Beating which drums of war?

e is at it again. This time he is telling us that the worst anti-corruption performance record of his former boss, to wit, Mr. John Dramani Mahama, was far better than the best anti-corruption fighting record of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. But, of course, well all, Ghanaians, know that Dr. Edward Kofi Omane-Boamah, the former Mahama-appointed Communications Minister, is lying through his damn fast-yellowing teeth, because it was then-President John Dramani Mahama who made Kyebi, the royal and traditional capital of Akyem-Abuakwa, “The Galamsey Capital of Ghana,” and not Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. You see, any politician who is hellbent on destroying the relatives and kinsfolk of his most formidable political opponent is a genocidal assassin, not an authentic or genuine anti-corruption fighter.

As well, constituting a Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) Board of Directors wholly and exclusively on the basis of a candidate’s northern Ghanaian birth or origin, rather than purely on expertise and merit, is no worthwhile fight against official corruption; rather, it is the veritable brewing of corruption of the worst kind. Couple the preceding with then-Vice-President John Dramani Mahama’s shameless and irreligious extortion of the Ford Expedition Payola from Burkinabe road and building contractor Mr. Jibril Kanazoe, and it becomes perfectly understandable why the Comedian OB Amponsah would so cavalierly assert that the name “Mahama” is the synonym for “Corruption.”

Well, now we have the former – actually, epically failed – National Democratic Congress’ parliamentary aspirant, that is, Mr. Richard Manuribe, telling us that Ghana’s most professionally qualified and administratively competent Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, is beating war drums because the latter has wisely and responsibly acceded to the well-thought-out decision by Parliament to have the IEC compile a totally new and fresh National Biometric Voters’ Register (NBVR).

Mr. Manuribe’s failed parliamentary aspiration occurred in the Nkwanta-South Constituency, in present-day Oti Region, the same constituency in which the Mahama-appointed District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr. Peter Kenyenso, was barbarically shot dead at point-blank range under the watch of the very incumbent President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana who made Mr. Kenyenso the District’s Chief Executive Officer.

What is worse, the man who appointed Mr. Kenyenso DCE did not even have the dignity or common courtesy to attend the funeral of the dead man, all to the shock and horror of the kinsmen and women of the deceased. Mr. Mahama, by the way, was smack right here in the country. Of course, everybody knows that the brutal assassination of Peter Kenyenso, PNDC Mafia-style, was an inside job. As well, the brutal bedroom-stabbing assassination of Mr. JB Danquah-Adu was an NDC job. And that of then-President John Evans Atta-Mills as well. Too many unanswered political deaths for Candidate Mahama to want to be reelected Chief Resident of Jubilee House.

This is what real corruption is about. And when the then-Candidate Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo righteously demanded to be furnished with full-details of police investigations into the point-blank wasting of Mr. Kenyenso by the paid assassin’s bullets, Dr. Edward Kofi Omane-Boamah asked Nana Akufo-Addo to beat a path to Hell. That is the blueprint of how the Mahama Posse tackles problems of corruption and Mafia-style assassinations.

You see, if Mr. Manuribe really wants to accuse anybody of beating war drums, he had better direct his rather vacuous accusation to Parliament because it was the latter institution and statutory establishment that called for and legally approved of the compilation of a new National Biometric Voters’ Register, and not Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission. It is only a veritable act of cowardice that would make the presumptuous and scofflaw likes of Messrs.

Manuribe and Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the monarchical General-Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), farcically and scandalously accuse the IEC Chair of beating war drums.

Even so, these thuggish faux social democrats can bet their bottom-dollar that it is a war which they cannot win, even with the staunch backing of a million-strong battalion of Western Togoland Forces. Likewise, if they are going to pick a fight with Mrs. Mensa, the IEC Chair, by fatuously accusing the most legally disciplined and responsible IEC Chair of “intransigence, arrogance and pride,” Messrs. Manuribe and Asiedu-Nketia had better ensure that such morbid accusation is meticulously backed by forensically sustainable evidence.

By the way, I pretty much admire that commentator on one of my column pieces by the name of “Charles” who critically, and caustically, wrote that: “Akuffo[sic] Addo’s government is just as corrupt, or even more so, as Mahama’s. Unfortunately[,] Ghanaians are being asked to pick their poison” (See my article captioned “Perception Is Not Necessarily the Reality” Modernghana.com 2/18/20). Well, it is not nearly as terse and simple as “Sir Charles” would have his readers suppose. You see, the real choice is actually between fee-free access from Kindergarten to Senior High School and complete illiteracy and totally unrestrained predatory engagement in Galamsey, all in the scandalous name of the unbearably high rate of unemployment. As well, a robust and functional National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and Carry-and-Carry Darwinian healthcare policy. And, of course, the choice is also between “Dumsor” and “Sor-Sor.”

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

E-mail: [email protected]