Opinions of Tuesday, 31 July 2007
Columnist: Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame
Atta-Mills Knows What He Is Talking About
Make no mistake, nobody is pleased with the high spate of gangland-style murders taking place in Ghana. Still, the classification or designation by which prominent non-law-enforcement Ghanaians, particularly politicians, label such heinous acts may unnecessarily prejudice and, indeed, actually hinder the crucial and legitimate detective work of law-enforcement agents and agencies. And the latter observation appears to have been what Dr. Kofi Kesse, the Deputy Inspector-General of the Ghana Police Force, had in mind when he recently warned against such patently irresponsible characterization by those whom the general public expects to know better (Ghanaweb.com 7/19/07).
And here, we hasten to take cognizance of the fact that the foregoing remark by the deputy police chief was in direct reference to Professor John Evans Atta-Mills’ call on the Kufuor Administration to stanch what the perennial presidential candidate of the so-called Provisional National Democratic Congress (P/NDC) terms as the unprecedented rise in the level of “Contract Killings.”
The interesting aspect of this whole question of crime labels is the eerie but, perhaps, not-so-apparent fact that the former University of Ghana Law School professor may, indeed, know exactly what he is talking about. For when all is said and done, wasn’t Professor Atta-Mills second-bananas to Ghana’s most powerful and at once notorious “Contract Killer”? Besides, haven’t our elders cautioned that: “When the Bullfrog emerges out of the depths of the big river to announce the sudden death of Emperor Crocodile, he need not be contested”? And so why is this allegedly “knowledgeable” don, all of a sudden, being mercilessly lambasted by some of the very people who, in all likelihood, had their relatives and friends perish under the very P/NDC political juggernaut which we are all still fighting assiduously to prevent from returning to the Osu Castle and callously rolling over us once again?
For as one who is widely alleged to have taught “Contract Law” at Legon, Professor Atta-Mills ought to know quite pretty well exactly what he is talking about. The real question, however, is whether the good, old Young Pioneer is also willing to rat on his master, in which case he would, inexpediently, be privileging statesmanship over hardnosed political partisanship. We fairly well know the answer to the preceding observation; for we have lived its infernal brunt for nearly a generation. And to be frank with Fiifi Mills and ourselves, we are not in the least bit amused. For why should we be amused when the restless souls of the “ritually” murdered Accra Women continue to scream for justice beneath the back of our window sills at night?
In sum, if the man who recently celebrated June 4 with his primary patron and remote-control boss remembered anything morally opprobrious that was induced by the period, he would, with all certainty, not have shamelessly inferred that under the Kufuor government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Ghanaians “live in constant fear [of] not knowing who would [next] fall victim to the bullets of contract killers” (Ghana News Agency 7/12/07).
And, if one may legitimately pray to know, does the “humble” professor even recall the forbidding fact that long before Messrs. Rokko Frimpong, Awuah Boateng, Samuel Ennin, Laing Yeboah and Kwatey Quartey, among a slew of others, there were Cecilia Koranteng-Addow, Sarkodie, Agyepong and Acquah? And so why is the NDC wannabe-president pretending as if Ghana had always been a “safe environment” until just yesterday, when John Agyekum (Kofi Diawuo) Kufuor decided to grace our terror-scarred political landscape with decent and democratic governance?
To the preceding also, we have a quite ready and interesting answer. And it is the curious but hardly surprising fact that like his boss, the impenitent “Butcher-of-Dzelukope,” Professor Atta-Mills has remained in abject denial for as long as his brazen bid for the presidency has failed to materialize; and since his flagrant bid to revisit P/NDC atrocities on his fellow countrymen and women, in all certainty, will neither materialize in his own or our lifetime, “Professor Humility” is doomed to remain in denial until Kingdom Come.
Needless to say, when he pontificates about “the very professional manner in which the assassins carry out their assignments,” we can bet our bottom-dollar, as it were, that Oguaa Kofi is confidently, even boastfully, sharing some coded information that only the perennial, scofflaw celebrants of June 4 can appreciate. And you bet, not even the most imaginative Ghanaian artist could fathom the dire implications of such “JUNE-FOURTH-EESE” language.
Then again, what with chain-“weed”-smoking June 4th Missionaries; what nauseous chutzpah: to think that, somehow, Ghana only became “a key hub and major transit point of the illicit drugs trade under the aegis of the NPP!
By all means, let the Kufuor Administration track down these bohemian killers of our dreams; by all means, put Mr. One Man, One Toilet Philosopher in the slammer, as it were, then throw the key into the volcanic core of Mount Vesuvius.
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
