Destool All Politically Partisan Chiefs!

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

In their desperate bid to clinging onto power, undeservingly, it appears that some key operatives of the failed Mills-Mahama government have decided to embark on the unthinkable, treasonable and criminally unconstitutional. As of this writing (4/3/12), there were media reports bizarrely indicating the hosting of a conference of all of the country’s regional ministers in the ancient Asante regional capital of Kumasi, in a farcical bid to, supposedly, reconcile President John Evans Atta-Mills with his estranged former mentor, Mr. Jeremiah John Rawlings, by the criminally expedient and reckless use of some unnamed Ghanaian chiefs (See “Woyongo Confirms Coalition of Chiefs to Reconcile Mills, Rawlingses” JoyOnline.com).

Maybe the ringleader of this posse of regional ministers, Mr. Mark Woyongo, of the strife-torn Upper-East Region, ought to be reminded of the constitutional stipulation not to involve Ghanaian chiefs in partisan politics. We must also remind these cynical politicians that they and their party, the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC), were not narrowly voted into power in order for them to rudely prioritize their personal and partisan interests over and above the collective good of the nation at large.

And, perhaps, we also need to recall for the edification of those who might have so soon forgotten the gaping notoriety of the man, that Mr. Woyongo is the very minister who savagely authorized the public stripping of some uncharged and convicted criminal suspects alleged to have been involved in inter-ethnic hostilities in the Bawku township a couple of years ago because, in the unconscionable words of the dean of NDC regional ministers, publicly humiliating these criminal suspects was far better than ordering their summary execution!

In sum, the fact that the executive membership of the National Democratic Congress finds Mr. Woyongo to be worthy of chairing a ministerial conference charged with the moral duty of reconciling Uncle Tarkwa-Atta and Togbe Avaklasu I, ought to amply inform Ghanaian voters of the kind of bankrupt leadership that the Mills-Mahama government has provided Ghanaians and intend to continue providing them, should eligible voters make the epic mistake of returning the Mills-Mahama Mafia squad to power come December 2012. We also hope that such purely partisan conference was not held at the expense of the Ghanaian taxpayer, but rather that it had been legitimately and properly underwritten by party coffers.

It is also not clear why the NDC regional ministers selected Kumasi as the location for their selfish political agenda; we hope to the high heavens that His Majesty, the Asantehene, Osei-Tutu II, is not being flagrantly, unwisely and unconstitutionally courted by these ministerial rascals for the purely partisan and parochial affairs of the National Democratic Congress, not even if Otumfuo were a private NDC sympathizer! Of course, we hope not!

What is also rather pathetic, to speak much less of the outright risible, is that this conference of regional ministers comes within days of Nana Akufo-Addo’s re-selection of Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia as his running-mate on the ticket of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). The NPP presidential candidate must, obviously, be up to some great good. Interestingly, though, Mr. Woyongo has gone on record as claiming that Dr. Bawumia lacks the requisite flair and capacity for winning over the electorate of the “three northern regions.” Needless to say, and as the saying goes: “The taste of roasted day-old fufu is in the eating.”

While, indeed, I have always strongly disagreed with the cutthroat politics of the former Ghanaian strongman, nevertheless, I have also both privately and publicly admired Mr. Rawlings for his unwavering stance and belief in his principles, however insufferably depraved such principles may be. And the fact that President Mills’ ministerial minions and partisans would presume to so desperately, expediently and cheaply use the estranged and publicly spurned NDC founding patriarch to achieve their rather obscene aim is highly unlikely to be lost on Togbe Avaklasu.

*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 “Danquah v. Nkrumah: In the Words of Mahoney.” E-mail: [email protected]. ###