Obetsebi-Lamptey: Kwame Pianim Is Too Full Of His Own Self-Importance

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

You see, when Mr. Kwame Pianim calls Nana Akufo-Addo and his executive associates of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) "intellectually and mentally lazy" politicos, he poignantly reminds me of the famous "Fore-Finger Philosophy" espoused by the Akan people of Ghana. Well, actually, it is a maxim; and it tersely goes as follows: "Whenever one points an accusing finger at another person, the other three fingers squarely point at the accuser."

In essence, Mr. Pianim may be the most intellectually and metally lazy member of the New Patriotic Party who ever presumed to so cavalierly dub himself a "Senior Party Member," without doing any cognitive heavy-lifting than simply looking at his gray hair in the mirror and vaingloriously beating his chest and concluding, "I guess I have a legitimate claim to the mantle of SENIOR NPP MEMBER AT LARGE."

Well, Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey, the National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, has bad news for Mr. Pianim, as follows: "If you actually have no knowledge or have not taken the trouble to find out what we [the National Executive Council of the NPP] are really doing, then how do you turn around to say what we are doing is wrong? I can't see how you can make that judgment, because if you really are the substantial person [that] you say you are, you'd always make sure that whatever you say is supported by evidence that you yourself have seen and evaluated (See "Pianim's Comments Are Ill-Informed - Jake" JoyOnline.com/Ghanaweb.com 2/25/13).

Further, Mr. Pianim appears to have forced the NPP chairman to reveal the former's unflattering political past; in the main, this entails Mr. Pianim's failed attempt to overthrow the erstwhile Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) government of the former Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, and Mr. Pianim's arrest, conviction and imprisonment by Ghana's longest-serving strongman.

Needless to say, a literal reading of the preceding appears to be as follows: "If any Ghanaian citizen qualifies to admonish the leadership of the New Patriotic Party on democratic protocol, particularly vis-a-vis the conduct of general elections and concessions, that Ghanaian citizen is definitely not Mr. Pianim."

And to hear it from the proverbial horse's own mouth is even more devastating; and, to be certain, if Mr. Pianim were capable of feeling a sense of shame, he would be extremely careful with his choice of words from now on. Once again, take a reading, dear reader: "Mr. Pianim is entitled to his own opinion. If he feels we are on the wrong path, he is entitled to believe that; and if he chooses to use that to cause some disaffection within the party, he is also at liberty to do so. But when it comes to judging the people who claim the party is on the wrong path, I'd rather look at the path that they themselves have trodden before weighing up what their interpretation of the wrong or right path means to the way that the NPP has been handling its affairs."

For me, personally, Mr. Pianim's choice of the much-maligned and highly discredited Africawatch magazine as the forum and/or platform for his anti-Akufo-Addo tirade, rather than, say, the Daily Graphic or the Ghanaian Times, tells more about the character of Mr. Pianim, who may well be a financier of this mess of mercenary rag. Needless to say, I have not hesitated to alert anybody who ever brought up the name of that magazine, that Africawatch does not watch anybody in any progressive or meaningful manner besides the wallet of its proprietor, Mr. Steve [Kwadwo Osei] Mallory, a man whose past acquaintance with yours truly I extremely regret to this day.

I have already indicated in a previous article that Messrs. Rawlings and Tsikata must have lobotomized Mr. Pianim upon his arrest and immurement at the Nsawam Medium-Security Prison, or wherever that wretched soul had been held. And I would not be surprised if his life has been recently threatened by the NDC Mafia Squad, thus his pant-pissing anti-Akufo-Addo rants.

The fact of the matter is that until the Wood Supreme Court hands down its definitive verdict on Election 2012, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo remains the bona fide main Ghanaian opposition leader and, in particular, the leader of the New Patriotic Party. Mr. Pianim has at least three choices in this matter: he can choose to resign his NPP membership, even as yours truly did several years ago and never looked back. Or he can choose to join the NDC, where his heart already is; or he can found his own political party, in much the same way that he has founded and managed his business concerns. And, oh, there is a fourth choice: Mr. Pianim can remain a self-styled "SENIOR NPP MEMBER" and continue playing the unenviable role of a Vidkun Quisling to the NPP.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
March 9, 2013
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