Asiedu Nketia
By: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
I am partly trained as a Pan-Africanist African historian, although peeking at the desultorily written guff of one of those butt-kissing latter-day arrivants of the long-discredited and jaded school of “Afrocentrists,” you would think that yours truly was first and foremost a journalist before all else, although on the latter count, as well, I have creditably held my own. You see, there are two types of “Afrocentrists,” namely, the real and authentic ones who are solidly or unquestionably steeped in the tenets and mores of traditional African culture, and the one to which yours truly belongs; and, of course, that which is primarily championed by those Eurocentrically schooled Diaspora Africans and the latter’s continental African-born lost souls who are quixotically in search of their African identity in the Diaspora.
But what I really want to briefly discuss in this column today is a brief news item captioned “We Will Shock NPP in Eastern Region – Asiedu-Nketia,” that appeared on several Ghanaian media websites in the lead-up to the 2016 general election (See Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 9/12/16). Those who have been studiously following the electioneering-campaign bluster of the machine operatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are quite familiar with what the insufferably presumptuous and the rascally likes of NDC General-Secretary Johnson Asiedu-Nketia and Kofi Adams call “Agenda 50/50,” which sneeringly refers to their cynical objective of evenly splitting the electoral votes of the two regions of the country widely regarded as the hermetic strongholds of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP).
If Divine Providence generously blesses President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo the way S/He did at the polls last December, the former Justice and Foreign Minister is likely to go down the annals of postcolonial Ghanaian politics as the longest-serving Leader of the New Patriotic Party, as well as the longest-serving leader of any major political party in the country. The man escaped being crowned with the wistful accolade of “The Finest President Ghana Never Had” by the skin of his teeth, although most Ghanaians also believe that this title properly belongs to the putative and immortalized Doyen of Gold Coast and modern Ghanaian Politics. But even as a dear cousin of mine double-crossed by a woman, also a relative on another side of the family, once poignantly put it, “What is the difference between corn dough and corn seedlings on the cob?”
Well, the two “Agenda 50/50” regions are, of course, the Eastern Region, the home-region of the now-President Akufo-Addo, while the Asante Region, the putative Electoral World Bank of the New Patriotic Party, is the world-famous home-region of former President John Agyekum-Kufuor. Well, as fate would have it, the perennially self-deceiving NDC machine operatives put up their wantonly quixotic proposition; and then almost as if out of nowhere, the beneficent and providential “Wind of Change” came and literally scattered this veritable electioneering-campaign house-of-cards, if there really were any such idiomatic expression. But political unicorns like General Mosquito never really get it. Or do they?
We all saw a visibly shaken Mr. Asiedu-Nketia insisting against the stark reality of defeat and common sense that a severely trounced President John Dramani Mahama was still poised to ruling the country with a parliamentary minority. That goes to show you precisely how pathologically arrogant these NDC apparatchiks are. They think they literally own the country! Anyway, I went back to the 2016 elections scoreboard and discovered that the former mathematics teacher of the Seikwa, Brong-Ahafo, public school system, could not even do basic arithmetic, for in the Eastern Region the NDC could only manage 6 wins out of 33 parliamentary seats. In the Asante Region, the NDC clinched a miserly 3 out of a humongous 47 seats.
And guess what, even in his own home-region of Brong-Ahafo, Monsieur Asiedu-Nketia, and President Dramani Mahma, whose wife and first lady, Lordina, also comes from the region, were literally caught with their pants down, hung and all. Out of 29 seats in this region, the NDC only won 9 seats. All in all, the then comfortably ruling party could not even evenly split the national vote, let alone clinch an equal number of the 10 regions of the country. Yes, the Mahama Posse shocked their main political opponents and rivals all right. But it was the sort of nonplussing shock that puts the intended victim in the proverbial driver’s seat. The word “trauma” does not even begin to describe the post-election funk of the pesky Mosquito and the Dead-Goat-of-Bole. Any lessons against complacency learned here?
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]
*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs