On the Convention and Practice of Apologies

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

Garden City, New York

August 6, 2014

E-mail: [email protected]



Following the publication of my rejoinder article captioned "Who Bribed Hopeson Adorye for Such Popycock?" on several Ghanaian media websites, quite a number of forum commentators have demanded that I apologize to Mr. Adorye, the well-known New Patriotic Party (NPP) firebrand activist who is also widely known to be a passionate Akufo-Addo partisan. Well, contrary to what some of my critics would have the rest of the world believe, Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe is not the least bit averse to rendering apologies to personalities whom I unintentionally wrong, or injure, from time to time, during the course of my journalistic mission of educating, entertaining and, most significantly, unreservedly exposing the seamy underbelly of postcolonial Ghanaian politics, and the actors and players who have largely been responsible for the Stygian mess in which we find ourselves as a nation.



It is all too fallibly natural that I should come up a little short on facts and figures from time to time, on some of the subjects and topics that I am inspired to tackle. Generally, and as a matter of principle, I would not apologize to wanton, unconscionable and depraved dictators and other reprobate members of Murder Incorporated if, in essence, the substance of my discourse is objectively determined to fairly and reasonably capture the spirit of my topic and theme; and also, if the general contours and historical accuracy of my portrayal are unquestionable. In essence, I prefer not to waste my time quibbling over petty details of a subject or an event. When I have decided to anthologize some of my most memorable writings, often at the earnest advice or request of friends, associates and admirers, I have had occasion to make the necessary corrections, revisions and emendations. This is quite routine and pedestrian - after all, isn't it all too human to err? For me, though, the divine aspect of it all lies in one's uncompromising stance and determination not to be either fazed or intimidated by people who are too full of their own self-importance, and who are willing to sophomorically and viciously fabricate scandalous charges so as to make their presence felt and feared, at least in the warped and woefully misguided imagination of such popinjays and panjandrums.



In the case of Mr. Adorye, at the time of composing and firing off my rejoinder, I had come across a News Alert put out by the Akufo-Addo camp which clearly indicated that even the pointmen and women of the two-time presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party were not certain about the identity of the allegedly impersonated document, which brazenly presumed to both impugn the integrity of Nana Akufo-Addo, as well as impute the vilest and most despicable of motives to the latter's all-too-intelligent and constructive decision to suspend his 2016 electioneering campaign in order to studiously monitor the ongoing limited registration of prospective voters by the Afari-Gyan-chaired Electoral Commission. In sum, if even the closest associates of Nana Akufo-Addo were themselves uncertain about the authentic identity of the Hopeson Adorye-signed anti-Akufo-Addo tirade, how was yours truly supposed to know any better?



Interestingly, some shadow-boxing mildly retarded urchin with whom I jousted not very long ago, rather comically and quixotically presumed to call my degree of common sense into question, almost as if the godforsaken SOB could recognize the exact shape, form, size and color of common sense, were the latter to even smack that incurable reprobate upside the head, as New Yorkers are wont to say.



Well, I have just been notified by a Ghanaweb.com forumer that Mr. Adorye's denial and/or rebuttal appears on the gentleman's FaceBook Page. Unfortunately, I am not a FaceBook, Twitter or Instagram junkie; and this is by design or choice. And so there was no way for me to have known that the new convention or protocol for rejoinders and rebuttals has gotten so sophisticated and social. Well, I am not that much of a social-network animal. It also used to be that a rebuttal or a rejoinder was composed and posted on all the multiple websites on which one's vicious and depraved impersonator had presumed to cause one the greatest possible harm, for whatever such dastardly injury and/or damage might be worth.



In short, I have no intention, whatsoever, of visiting Mr. Adorye's FaceBook Wall for proof or verification of the fact of whether, indeed, he has written and posted a rejoinder to the allegedly impersonated anti-Akufo-Addo tirade attributed to him. That is not my idea of meaningful research. Instead, I have decided to trust the credibility of those friends and associates and readers and critics who have written and called to assure me that, indeed, Mr. Adorye has written to vehemently disown the authorship of the forensically defamatory article attributed to him.



My brother, Hopeson Adorye, I hereby sincerely and unreservedly apologize. I also wish that you could track down the identity of your criminal detractor(s) and show him/them a thing or two about how not to gratuitously defame one's political rival and/or opponent.



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