Politics Is Not To Blame, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu

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

Rounding off a month-, or so, long festivities marking his 15th anniversary on the Golden Stool, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu II, was widely reported to have lamented the fact that partisan politics in Ghana has become an avenue for the otherwise able-bodied but abjectly lazy to make a quick buck at the damnable expense of the people (See "Politics Has Made Us Lazy - Otumfuo Fumes" MyJoyOnline.com 5/11/14).

The fact of the matter is that like any vehicular mode, politics in of itself is not a negative enterprise; rather, it is the way and manner in which politics is practiced that has given it such a bad name. There are, of course, too many healthy and relatively more progressive partisan democratic cultures around the world that have produced amazing results, and continue to produce impressive results for the Asantehene to be taken either strictly or seriously at his word. This, of course, is not the same as brazenly impugning the credibility or even the integrity of Otumfuo Osei-Tutu vis-a-vis his generally indisputably truthful observations.

Ghana's preeminent monarch could, for instance, have also highlighted the fact that it is the rankly corrupt politics of gratuitously awarding themselves fat and patently unearned sums of gratuities quadrennially that makes parliamentary politics in the country reek of the insufferably rancid and downright repugnant. He could also have singled out the judgment-debt contretemps for scathing scrutiny. And I firmly believe that Otumfuo could have done so far better than other Ghanaian chieftains, being that he holds an advanced degree, as I reliably understand it, in Business Administration. And he has amply demonstrated this by having established and administered the largest educational fund in the history of the country.

Significantly, though, it would have been even more morally humbling and historically accurate for the Asantehene to have also observed the fact that his is not the very first fund of its kind to be established in the history of Ghana; for, other major Ghanaian monarchs such as Osagyefo Nana Sir Ofori-Atta I, led the way in this sphere, as well as championing the movement that led to the establishment of the erstwhile Prince-of-Wales School, today known as Achimota School.

Thus, when he speaks of extending the capital utility and significance of his educational fund into a full-fledged university, the Asantehene can comfortably rest assured that he is in the jolly company of giant monarchical statesmen of yesteryear, among them Nene Azu-Mate Korle, and the Ga and La-Mantseime. And for those who may not know this, I am able to take the rare liberty of subjecting the Asantehene to the ink of the rather sharp tip of my ballpoint pen because Otumfuo Osei-Tutu I, founding-monarch of the Golden Stool (Sikadwa Kofi), is also my direct ancestor through the Oyoko Clan of Akyem-Asiakwa and Dwaben-Adwuampong.

And so when he solemnly calls on present-day Asantes, Akans and, indeed, all Ghanaians to emulate the sacrificial spirits of the heroes of Asanteman, the Great Asante Nation, I fully appreciate exactly what Barima Kwaku Duah is talking about. In other words, what is amiss with our beloved country is not politics per se but, rather, the morally and dispiritingly facile, cynical and cavalier attitude of professional and career politicians towards the otherwise noble art of democratic governance.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Board Member, The Nassau Review
May 12, 2014
E-mail: [email protected]
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