I Would Like to Believe Alhaji Mumuni, but…

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

Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni’s denial that contrary to a quite well-sourced and credible news report published in the Ghanaian Statesman, alleging that the Ghana embassy in Abidjan has been shuttered, following the capture of former Ivorian strongman Laurent Gbagbo, and that, indeed, the embassy was fully operational, albeit “at a low profile,” must be taken with a pinch of salt (See “Ghana Embassy in Ivory Coast Not Closed, But…” MyJoyOnline.com 4/20/11).

First of all, precisely for what set of reasons would the government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) wait until the bulk of the mayhem and carnage that immediately preceded the capture of former President Laurent Gbagbo had remarkably subsided before deciding to evacuate “non-essential” staff of our embassy from Abidjan? It simply does not add up, as New Yorkers are wont to say.

But, perhaps, even a far better riposte would have burst out of the mouth of my third-grade-educated maternal grandmother, Grace Akosua Ateaa Agyeman-Sintim, thusly: “Alhaji Mumuni, or whatever that young man calls himself, must be one of those village bumpkins who have a habit of collecting rain-water with a scupper after heavy downpours.”

And just what does Ghana’s Foreign Minister mean when he states that the Ghana embassy in Abidjan is operating “at a low profile,” at just about the very moment that business ought to be ratcheting up to full-throttle? We think we know the answer; and it is simply that having unwisely backed an intransigent and anti-democratic and crudely nativist President Gbagbo, against the better judgment of the proverbial international community, including the African Union, the United Nations and the European Union, the Mills-Mahama government finds itself in the throes of abject mortification.

Among the Akan, there is a maxim which says that: “An evil-minded person flees when there is no apparent assailant in hot pursuit.” In other words, having invidiously and shamelessly indicated to the august international community that the key operatives of Ghana’s National Democratic Congress have absolutely no respect for democratic culture and the rule of law, Messrs. Atta-Mills and Mahama find themselves virtually friendless and bereft of the kind of collegial hedge, or support, that is the hallmark of international diplomacy.

In sum, the Mills-Mahama government has decisively lost whatever modicum of credibility it possessed going into the Gbagbo-Ouattara impasse. And, needless to say, it is only a matter of time before the entire Ghanaian diplomatic network comes crashing onto the balding pates of these sometime docile flunkies of the pathologically unruly and rambunctious Mr. Jeremiah John Rawlings.

It is also rather pathetic that while he cavalierly claims that relations between Ghana and the Ivory coast “are as strong as ever,” nonetheless, Alhaji Mumuni began to stammer badly when he was asked, by a journalist, the simple but telling question of whether President Mills has been able to muster the moral courage to put a congratulatory phone call through to President Alassane Ouattara. To the preceding effect, this is what the man who is supposed to be Ghana’s most authoritative liaison between President Mills and the international community had to say: “Er…rrm…err…rrm…. I wouldn’t be able to say precisely whether he [President Mills] did [call President Ouattara] or not[,] but I do know certainly that for the longest while, he had maintained quiet diplomacy[,] and that he had engaged both Mr. Alassane Ouattara and President Gbagbo in the past.”

Now, the most sticky question regards not whether the Ghanaian embassy in Abidjan is operating at either full-throttle or “at a low profile,” as Mr. Mumuni prefers to cast matters, but whether in rather unwisely deciding to side with a sore loser President Mills has been of any significant benefit to the nearly two-and-odd million Ghanaian citizens who call the Ivory Coast their second home, in terms of goodwill and personal security.

And when the nation’s chief diplomat cannot confirm whether, indeed, Ghana’s ambassador to the Ivory Coast, Col. E. K. T. Donkor (rtd.), has been recalled, for whatever reasons, by President Mills, you can bet your proverbial bottom-dollar that ours is a very dysfunctional and downright hulking diplomatic edifice.

Personally speaking, however, I firmly believe that the now-President Alassane Ouattara is much too sophisticated and politically savvy to be either vengeful or resentful of the man who unconscionably, expediently and selfishly collaborated with his nemeses and/or ideological opponents to keep him from justifiably and gloriously assuming the reins of democratic governance in the Ivory Coast.

*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 a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: [email protected]. ###