NSA Operative Sulemana Mohammed deserves a medal and promotion

The Short Commission that was charged with investigating disruptive and violent behavior that nearly marred the Ayawaso-West Wuogon byelection at the end of January, is reported to have submitted its findings and recommendations to President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (See “Sam George’s ‘Inappropriate, ill-advised’ Conduct Endangered His Own Life – Short Commission Report” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/14/19).

The detailed contents of the report have yet to be publicly disclosed, but early media reports on the report suggest what many of us avid followers of the news, both at home and abroad, have always suspected vis-à-vis the crude intimidation tactics used by the National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for the Ningo-Prampram Constituency, in the Greater-Accra Region, Mr. Samuel George Nartey, appears to have been confirmed in a picture-perfect mode.

We are reliably informed that the former Mahama Presidential Staffer was not the prime and unprovoked victim of law-enforcement brutality that Mr. Nartey has insisted from Day One that he was. Well, it predictably turns out that, after all, the man popularly known as Sam George had offensively called Mr. Sulemana, the National Security Agency (NSA) operative who allegedly delivered the Ningo-Prampram NDC-MP a couple of stinging slaps, some pejorative ethnic slurs. Needless to say, from the look and sound of his name, the NSA agent is very likely a Muslim of northern-Ghanaian descent; so, we could fairly accurately surmise the sort of ethnically charged invectives that Mr. Nartey must have volleyed at Mr. Mohammed. For yours truly, however, the sticking point here is the reprimand allegedly issued Mr. Mohammed by the highly respected members of the Short Commission.

You see, I long ago wrote off Mr. Nartey when, as a grime-spewing Mahama Presidential Staffer, the unmistakably culturally illiterate butterball cavalierly presumed to devalue the dignity of the wheelchair-bound Mr. Ivor Kobina Greenstreet, then the Presidential Candidate of the Nkrumah-leaning rump-Convention People’s Party (r-CPP), in the leadup to the 2016 general election.

At an NDC’s National Delegates’ Conference that was held in the Asante Regional Capital of Kumasi, if memory serves me accurately, to which Mr. Greenstreet had been specially invited and duly ceded the podium, the rump-CPP’s Presidential Candidate bitterly complained about the abjectly insensitive, downright cynicism and pathological narcissism of quite a remarkable number of the then-ruling party’s delegates. It was during the Christmas or Yuletide season; and it well appeared that rather than seriously deliberate on the precarious socioeconomic problems of the nation, the NDC’s party delegates preferred to joyfully and nonchalantly exchange gifts as if all was equally jolly for each and every bona fide Ghanaian citizen.

As was to be naturally expected of any sober and astute politician, Candidate Greenstreet capitalized on such festive obscenity or orgiastic display of opulence to lambaste a seemingly indifferent NDC political operatives, by reminding the jolly hoodlum pack that the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian citizens had gone through the Yuletide season with barely enough to eat from their dining tables, that is, assuming that these hardworking but woefully underprivileged Ghanaians did have the luxury of the ownership of any dining tables at all.

Finally, Candidate Greenstreet bitterly complained that he was having an extremely difficult time seeing/visualizing any concrete or significant projects constructed or established on the national geopolitical landscape. That was, of course, metaphorically speaking.

Well, almost out of nowhere, Mr. Nartey (aka Sam George) bounded onto the podium only to savagely castigate Mr. Greenstreet for being too short in stature and earthbound to recognize the surfeit of landmark projects accomplished by the Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress. In short, what I am clearly suggesting here is that if anybody deserves to be meted the severest of punishments, it is none other than the Ningo-Prampram NDC-MP, who unmistakably appears to have criminally used his high political office to impugn the ethnic and cultural integrity and dignity of Mr. Sulemana Mohammed, who appears to have been unjustifiably tested beyond both his personal and professional endurance.

We also need to remember that Sam George was an intruder in the Ayawaso-West Wuogon Constituency on January 31, when the byelection was held. Which is not the least bit to either suggest or imply that Agent Mohammed could not have exercised great restraint in such a volatile and highly sensitive and highly charged situation. It also goes without saying that even the best and the brightest among us do lose our patience and our temper once awhile.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York