The Gentle Giant Has, Once Again, Exposed a Pathologically Lying and Scamming Kwame Gonja – Part 1

We have written innumerable times about the characteristically visceral aversion of the entire leadership cabal of Ghana’s main opposition political party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), towards the democratic principle and practice of law and order which is highly unlikely to change anytime soon, perhaps, until the present hawkish and thievish generation of the John “European Airbus Payola” Dramani Mahama and the Johnson “The Mosquito” Asiedu-Nketia Gang of morbidly intransigent nation wreckers passes off the political landscape of our beloved Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana.

One thing that the foregoing observation makes crystal clear, as well as both inescapably and indisputably clear, is a signal reminder that was recently dispatched to the members of the Global Ghanaian Community by the twice-elected former President John “Kofi Diawuo” Agyekum-Kufuor. And yes, Dear Reader, “Kofi Diawuo” is also the real “Changeling’s Name” – or Apentedin – of the Gentle Giant, selected and offered him from the aforementioned Akan-Naming System by his parents or grandparents upon his birth. We shall make time in due course to painstakingly and meticulously explain what the latter category of the Akan-Naming System really means.

For now, suffice it to warn petulant readers not to write any desultory or gratuitously insulting remarks and/or comments to Yours Truly, such as how this “Akyem Columnist” harbors this massive and implacable or an inveterate personal hatred or aversion towards this most revered and celebrated scion of Manhyia Palace. First, conduct your own research, if you are really the “officially baptized and confirmed” Intellectual Heavyweight and/or Genius that you so presumptuously claim to be. Belligerently and brazenly exposing your howling and withering ignorance and arrogance is not the most palatable thing to do by anyone who claims to be relatively far more astute and well-cultivated or better mannered than Yours Truly.

Anyway, the subject-matter or topic that we have decided to take up for discussion for this landmark and watershed Election Year comes from a very brief news story captioned: “But for The Asantehene, the 2016 Election Could [Would?] Have Been Messy – Former President Kufuor” (Ghanaweb.com 4/17/24). The story highlights the gist of an interview that was recently granted by former President Agyekum-Kufuor about the widely known and acknowledged pivotal role played in our national political protocol by Ghana’s most influential and globally renowned Monarch, to wit, His Majesty, The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II.

As adumbrated at the very beginning of this column, it is a dozen-told story that still bears retelling exhaustively anytime that the subject of the democracy wrecking ball that is the entire leadership of the country’s present main opposition National Democratic Congress grabs the banner news headlines. Indeed, anybody who has been fairly studiously following the history of Fourth-Republican Ghana for any remarkable temporal span must be fully aware of the fact that in the two historic moments that the reins of democratic governance has shifted from the junta-oriented leadership of the late Chairman Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings-founded present main opposition political party, namely, the National Democratic Congress, to the present ruling Danquah-Busia-Dombo-inspired Neoliberal Political and Ideological Establishment of the New Patriotic Party, the intervention of both the international community and several of the most influential and highly respected Ghanaian citizens and statesmen and, perhaps, stateswoman, too, has become absolutely necessary and imperative.

So, perhaps, a more accurate and historically reflective caption for any news story on this most momentous subject ought to have been the following: “But for The Asantehene, both the 2001 and the 2016 General Would Have Been Messy – President Kufuor.” Actually, it would be far more accurate to also add the 2012 Presidential Election, another 8-year temporal lapse, which has almost always been where the real problem – or gravamen – vis-à-vis the proverbial “Changing of the Guards” invariably occurred. Now, the unarguable fact of the matter is that it has always been the leadership of the least socially responsible institutional establishment in the country that has also almost always attempted to fiercely resist the civilized and the peaceful transfer of democratic power.

Which is why the leadership of the National Democratic Congress, which has staunchly aligned itself with the Donald John Trump-led MAGA Republicans hereabouts the United States of America, at least starting from the runup to Ghana’s 2020 General Election, has also tended to be most agreeable with the January 6, 2021 Trump-sponsored US Capitol Hill Insurrection that savagely attempted to nullify the institutional and the constitutional validity of the 2020 US Presidential Election, in which Candidate Joseph R. Biden “Tsunamically” defeated an incumbent Neo-Nazi President Trump by more than 7 million of the counted and tabulated valid votes.

In the landmark 2000 Presidential Election, which ought to have actually been the point of radical departure of the present discussion and former President Agyekum-Kufuor’s interview, to be certain, and not the 2016 Presidential Election, but actually the 2012 Presidential Election, as hinted earlier on, and which was soberly and sheepishly described as a brazenly “Stolen Election” by Mr. Johnson “The Bui Dam Woyome” Asiedu-Nketia, the extant General-Secretary of the then-ruling National Democratic Congress, a highly placed British diplomat on the ground had to promptly step in to avert what could very well have resulted in a bloody and long drawn-out civil strife. Well, as most of us adult Ghanaian citizens may vividly recall – that is, those approximately 40 years old and above – but for the direct and the personal intervention of the Resident British High Commissioner to Ghana at the time, namely, Mr. Craig Murray, and especially the latter’s threat to send in the British Army, if sanity and common sense did not prevail, the extant Chairperson of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, would have criminally called the results of the 2000 Presidential Election in favor of the forensically proven winner, whom, it turned out, was none other than the widely tipped Candidate John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor of the then main opposition New Patriotic Party.

Which is why it is both downright absurd and criminally farcical for National Democratic Congress’ leaders like Messrs. Johnson “The Mosquito” Asiedu-Nketia and Edward “Scofflaw” Omane-Boamah to be raising Caine in the patent teacup that is the allegedly missing two Biometric Voting Devices (BVD) officially in the care and the possession of the Akufo-Addo-appointed Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, and her staff of otherwise highly conscientious and unimpeachable crackerjack Administrators and Deputy Electoral Commissioners. Chances are that it was an NDC-planted mole that deliberately engineered such veritable act of heinous criminality, in hopes of prejudicing the docile and the malleable minds of the latter party’s fast-thinning pool of supporters and sympathizers in the runup to the 2024 General Election, thereby calling the country’s hard and fiercely fought democratic culture into question.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
April 18, 2024
E-mail: [email protected]