Kwabena Adjei Must Shut Up!

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

Thankfully, the partial rerun of the Akwatia parliamentary election redounded to the widely expected benefit of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), with the latter party’s Dr. Kofi Asare delightfully trouncing the notoriously violent Baba Jamal, the deputy Eastern Regional minister by 17,900 to 15,860. Still, in the grim context of what we know of the unsavory deportment of Baba Jamal, the final tally may still be aptly deemed as rather too close for comfort, especially with Election 2012 looming just around the corner, as it were.

What the foregoing means is that the triumphant NPP constabulary needs to work extra-hard to guarantee that the political specter personified by the likes of Baba Jamal, in particular, and the NDC, in general, never becomes a reality in Akyem-Abuakwa. What we also observe here is the faulty historical hospitality of Okyeman coming back to haunt the well-meaning and culturally and socio-economically inclusive denizens of this revered traditional state of Ghana. And while our intention here is not the least bit nativistic, it goes without saying that just as the Fante people admirably demonstrated their collective self-love at last December’s poll by massively voting for one of their own, rather than on the basis of ideological principles or the future well-being of our country at large, the politicians and traditional rulers of Great Susubiribi would have to strategize in favor of a necessary realignment of the major political forces prevailing in that Ghanaian sub-polity.

In short, postcolonial political pluralism ought not, in any way whatsoever, be allowed to continue to seriously undermine the ethnic and cultural unity and organicity of Okyeman in general and the Akan Meta-/Super-Sate in particular. The preceding was eerily drummed home to us when recently we discovered to our delightful horror that the Ewe of the American Diaspora and elsewhere have actually conferred and established a Pan-Ewe organization, with the obvious objective of shoring up their numbers for the tacit and ultimate agenda of dominating their perceived enemies and political opponents. The latter is what I have aptly designated as the “Agorkorli Paranoia Syndrome.” It is also quite quizzical for some of us to learn of Baba Jamal, an Akwatia-born northern Ghanaian, dastardly orchestrating the savage ambush and brutal physical assault of an Akyem-woman (or Okyenibaa) and readily getting away with it, apparently. We have also since learned that Baba Jamal is also having a great kick out of his rather shameful and unmanly assault of Ms. Ama Korang, the National Democratic Congress’ regional women’s organizer. And here, we must promptly send a strong warning to Baba Jamal that he cannot cavalierly trample Okyeman’s womanhood and expect to be afforded safe conduct, even as he earnestly pretends to represent our great traditional polity before the Ghanaian nation at large.

It was also quite curious to hear NDC national chairman Dr. Kwabena Adjei grudgingly and obtusely decry the purported fact of some Akwatia polling stations having registered a 98-percent voter turnout in last December’s parliamentary election. Quite curious because in Dr. Adjei’s own Volta Region, voter turnout in several constituencies was about the same 98-percent as Akwatia, which the NDC national capo cavalierly characterizes as being “abnormal” and therefore ought to be judicially litigated.

The pertinent question that ought to be asked here is: Precisely what makes a 98-percent voter turnout at Akwatia an anomaly and another in the Volta Region perfectly normal or even patently pedestrian? Or is it simply because in the clinically jaundiced imagination of Dr. Adjei, the people of the Volta Region have a special, inviolable, claim to “abnormal” voter turnout which the citizens of Akwatia do not either deserve or ought to be summarily and unreservedly deprived?

In the wake of Dr. Kofi Asare’s electoral triumph at Akwatia, Dr. Kwabena Adjei was reported to be cynically sneering that “They [i.e. the NPP] can go ahead and swear [in Dr. Kofi Asare]” even as the NDC vigorously seeks judicial redress. Needless to say, we shall be studiously watching!

*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 also a Governing Board Member of the Danquah Institute (DI), the Accra-based pro-democracy think tank, and the author of 20 books, including “Ghanaian Politics Today” (Atumpan Publications/Lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: [email protected]. ###