ENVY: The Number One Trokosi Killer Disease

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

Finally, Mr. Francis Yaonasu Kpegah, the retired Supreme Court of Ghana judge who has publicly and viciously accused the Presidential Candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) for Election 2012 of criminally impersonating a slain lawyer for over 42 years, is about to have his wish. And on the latter score, it may also be vividly recalled that Mr. Kpegah claims to be in possession of forensically sustainabe evidence backing up his accusation.

Well, on Thursday, April 4, 2013, Mr. Frank Davis, lawyer for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who also doubles as the Greater-Accra Regional President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), informed the general Ghanaian public and the global community at large that he had entered an appearance on behalf of the accused (See "Akufo-Addo Enters Appearance On Justice Kpegah's Suit" Citifmonline.com/ Ghanaweb.com).

Mr. Davis also indicated that his client has 14 days within which "to either file a defense or bring consequential process" before the court. Well, I am not a lawyer, as most of my readers ought to be well aware of the same by now; and neither have I ever presumed to even play one. Nonetheless, my layman's critical interpretation of "consequential process" vehemently informs me that the Akufo-Addo camp may be planning to launch a massive defamation lawsuit against Mr. Kpegah the likes of which has never been winessed in nearly 60 years of postcolonial Ghanaian legal and political history and culture.

We have a vivid hint of the foregoing because Mr. Davis has also observed to the general Ghanaian public and the greater global community that the onus, or burden of proof, regarding whether, indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo has been falsely and criminally passing himself off as a lawyer, or legal light, for more than four decades squarely rests with Mr. Kpegah, the accuser.

What is quite curiously fascinating here is that almost every one of his most ardent and prominent accusers is of Anlo-Ewe ethnic descent or affiliation, including, in the recent past, longtime Ghanaian first lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings. And when the dastardly attempts to impugn his integrity have not unconscionably targeted Nana Akufo-Addo's sterling legal career, they have sought to malign his academic resume and institutional attendance record.

The most recent example of the preceding came from Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, the infamous career criminal convict and Oxford University alumnus, who deviously inferred, in the run-up to Election 2012, that Nana Akufo-Addo had left Oxford as an 18-year-old undergraduate student under questionable circumstances.

What the foregoing dangerously reflects is the desperate attempt by key operatives of the Anlo-Ewe/Trokosi wing of the Ewe-dominated National Democratic Congress (the so-called Keta-Sogakope Alliance of Agbeli Kaklo-Chomping Chimps) to prevent Ghana's former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice from acceding to the presidency, in the event of the highly likely delivery of a Supreme Court verdict roundly invalidating the credibility of Election 2012 and the legitimacy of President John Dramani Mahama, the veritable Anlo-Ewe stooge.

Well, I have said this previously and hereby repeat the same: and it is the fact that the Anlo-Ewe leadership among the rambunctious ranks of the National Democratic Congress, has yet to clearly and publicly explain why it ought not to be charged and/or tagged with being veritably complicit to Messrs. Kojo Tsikata and J. J. Rawlings' summary abduction and brutal mid-night assassination of the three Akan High Court judges on June 30, 1982.

Not long ago, we learned from some very reliable sources that, indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo had barely escaped a similar fate as the savagely slain judges on that fateful night by sheer stroke of luck. The dauphin of the immortalized Chief Justice Edward Akufo-Addo had flown to the British Isles a day or two before the infamous murders to visit with some friends, associates and relatives.

And so it clearly appears that having epically failed in their cowardly attempt to physically liquidate Nana Akufo-Addo, the Trokosi nationalists are now hell-bent on character-assassinating their arch-nemesis. As to whether they will succeed in having their demonic prayers and long-held wishes answered, remains to be see.

They may, of course, very well achieve their apparently inexorable ambitions on The Road to Kigali, that is, if they make the direly unwise decision of pushing their luck beyond reason. Their quixotic wish of bringing the Ga-people - as cannon-fodder - along for the ride will definitely not succeed: for, needless to say, the Ga(s) and Akan(s) are a siamese twin.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
April 4, 2013