Opinions of Monday, 30 May 2005
Columnist: Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame
Time Out, Please!!!
The recent report carried by Ghana?s Peace-FM radio and posted on Ghanaweb.com, alleging a romantic liaison between the country?s controversial Iron Lady and the publisher of the Ghanaian Chronicle newspaper, has no place, whatsoever, in the political arena (Ghanaweb.com 5/20/05). At the worst, it is a private matter; and it goes without saying that even career politicians have private lives, except, of course, where such purely private conduct is envisaged to seriously impinge on matters of our national security. And even assuming that, indeed, Ms. Hawa Yakubu was having an affair with Mr. Kofi Coomson, what relevance could this have for Ghanaian politics, besides the relatively marginal dumbing down, or blighting, of the professional credibility of the Ghanaian Chronicle which, by the way, is just one newspaper among a phalanx of others? Unless, of course, as already hinted, the ?couple? were using their privately-owned media machinery to cause mischief, mayhem, or disturb the proverbial public peace by disrupting the smooth-running of the country. And even then, such grievous allegation would have to first be amply substantiated or sooner or later the culprit, or mischief-maker, would find him- or herself faced with a morally and financially damning civil suit.
And let us all remember that it is, indeed, the hard-earned reputation and personal integrity of a distinguished woman politician that is at stake here; and on the rough-and-tumble terrain of national politics, image and reputation are premium.
The preceding notwithstanding, the allegation is quite serious, particularly when it is purported to be coming from a top-aide of the substantive vice-president of the Republic, for then it automatically devolves from mere rumor to outright slander. And here, also, it may be of utmost public interest for Ghanaians to know whether the Vice-President was aware of such charge, or allegation, before his top-aide went public with it. And, needless to say, it is also quite interesting when Hawa Yakubu asserts that she hasn?t had any run-ins or problems, whatsoever, with the camp of Vice-President Aliu Mahama. And here, as a point of momentary digression, I must confess my soft-spot, as it were, for the name ?Mahama? ? for so distinguished are the Mahamas that I used to believe that every Northern Ghanaian politician of remarkable stature was a Mahama. But, perhaps, even more poignantly, I like the name Mahama primarily because there is something rhythmically forceful ? or no-nonsense ? about it, almost as in triumphantly proclaiming: ?I have hammered him [or her] sillily.?
And so when the preceding allegation ? which, by the way, Hawa Yakubu vehemently denies ? is alleged (no pun intended) to be emanating from the august Office of the Vice-President, it ought to, indeed, be taken seriously. Even so, as aforementioned, unless the Hajjia?s alleged affair with the exuberant Publisher were envisaged to be inimical to Ghana?s national security, then about all that we can say is to simply leave let alone, as it were. Indeed, this writer had a chance meeting with the publisher of the Ghanaian Chronicle during the early 1990s; perhaps in 1993. It was during one of the annual confabulations of the African Studies Association (ASA) in the north-eastern American city of Boston. The spiffily suited publisher briskly walked up to me and enthusiastically introduced himself as ?Nana? Kofi Coomson. We hadn?t known each other before; however, I had recently acquainted myself with his rag. I promptly mentioned to Mr. Coomson the fact that a classmate from Akropong-Akwapim Presbyterian Middle Boys? Boarding School days, Opanyin Kofi Opare-Addo, was a prolific contributor to the Sports pages of the Chronicle. And as was to be naturally expected, Mr. Coomson, who was then on a year-long study of some sort at Harvard University?s Kennedy School of Government, appeared to brim and beam with pride, a fait accompli kind of pride, if the reader knows what I mean. But, alas, I was in for a greater surprise than I had bargained for; for being that he was a fellow countryman and I had been away from Ghana for nearly a decade, I never thought of our chance meeting as anything more than a chance meeting. The next thing I knew, however, Mr. Coomson, who looked to be my own age, was trying to lure me away from Temple University, Philadelphia, where I was religiously in pursuit of a doctorate in African Literature, History and Culture ? Pan-African Afrocentric Studies or Africalogy, as we young-Turk disciples of Professor Molefi Kete Asante called our discipline ? into the notoriously Eurocentric and pathologically misguided Department of African-American Studies at Harvard University, spearheaded by the self-confessed inveterate hater of continental Africans Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Indeed, my dear countryman even had a white lady scout ready with Renegation Papers for any Temple University ?Siberian? ready to defect into the purported academic milk-and-honey greenery of Harvard. And when I promptly demurred, by politely observing that Dr. Gates? program was at cross-purposes with an Afrocentric and proactive agenda, a la President Nkrumah?s pan-Africanism, my dear countryman seemed to take offense. And like a typical opportunist, the livid Mr. Coomson exploded: ?This Afrocentricity that you are so fanatical about would lead you nowhere; it would neither put food on your table nor money in your pocket.? And, you guessed right; for true to form and character, I riposted that there was a place in the proverbial mainstream American academy for intellectual and cultural enrichment and epistemological empowerment, besides the crassly material promise of bacon and cheese which an Ivy League education implied. The next, and second, day of the conference Mr. Coomson kept his distance. And, needless to say, it was to our mutual benefit. But perhaps what puzzled me about our chance encounter was the fact that Mr. Kofi Coomson appeared to harbor a certain capricious resentment for the people of the Kwahu Mountains, because the Chronicle publisher claimed that the parents of a young woman with whom he had fallen deeply in love, had flatly refused to proffer him the young woman?s hand, something the quite pained and dejected man felt himself to be imperiously entitled. In the end, Mr. Coomson told me that there was fundamentally nothing organic or integral about the Akan people of Ghana ? in other words, for the Chronicle?s publisher, Kwahu, Asante, Akyem, Bono and Akuapem, among a myriad others, were discrete ethnic polities. I couldn?t help but conclude that, indeed, my dear countryman was cognitively dissonant.
Anyway, as we indicated earlier, it is quite interesting to hear Ms. Hawa Yakubu claim that she has no problem, whatsoever, with the ideological camp of the Vice-President?s. Here again, it goes without saying that those of us who studiously followed the most recent Ghanaian general elections did not quite come off with such impression; unless, of course, the media, all along, were weaving stories out of whole cloths, including seemingly authentic actualities carried by such radio stations of repute as JOY-FM.com. To be certain, back then, the first thing that we learned was that Ms. Yakubu was vehemently accusing the Vice-President of having knavishly thrown his heavy weight behind an opposition party candidate, and also swearing to make Mr. Mahama pay for his alleged political crimes in due course. And as we indicated earlier on, if Ms. Yakubu?s charge, indeed, had any iota of validity, then Vice-President Mahama almost risked being charged with treason. For not only would such act be aptly deemed to be suicidal, it would also have been veritably reckoned as nothing short of an unmitigable public outrage, and both the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) top executive and the party?s rank-and-file would have been referred to the Accra Mental Hospital, or Asylum, for immediate psychiatric examination, for maintaining such a cognitive wreck on their party?s ticket.
Then there was also a claim to the damnable effect that the man who roundly and soundly trounced Ms. Hawa Yakubu in the most recent parliamentary election had, indeed, been awarded a vote-boosting public contract by the ruling government. And we were made to believe that the Vice-President?s hand was in the details, as it were. Back then, as we vividly remember, the soft-spoken and rather reticent Veep explained the fact, and legitimately so, that public contracts were awarded fundamentally based on professional competence, rather than sheer political affiliation, or the lack thereof.
On another quite unlikely level, our subject allegation, that is, the alleged romantic affair between Ms. Yakubu and the newspaper publisher, has the potentiality of doing considerable damage to the reputation of Ghanaian women politicians, particularly those who, like the fire- and brimstone-spitting Hawa Yakubu, are not in any societally recognized, heterosexual conjugal relationships. And, needless to say, the image that our media manufacture regarding the essence of Ghanaian womanhood and retail abroad, particularly in the global villatic age of the Internet, has an untold capacity to blight our polity before the proverbial international community.
On the obverse side, however, it couldn?t be all that bad for Hawa Yakubu; for any story regarding her romantic affiliates, true or untrue, only goes to show that even after umpteen years of being in the national spotlight as a mature, intelligent and confident woman, Hawa Yakubu is still a delectable object of cynosure. And here, perhaps, readers need to be reminded of the incontrovertible fact that before there was any political apparatus called the New Patriotic Party in the Fourth Republican Ghanaian parliament, there was a Hawa Yakubu. In fine, the preceding staunchly confirms the fact that our proverbial IRON LADY is hot ? and needless to say, heat and iron are the metaphorical equivalent of hand and glove. Put in simpler terms, it is almost as if being named Hawa Yakubu implies being deemed tough-and-hot! And tough-and-hot women, God knows, are what the virtually lethargic Ghanaian political landscape requires to put us back at the center of global affairs, where Ghana squarely belongs.
Indeed, I never really thought much about the woman, besides the fact that in the wake of her dramatic defeat in the most recent parliamentary election, Hawa Yakubu was widely being portrayed as a gadfly ? actually a veritable nuisance ? to the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP); and, indeed, one was left with the grim impression that the IRON LADY might almost possibly have been planted by the opposition National Decapitators? Congress (NDC) to cause havoc. And yet, as we intimated earlier, such impression appeared to be grossly bereft of forensic foundation. For, once again, we hasten to observe that long before there was any formidable parliamentary presence of the ruling New Patriotic Party, there was, indeed, a Hawa Yakubu. And to be certain, were this writer not already spoken for and Hawa Yakubu not too engrossed in the rough-and-tumble of party politics, which as far as the mind?s-eye can see is the only blatant affair that Ms. Yakubu has had over the past decade-and-half, he would have scurried over and gallantly asked of our honorable and indisputably attractive IRON LADY?S hand ? ?Honorable Mama Hawa, I am Adama; may I, please, have the full-weight of your hand in mine??
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
