Giving credence to the truism of giving credit where it is due, I will endeavour
to state that the self-acclaimed professors and our learned folks who flaunt
their knowledge in general, and on the Queen’s English on various Ghanaian
websites are prolific writers. The subtly humorous way of expressing the
aforesaid adage is its Ghanaian rendition of praising the skunk for its
formidable speed despite its repulsive odour! Following various opinions and
contributions on our cherished websites, I must acknowledge that I am really
envious of our learned fellows with their ideas and wealth of diction together
with the lengthy suffixes of university degrees which follow their chosen
pseudonyms and right names. However, in this piece, I will grapple with the
abhorrent consensus that holders of the highest university degrees represent the
crust of astute custodians of wisdom.
This write-up is dedicated to our most learned man who writes on Ghanaweb and
Myjoyonline. I am somewhat exhilarated that the learned men are refuting the
assertion that the educated few are cultured and custodian of sagacity due to
the pernicious placards they have been posting on Ghanaian websites! It is a
fact that Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe has come under incessant assaults both on his
ideology and on his style of writing. A lady commenting on an article written by
the Professor writes: “Please, write simple English”. With his ideas, it is
clearly obvious that everyone has an opinion; but, nowhere is this saying
prominent and truer than in Ghanaand among Ghanaians! Then, his style of writing
has been scrutinised by both the learned and the dubitably learned. As to why
the ridiculously dumb mischievously pretend to be scholarly and flummox their
brains with grammar against the compelling advice of Tony Lumpkin in Oliver
Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, I am yet to unravel the mystery! But in spite
of the flaws in humans and hence Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) “… to err is
human…” Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe has yet to find empathy with most readers. This
blatant neglect of Alexander Pope’s philosophy by many Ghanaians stems from
Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe not being just any commonplace person but a
fully-fledged university lecturer of the English Language!
As humans, we may not essentially sanction everything we read; most people may
not essentially share our views and opinions, but this must not prevent us from
respecting people in general. I do regard my superiors without fail because I am
foremost an African and I believe that the best tradition must always go on
unlike the barbaric human sacrifice, the nauseous decapitation of people to
escort a king to the other world and an equally inhumane facial scarifications.
Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe is really being mistreated by many readers on Ghanaian
websites. The fact that he still writes about Ghanafor Ghanaian readers makes me
think that he is indeed a brave man! This remark stems from the aggression he
has been sustaining and enduring (some people have even delved into the
etymology of the first of his compound name and maintain that it is not Akan).
Since many people are incisive in their own eyes, anybody who writes and
expresses an opinion is bound, in one way or the other, to receive this sort of
treatment. I am not into politics but if a political subject is worth commenting
on for the general benefit of society, then I will not waver to do so. But the
verbal injury on this man perhaps ought to teach him to examine his life. I know
he may not intend to please anyone but he wants to be read which is why he
writes on public forums and so behaving like the ostrich when tirades are rained
on his person and his qualifications everyday is pathetic.
For Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe, what is disturbing is the fact that he is
incessantly being attacked by both sympathisers of the NDCand the NPP—the two
dominant political parties in Ghana. In a country which is ideologically
entrenched and divided politically; where every incident is dissected along
NDCand NPP lines, it becomes equally disconcerting when one is continuously
maligned by members of his own party as if a divided house can stand! He
recently had a slanging match with an NPP sympathiser and a regular contributor
to Ghanaweb and Myjoyonline known by the name of Akilu Sayibu. Professor
Okoampa-Ahoofe is loathed by Nkrumaists as he seizes the least opportunity to
write derogatory articles about the enigmatic Dr Kwame Nkrumah; he is detested
by the NDCdue to his detestation of JJ Rawlings and is accumulating enemies even
within his beloved NPP. But with his persistent diatribes on prominent members
of a political party whose ideologies he claims to share leaves a sour taste in
the mouth of most followers of the NPP. I always thought there existed a civil
way of resolving misunderstandings with friends and opponents instead of
resorting to articles loaded to the muzzle with vitriolic bombs. By criminally
engaging in vilified name-calling of Dr Osei-Akoto and others to the extent of
calling the other four potential flagbearers of the NPP the “Rascal Four” is a
bit sickening to say the least.
However in all this, my whinge against Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, PhD, is his
impenitent and perpetual fomenting and rekindling of ethnic debasement of some
tribes in Ghana. It is extremely appalling that Professor-of-English
Okoampa-Ahoofe has encouraged AGersis, Laryeah, Sarpong, etc, to rekindle and
feed the flames of ethnicity which would have been clinically construed for
racism in the West by these same writers who live in Europeand the US. It is
quite horrendous that these people, who domicile in London, New York, Texas, and
so on do not care a hoot about the repercussions of the articles they post on
Myjoyonline and Ghanaweb; that the divisive ideas propounded in their write-ups
can result in an ethnically-motivated rumpus whereas they live in peace and
comfort in the US and the UK. I mean to ask my brothers and sisters who are
always eager to play the tribal card to recoil from this mentality of earlier
centuries. As a country which is struggling in these modern times with very
dwindling fortunes, the last thing we need is the inflaming of ethnocentric
passions by consistently debasing other tribes with prejudicial comments with
impunity.
Africans have been fighting first as a united country and then as a united
continent but we have become the Ghanaian adage of the forest. Far away, one
could be deceived that all the trees are united until they get closer to realise
that every tree is on its own. It does not amount to any Utopian view to request
for a United Ghana—a United Africa is rather dreamlike and elusive! Many
Ghanaians clamour for a United Ghana where all Ghanaians will speak with the
same voice, respect each other as one people with the same fortune and destiny
and fight for the progress of one another. If we are able to achieve this
daunting but possible aim, we will be the best country in Africaif not in the
world. Ghanawas once compared to South Koreaand Malaysiain terms of wealth; we
will be peerless this time when it comes to unity—this is feasible and not
Utopian! But how can we do this when our so-called enlightened men come
together, not for progress and unity but for an inexplicable longing for
retrogression and disarray? Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe and his likes—I have read a
few on Ghanaweb and elsewhere—are destroying the morale of Ghanaians including
punching gratuitous holes in the fabric which should bind us together.
I call on every right-thinking individual to condemn people like Professor
Okoampa-Ahoofe, A Gersis, Laryeah, Lonto Boy, Justice Sarpong, etc and their
practice of sowing seeds of disunity among Ghanaians without any reserve. The
fact that such people hold PhDs, MAs, MScs, and so on should not hold us to
sway. They may be enlightened but if they are not showing any good value for
years of pursuance of higher education, then we should avoid them, their company
and their venomous writings. Due to our peaceful nature, a lot of people have
become complacent and are downplaying the Rwandan Genocide and the Liberian War
as unfathomable events as far as Ghanais concerned. That is wanton optimism! We
will be very wary were we all pessimists thinking that any impossible calamity
can happen in our country. That way, we will definitely ensure that any cracks
that have got the propensity to sink the country will be mended instantaneously.
I have already questioned our education system. Ghanaseems to be producing
so-called intellectuals whose logic is nicely expressed on paper but quite
contradictory in reality. Else how can we allow the Okoampa-Ahoofes and people
of their mentality to be debasing other tribes, displaying insolence towards
people in authority and treating them like articles of repugnance?! And these
are the learned men; the men full of knowledge that they should be empowered to
pass it on to ostensibly empty heads! Must our education—an edification we are
proud to brag about—not teach us to be tolerant, understanding, loving and at
least rational? I call upon everyone that we should foremost see ourselves as
Ghanaians and think along the following line: my brother is wrong in stealing;
should I say stealing is a virtue because it is committed by my brother? If this
simple contemplation is accurate, then what do we say about the rampant
propagating of tribal hatred and demeaning of other ethnic groups by people from
our various tribes as if there is anything to be gained from doing so?
It is about time we told those discordant elements within and without Ghanathe
truth about the deleterious effects of their ill-defined actions. It is high
time we forged ahead in unity as a country so that voting along tribal lines,
discriminating and stereotyping of other people can be a thing of the past. The
time is right for our MSc, PhD, MA, LLM and DPhil holders whom we believe have
attained a state of apotheosis to show us that education, being the key to
success and inner liberation, has transformed them into gods. And if people who
are meant to help us see the light (enlightened people) decide to conduct us
into the very abyss of blinding darkness through a disobliging and disgusting
mischief, then we should snub them! If anyone writes anything with a negative
ethnocentric tone, we should all come out and condemn that person; we should not
seek to do a pointless retaliatory exercise which will only exacerbate the
situation in the long run.
To sum up, I should like all of us to ponder on the lyrics of Lucky Dube’s
“Trinity” song. Deducing from that immortal song with its reconciliatory and
gospel-like message, I will also say that our forefathers may have fought one
another for domination, supremacy and wealth acquisition. In so doing, many may
have been enslaved with minion tribes relegated to the background. The wounds of
the past atrocities were not allowed to heal when the obnoxious slavery and
inhuman colonial rule took over with its indelible effect of divide-and-rule.
Fifty-three years after Independence, divide-and-rule which should have been
thrown into the sea is still alive to our detriment as a country! Our generation
should prove to the old one that we were wrong about each other just as Lucky
Dube highlights the mistaken prejudices of both blacks and whites in his song.
We have allowed the intellectuals in our society to attain the level of
apotheosis by paying them the highest homage in the land. These few learned
people with their litany of college certificates and degrees should desist from
taking us back to the pre-colonial days. What is the worth of our edification if
it only trains us to master a foreign language to the damage of ours and forces
us to perpetuate ethnocentrism and ethnic cleansing?
Thomas Dickens ([email protected])
www.thomasdickens.blogspot.com