Cause of Mills’ Death a “Small” and “Private” Matter?

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

When the 60-year-old Minister of Information and Member of Parliament for Ablekuma-South Constituency, Mr. Fritz Baffuor, in answer to calls from concerned Ghanaians of the need for the immediate cause of the death of President John Evans Atta-Mills to be thoroughly investigated and publicly disclosed, cavalierly ripostes that this aspect of our late leader’s life is “a private matter only for the family,” he clearly and frighteningly sounds like a Sicilian-Mafia capo (See “Cause of Mills’ Death is Private Matter – Fritz Baffoe [sic] Ghanaweb.com 8/3/12).

In strict Mafia parlance, what Mr. Baffuor said is called “Cosa Nostra,” and it is the most flagrantly insensitive and abjectly unprofessional riposte yet to come from any National Democratic Congress cabinet member in the wake of the tragic passing of President Mills. It also sadly and embarrassingly points to the woeful inability of the Mills-Mahama-led and now the Mahama-Arthur-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to field professionally qualified personnel for the post of Information Minister.

During the three-and-half years that the NDC has held the legitimate reins of governance, literally by the proverbial skin of its teeth, at least three people have been appointed to the post of substantive Minister of Information, namely, Mrs. Zita Okaikoi, Mr. John Tia and, now, Mr. Fritz Baffuor. Other than the issue surrounding her maternity leave and unusually long vacation in the United States which precipitated her removal, of the three Information Ministry appointees, Mrs. Okaikoi appears to have been the best qualified. In the case of Mr. Tia, the problem appears to have been the latter’s palpable inability to rein in his riotously loquacious deputy, the 30-year-old Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, who has also been widely accused of having seriously and, perhaps even deliberately, undermined his former boss.

With Mr. Baffuor, what we have is a veritable cartoon character being shamelessly passed off to the public as a three-dimensional “high-definition” political operative. Needless to say, the register-appropriate answer that the Information Minister ought to have served the concerned Ghanaian public was best provided by the Chairman of the Funeral Planning Committee (FPC) for the deceased president, when Mr. Kofi Totobi Quakyi, a former Information Minister himself, poignantly and intelligently observed that “none of the members of the FPC has the professional competence to ascertain the cause of death” of President Mills. That said, the fact still remains that until a comprehensive pathologist’s/coroner’s report has been issued and the latter’s contents reasonably summarized for the edification of the Ghanaian public, the now- scheduled funeral and burial of President John Evans Atta-Mills for August 10 (instant), cannot be aptly said to have laid matters definitively to rest.

What makes the Information Minister’s rather scandalous assertion absolutely unpardonable is its unmistakably preposterous presumption that, somehow, the late President Mills reserves the inviolable civil right to privacy like any ordinary Ghanaian. Well, the fact of the matter is that in legal and political parlance, the late president was the most prominent public and national figure, and personalities of his ilk have virtually no private life as such, particularly when it comes to public access to basic facts verging on their health status or, in this instance, both the remote and immediate circumstances surrounding his demise.

Predictably, however, it was Nana Ato Dadzie, the notorious counsel for Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu and member of the FPC, who offered the most outrageous and vacuous response vis-à-vis the people’s right to know exactly what caused the death of their elected leader. For Nana Ato Dadzie, the business of laying the mortal remains of the late President Mills to rest far outweighs the cause of the latter’s demise. Consequently, for the former Chief of Mr. Rawlings’ Staff, it is only after this far greater business of interring the remains of my good, old Uncle Tarkwa-Atta has been dealt with that the rest of the nation can begin to broach “the small matter” of the cause of President Mills’ death.

What more tangible reasons do Ghanaian voters need to give the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress a well-deserved boot, come December 7, 2012?

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005). E-mail: [email protected]. ###