The Road to Kigali – Part 16

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

He needs to further explain what he means, when the First-Deputy Minister of Information says that the problem with the leaders of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is that they confuse the “mistaken ‘belief’ that the electoral process was rigged [with] a ‘fact’” (See “Ablakwa to NPP: Four Years Is Just A Short Time” Peacefmonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 12/16/12). He needs to further explain himself because not very long ago, Ghanaians were being told by the then-Mills-led main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that the perception of widespread corruption among the executive ranks of the membership of the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party administration was virtually synonymous with the palpable experience of rank corruption among the country’s leadership.

The difference here, though, and one that ought to be quickly pointed out, is the fact that in the case of Election 2012, there is forensic evidence in the form of figures and first-hand personal testimonies from authoritative witnesses to the damnable effect that, indeed, Election 2012 was far less than wholesome or reflective of the “Model African Democracy” that Ghana is supposed to epitomize.

As for his cavalier taunt that the next general election is just around the corner, the least said about the same the better. Suffice it to observe herein, at least in passing, that the issue at stake has far less to do with the temporal duration of the next election season than the sheer fact and principle of justice and fairness, the lynchpins of electoral wholesomeness that have been flagrantly violated by the unconscionable operatives of the National Democratic Congress. And so presuming to play post-election therapist will not help in this case.

In other words, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa needs to come down his rather high political horse and face the reality on the ground – which is that short of a court-ordered recount or presidential runoff, there is absolutely no way that the NDC can credibly claim that it has secured the legitimate mandate of Ghanaian voters to steer the destiny of the country for the next four years. Put in plain language, if I were this young uppity man, I would be treading extremely cautiously going forth.

Likewise, while I take no delight, whatsoever, in the alleged roughing up of journalists by aggrieved members, supporters and sympathizers of the main opposition New Patriotic Party, being a journalist myself, nevertheless, it is, in fact, the ruling National Democratic Congress that has a long and unenviable history of making life professionally ungovernable for Ghanaian media operatives. What is more, there is no definitive evidence that, indeed, all the alleged culprits and/or assailants belong to the NPP. Knowing what we already know about the propaganda tactics of the NDC, it just may well have been supporters and sympathizers of the NDC shamelessly sporting NPP T-shirts and other opposition party paraphernalia who brutally assaulted the journalists in order to score cheap political points.

Rather, what he ought to be explaining to the general public is why it took the legal genius of Nana Akufo-Addo and the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party to establish the Repeal of the Criminal Libel Law which has made it possible for the Ghanaian journalist to practice his/her trade in approximation to the way that journalism is practiced in the civilized world. It is therefore only too predictable that Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa and his ilk would be unduly harping on the alleged mistreatment of journalists by aggrieved supporters and sympathizers of the New Patriotic Party in an obviously hollow bid to portraying the NPP as the political and ideological clone of the NDC.

The First-Deputy Information Minister also ought to be forgiven for rather vacuously and fatuously claiming that the main opposition New Patriotic Party is “the most ‘violent and undemocratic’ political party” in Ghana’s history (See “NPP Has Become Unattractive to Ghanaians – Okudzeto-Ablakwa” JoyOnline.com/Ghanaweb.com 12/15/12). Here also, the First-Deputy Information Minister ought to explain to Ghanaians and the rest of the world, precisely whose version of modern Ghanaian history he is talking about.

And when he intimates that Ghanaian voters, “especially floating voters, have regretted voting for the NPP,” precisely what does Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa mean, since not a single voter in his North-Tongu Constituency in the “no-go” Volta Region is known to have cast his/her ballot in favor of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party? To be certain, voters in the Trokosi enclave of the country could not have demonstrated more inveterate hatred for the NPP than they did in Election 2012.

I fear for the future of a united Ghana the way that even a pathologically intransigent tribal regionalist like President John Dramani Mahama would have it; and that is grossly understating matters.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D,
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Dec. 25, 2012
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