Why Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie Got It All Wrong

It is said that a decorated donkey will always remain an ass no matter how artfully decorated it is. It is also true that it does not take any gruelling effort to detect a decorated donkey especially if that donkey is in the cunning business of disguising itself to look like some other creature other than an ass. Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie’s undercover New Patriotic Party (NPP) political activism has become so obvious that she cannot no longer hide under the cloak of a ‘woman of God’ to throw dust into the eyes of the people of Ghana.

No one can begrudge Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie for her decision to join any political party or for her political activism for the NPP. But that must be done on a clean slate. In the same vein, Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie has a choice not to be a fun of the NDC and the Atta Mills government. But in taking that position, it must be done with seemliness.

Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie was President of the Ghana Journalists’ Association (GJA) in 2000 and her association’s efforts at the time contributed immensely towards the NPP’s victory in the 2000 elections. At the time, she did everything in her power to support the NPP in the name of journalism. Her personal effort was ‘rewarded’ by President John Agyekum Kufuor with her appointment to the Council of State. For many years under NPP rule, Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie served mother Ghana in her capacity as a member of the highest advisory body to the President of the republic of Ghana. But that is undoubtedly the period under the 4th republican constitution that this country experienced the worst form of human rights abuses, the most sickening display of arrogance and impunity by government officials and the most flagrant acts of corruption and looting of the state coffers as evident in the various Auditor General’s reports on Ghana@50, school feeding programme, National Health Insurance (NHIS) just to mention a few.

Not once, in the entire period of her membership of the council of state, did this ‘woman of God’ assemble her ‘Women’s Aglow’- a group whose membership is supposed to be made up of Christian women- on national television, quoting the constitution and whilst speaking in tongues, called on the citizens of Ghana to rise up and speak against the prevalence of human rights abuses, arbitrary arrests, corruption, arrogance and impunity that was the order of the day at the time.

Now a new government is in place and Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie is no longer a member of council of state. Then she mounts the moral high grounds in the name of God and begins to do the very things she is known to have done before 2000- things we have not heard her say or seen her do in 8 long years under the past NPP government, even though the situation was far worse than what is happening now. It is not out of place therefore to say that Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie’s conduct on GTV on 20th June 2009 smacks of nothing but the height of double standards.

Strikingly, Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie ‘put up her show’ on national television at the same time as the NPP propaganda machine was loudest on the diversionary ploy of human rights abuses of its past government officials, who were being invited by the Bureau of National Investigations to answer questions on issues relating to their tenure. Yours truly is not a military intelligence person, but in recalling the procedure adopted by the BNI when Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie was member of council of state, the state investigative agency’s methods of operation today under the Atta Mills-led NDC government has been more civil, more decorous and with a human face.

Owing to her past activities, one can say that Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie’s conduct on GTV that Saturday morning was expected. The NPP has unleashed its propaganda machine which includes ‘some men of God’- a propaganda machine that has been making loud noises of imaginary human rights violations against NPP members by the Atta Mills-led NDC government. Knowing the modus operandi of the NPP, it would have been surprising if that party’s ‘men and women of God’ do not play their critical role as usual in this make-believe agenda- something they have done so well over the years. But the hypocrisy is just too obvious to ignore.

One would ask where was Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie in 2001 when the late Victor Selormey was arrested in the arrival hall of the Kotoka International Airport soon after his flight touched down on his way back from abroad to honour an invitation by the BNI. As we speak, Mr Selormey who was a deputy minister of Finance under the Rawlings-led NDC government has crossed over to the other world. Already very sick at the time of his imprisonment, Mr Selormey was only released from prison by former President Kufuor on the verge of his death.

Where was Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie when Mr Tsatsu Tsikata was arrested in church under the government that she was playing such a critical role in as member of the Council of State? As a ‘woman of God’ one wonders why she failed to react to such a primitive way of dealing with a ‘child of God’ unless she wants to tell the people of Ghana that when it comes to the issue of human rights violations, NDC persons do not matter to God.

Also important to ask is the whereabouts of Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie when Alhaji Isa Mobila, the northing regional chairman of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) was barbarically murdered under the NPP government when Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie was supposed to be giving godly counsel to President Kufuor. After the murder of Mobila, the NPP government did everything within its power to sweep the matter under the carpet. Did she see anything wrong at the time?

It is important to note that Mobila was the first to be murdered in military custody since the coming into being of the fourth republican constitution. With her seeming authority on the constitution, what did Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie say about the cold-blooded murder of Alhaji Isa Mobila, who voluntarily went to the police station having being told the police went to his house to look for him in his absence? Was he not transferred under mysterious circumstances to military guardroom and tortured to death before daybreak the next day?

Preceding Mobila’s murder was the heinous act of the brutal daylight murder of Ya Na Yakubu Andani and 40 of his elders in his palace, The Gbewa Palace in Yendi under the watchful eyes of security personnel who were supposed to give him protection. Even two persons recommended for prosecution by the Wuaku Commission because they were found parading the severed body parts of the Ya Na on the streets of Yendi were immorally left of the hook by the NPP government. Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie was supposed to be counselling then President Kufuor as a member of Council of State. So what happened?

Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie was a member of Council of State in Ghana when the recent past defeated flagbearer of the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo coerced the NPP government to take away the courtesies and privileges due former President Rawlings’ as former head of state. The NPP government at the time claimed that former President Rawlings was “unduly” criticising the NPP government outside Ghana. Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie claims to be a believer in, and crusader of freedom of speech. Yet she failed to advice then President Kufuor as to the flagrant violation of former President Rawlings’ human rights by the NPP government at the time.

When Kwabena Kusi, the poor mechanic who made a simple statement in Kumasi that the then President Kufuor was travelling too much, was arrested and mangled into police cells, where was ‘woman of God’ and crusader of free speech, Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie? Was she aware that Kwabena Kusi’s human right was trampled upon? Why did she fail to mount the Women’s Aglow platform, as Prayer Director, on national television and voice out against the violation of Kwabena Kusi’s fundamental human rights?

Dzidzor Tay of the NDC was hauled to the BNI for making a simple criticism of the NPP government on air. Where was Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie? Why did she not get onto her Women’s Aglow platform, encouraging the citizenry to speak against the young woman’s human rights abuses like she did with gruelling interludes of speaking in tongues on 20th June?

It would also be remembered how the Kufuor-led NPP government unfairly treated the Major General Nunoo Mensah, the late Rear-Admiral Kwadwo Owusu-Ansah and the other retired Generals as in banning them from entering all military installations and garrisons in the country because they had had launch with former President Rawlings. It is said that that was what caused the death of the late Rear-Admiral Kwadwo Owusu-Ansah soon after the NDC won power. Talks have it that this is because the Kufuor government through its unpopular action had denied the retired Generals their constitutionally ensured medical treatment at the 37 military hospital. By the time the NDC came to power on January 7, 2009, it was too late to save him. Where was Madam Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie whilst this wickedness was being perpetrated by the President she was supposed to be advising?

Another important fact is that under the NPP government, not a single ‘opposition’ media house was allowed to attach correspondents to the Castle, the seat of government. Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie, who apart from being a ‘woman of God’- as she claims to be- and member of the council of state, is also a past president of the GJA, saw nothing wrong with this anti-opposition media policy of the government whose leader she was supposed to be advising. Today under the Atta Mills-led NDC government, the NPP-opposition media have not only been accommodated at the Castle but are, as a matter of fact, given priority by the information handlers of the government.

Frankly speaking, we as citizens of Ghana have for far too long had too many inconsistent ‘men and women of God’ in the system. The mannerisms of these peculiar ‘men and women of God’ leave much to be desired. The Bible says that God is not mocked. In fact, God cannot be raising anti-NDC or anti-NPP men and women to do his work. Let men and women of God demonstrate what they claim they are. Their yes should be yes and no, no. Their yes could not be yes in the not too distant past, but no yesterday and then tend to be yes again today. Something definitely must be wrong.

Come again, Mrs Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie. This time, you got it completely wrong.