I Will Not Read The Rawlings-Atta Akyea Edition

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Dec. 19, 2014
E-mail: [email protected]

Finally, the launching of Prof. Kwaku Danso-Boafo's book titled J. J. Rawlings And The Democratic Transition In Ghana (Ghana Universities Press, 2014), has come to past. Actually, I wanted to say "has come and gone." But, in reality, it has neither come to past nor come and gone. It is still right here with us, even though it officially occurred on Wednesday, December 10, 2014. That was the same day that this year's Nobel Laureates received their prizes - medals and monies. If I remember accurately, the original book launch was supposed to have taken place a couple of months ago, at the British Council Hall in Accra. And then, predictably, the strongman protagonist went to court to stop Prof. Danso-Boafo's book launch.

What partly annoyed me was the fact that the book was already several years behind schedule, according to the author himself. On Wednesday, December 10, the author, who is also a quite notable political scientist and diplomat, politely chalked the delay in the book launch to peer reviewers but, in reality, whatever snags and hitches and glitches Prof. Danso-Boafo had encountered during the course of preparing his book for publication, had been largely caused by the censors of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, who had sought to have the author thoroughly sanitize the book out of the realm of academic and scholastic objectivity into one of a feckless praise-song.

But the die, in proverbial parlance, had already been cast. A judicial compromise would be sought enjoining the author to effect certain unspecified emendations which would come in the form of a second edition. And this is precisely where yours truly comes in. For truth be told, a second edition of the book J. J. Rawlings And The Democratic Transition In Ghana would be no second edition at all; rather, it would be what I have decided to aptly call "The Rawlings-Atta Akyea Edition." And for those of our readers who may not know the man, Mr. Samuel Atta-Akyea is the locally renowned attorney who represented Chairman Rawlings in his suit and successfully secured an injunction against Prof. Danso-Boafo's treatise. Mr. Atta-Akyea is also the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa South.

Incidentally, both Messrs. Atta-Akyea and Danso-Boafo are blood relatives, as also is yours truly. And so, perhaps, what this sad episode tells us is that sometimes "money is thicker than blood." I am not scrambling for it yet, but I am eager to receive a copy of the book with a view to reviewing the same sometime down the pike, as it were. But, of course, I do not intend to read the Rawlings-Atta Akyea Edition of J. J. Rawlings And The Democratic Transition In Ghana.

In seeking an injunction against Prof. Danso-Boafo's book launch, Chairman Rawlings set a very bad precedent which ought not to be repeated by anybody in the country anytime soon, if not ever. It is dispiriting enough to reckon the fact of the woeful dearth of first-rate scholarship of the sort reportedly pursued by Prof. Danso-Boafo; but to have one's yeomanly efforts mischievously made short work of the way that Chairman Rawlings did, constitutes the very height of sheer arrogance and scholastic regression. And this definitely is not what Ghanaians bargained for in the name of scholarship covering the AFRC and P/NDC eras. And Chairman Rawlings and his minions, supporters, admirers and sympathizers ought to appreciate this much.

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