The Onus of Election 2012 Verdict Acceptance Lies with NDC

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

There is absolutely no constructive reason for Nana Akufo-Addo to assure anybody anywhere of his good faith, trust and confidence in the imminent delivery of the verdict of the Atuguba-presided Supreme Court that heard the grievances of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) against the declaration of Mr. John Dramani Mahama as winner of Election 2012 by Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Ghana's disgraced electoral commissioner (See "Aide: Akufo-Addo Won't Disobey SC Verdict" Ghanaweb.com 7/23/13).

The onus of such declaration squarely lies in the proverbial courtyard of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC). Indeed, it is the key NDC operatives and their media hacks who have invariably demonstrated that they have absolutely no respect for the verdict of the august Supreme Court of Ghana. A striking case in point was the obetsebi-Lamptey landed-property suit, in which two 30-year-old cabinet appointees in the Mills-Mahama government, Messrs. Omane-Boamah and Okudzeto-Ablakwa, rudely defied a ruling by the Supreme Court in favor of the National Chairman of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) by seizing the legitimately acquired property of Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey.

Curiously, rather than languishing behind bars, as it were, Dr. Omane-Boamah has actually been promoted to substantive Minister of Communications. Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa is also a Deputy Education Minister. It is the wantonly lawless behavior of these key NDC operatives that we ought to be seriously discussing as a nation, and not whether Nana Akufo-Addo is committed to accepting just about any verdict at all that is handed down by the Atuguba-presided Supreme Court.

We need to also be hotly discussing the Mornah and CI 75 episode, in which the wet-eared prominent operative of the so-called People's National Convention, an NDC ideological facade, was mischievously used by Dr. Raymond Atuguba, a relative of Justice William Atuguba and the presidential chief-of-staff for Mr. Mahama, to flagrantly nullify the authority of the Supreme Court as the peremptory court of last resort.

Maybe Mr. Mahama also needs to see a cutting-edge psychiatrist pronto; for he is the one who has been publicly insisting against objective reality and common sense that it was Divine Providence Himself/Herself that declared him to be President of the Democratic Republic of Ghana, and not the pathologically fallible and criminally minded Dr. Afari-Gyan.

We need to also significantly stress the fact that the Supreme Court challenge of Election 2012 is fundamentally about democratic justice and fair play, and not the personal political fortunes of the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party. It is also far more about the collective will of the members, supporters and sympathizers of the NPP and the greater Ghanaian electorate at large.

What this means is that any public undertaking by Messrs. Akufo-Addo and Bawumia and their associates would have to, perforce, be mediated by the foregoing significant centers of the salutary development of our national democratic culture. Indeed, Nana Akufo-Addo and his NPP associates and the Supreme Court, itself, as well as the Ghanaian electorate at large, have a bounden obligation to bequeath a sound legacy of an enviable judicial system and a democratic culture to posterity. This is squarely what the Election 2012 judicial proceedings are primarily about.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
July 23, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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