What Has Past "Friendship" Got To Do With This?

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

It clearly appears that the vicious tack initially taken by Mr. Tsatsu "The Thief" Tsikata, counsel for the third respondent or, properly speaking, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), of trying to impugn the integrity of the forensic evidence presented the Atuguba Court is not working, and so the devil's avatar has resorted to the rather lurid and pathetic game of playing on the emotions of the nine Supreme Court jurists hearing the Akufo-Addo/NPP Election 2012 petition (See "Akufo-Addo, Afari-Gyan Roommate Argument Is A Fallacy - Kweku Baako" JoyOnline.com /Ghanaweb.com 6/6/13).

In his latest tack, Mr. Tsikata rather tackily claims that since both Messrs. Akufo-Addo and Afari-Gyan, the Electoral Commissioner, were roommates at the University of Ghana, in the 1960s, and have remained cordial towards one another ever since, it automatically follows that it is highly unlikely for Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan to have rigged last December's presidential election in favor of Mr. John Dramani Mahama.

This is a rather cheap logical tack that inexcusably insults the intelligence of the judges hearing the Election 2012 grievances for several reasons. First of all, his prevarication over the critical question of "over-voting" and his contradiction thereof clearly points to the fact that whatever friendship it was that Dr. Afari-Gyan must have had with Nana Akufo-Addo, since their Legon dorming days together, had definitely fizzled into palpable insignificance by the eve of Election 2012.

In other words, a bosom friend, as the devious Mr. Tsikata portrayed the rooming together of Messrs. Afari-Gyan and Akufo-Addo in his cross-examination of the former, does not take the witness-box, solemnly swear to tell the truth "so help me God" before the august Supreme Court of Ghana, and then lie through one's teeth almost as if the entire judicial proceedings were some peek-a-boo charade.

Needless to say, the preceding gross exhibition of bad faith on the part of Dr. Afari-Gyan ought to deafeningly inform the court, as well as the people that Mr. Tsikata has been deviously trying to hoodwink with this cockamamie story, of the fact that Nana Akufo-Addo was dead-on accurate in filing his petition both challenging the professional integrity of his former college roommate as well as the validity of Dr. Afari-Gyan's declaration of Mr. Mahama as the decisive winner of Election 2012.

That Akufo-Addo had thoroughly seen through and laudably read the reprehensible attempt by his former Legon Hall roommate to criminally usurp the sacred mandate of the Ghanaian electorate, can hardly be gainsaid. Predictably, what NDC public vents like Nana Ato Dadzie find too petrifying to discuss is the kind of relationship that Dr. Afari-Gyan clearly appears to have forged with such key operatives of the National Democratic Congress as Mr. Dramani Mahama, with whom Dr. Afari-Gyan clearly share a fanatical zeal for the Nkrumaist ideology.

In other words, both Messrs. Akufo-Addo and Afari-Gyan may well have been cordial dorm-mates and even "buddies" at the Danquah Academy, as the University of Ghana is affectionately called, but ideologically it is President Mahama with whom the embattled Electoral Commissioner shares intimate kinship and political temperament, and not Nana Akufo-Addo.

What is also interesting to point out, here, is that it is also widely known that Nana Akufo-Addo has mentored Mr. Tsikata and once even teamed up with the latter to defend the now-Chairman Rawlings against death by firing squad! Mr. Tsikata is also known to have been ceded quite a stash of court cases to try by Nana Akufo-Addo and his high-end and renowned legal firm, Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co.

Not surprisingly, though, this professionally laudable exhibition of generosity has not prevented the Oxbridge-schooled convicted felon from publicly impugning the academic and professional integrity of his sometime benefactor. And so the most pertinent question to ask is this: What has "friendship" got to do with a legal test of criminality on the part of Dr. Afari-Gyan and Election 2012?

And, by the way, as already adumbrated at the beginning of this article, Akufo-Addo's dorming with Afari-Gyan was nearly a half-century ago. And then, also, who said that even a week, or a day, is not long enough for a patent NDC-appointed opportunist like Dr. Afari-Gyan to change loyalties and alliances? And, also, who said that Dr. Afari-Gyan did not rig Election 2012 as a skulking-payback for rooming with an economically better endowed and familially distinguished classmate?

One thing, though, is clear: It is time for Messrs. Afari-Gyan and Mahama to sideout for President Akufo-Addo or face the revolutionary music of a battle-royale in the offing. Let democratic justice prevail in Fourth-Republican Ghana!!!

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
June 7, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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