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on Election 2012. The Chief Justice needs to do this before Ghana is unwisely plunged into a possibly irreparable constitutional crisis, particularly should evidence brought before it by the main opposition party bear negatively on the executive legitimacy of Mr. John “Paradigm-Shift” Dramani Mahama.
Already, some cynics have begun asking whether, indeed, a sworn-in and inaugurated President Mahama can be removed from office. There is absolutely no need to quibble over such rhetoric of abject and deliberate provocation. Even as someone said to me once when she felt that I had jumped the gun on an issue requiring more critical deliberation, we shall cross the bridge when we come to the same.
I, for one, do not suppose for even one whiff of breath’s moment, or a split second, that President Kufuor could be said to possess any statesmanship credentials that come anywhere near any single one of the founding fathers of the tradition on the crest of which the former Popular-Front Party’s parliamentary whip rode to the presidency. In other words, true “statesmanship” does not so facilely assist in the abetment of political criminality of the sort of which Mr. Mahama and his National Democratic Congress stand charged with and on to which Mr. Kufuor is an original signatory or coauthor. And nobody can blame Dr. Kpessah-Whyte for desperately pleading the ungodly cause of the National Democratic Congress. Needless to say, his is an ungodly cause because Dr. Kpessah-Whyte’s argument is not based on sound logic, other than the fundamentally immaterial fact that the leaders of the then-opposition National Democratic Congress twice attended Mr. Kufuor’s inaugural ceremonies as President of the Democratic Republic of Ghana, which is patently false!
But even if we consent to hypothetically playing the proverbial devil’s advocate, it is significant to note that on both occasions, Mr. Kufuor had convincingly defeated his sore-loser opponent beyond any legitimate or credible claims of vote rigging. In sum, what we have here is a veritable constitutional crisis in the making; and the sooner all levelheaded Ghanaians come to a serious understanding of the same by devising a timely and the most strategic roadmap for amicably and effectively resolving the same, the better we may be able to stay northward of Kigali or preserve the delicate balance between peace and chaos.
*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Jan. 4, 2013
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