The Certified Lunacy And Serial Criminality Of Prof. Mills’s NDC Administration (4)

President John Evans Atta Mills

'If the President did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have.'

-US Congressional report on the 'Contra' affair during the term of President Ronald Reagan

 
This piece is dedicated to the late Prof. P.A.V. Ansah who used his literary skill to fight the despotic regime of Flt-Lt J.J. Rawlings

A few months ago, Mr. Albert Kan Dapaah, former Minister of Energy and also Interior and Defence in the Kufuor NPP administration and currently Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts called for a national debate on tribalism in national life.

To the uninitiated, the call might have looked strange if not outright diabolical. However, for the person with knowledge of the history of this country in mind, the call could not have come at a more appropriate time. When Mr. Dapaah made that call, I suspected that he had information up his sleeves with which he could have started the debate.

To my disappointment however, nothing like that happened. Sometime later, I heard one NDC panelist on one of the FM stations lending his weight to the call. Sadly enough, that panelist also failed to go beyond his support to the call. Indeed, it is my considered opinion that the debate can no longer be postponed and the time is now to set the ball rolling if we are to save this nation from imminent calamity caused by possible ethnic conflicts arising from the ongoing certified lunatic and serial criminality of Prof Mills's NDC administration's policy of ethnic cleansing of Ashantis from the civil service, the public service and the security services.

For somebody like me, who watches events from the touchline, the call by Mr. Kan Dapaah could only have resulted from a realistic conclusion which any critical observer of the political scene of this country after 54 years of independence could make that Ghana was retrogressing at a geometrical progression towards the Stone Age. All the gains this country made in nation building since independence and before the horrible and criminal event of the December 31, 1982 coup d'état which removed Dr. Hilla Limann's PNP administration had been lost. The installation of the eleven-year blood-thirsty PNDC regime of Flt-Lt Rawlings which was followed by the eight years of undemocratic administration of the J.J. Rawlings NDC ensured that. Now a colourless, rudderless NDC administration led by a law professor is deepening the tribal division within the country started by the godfather of the NDC.

It has been an open secret known to all right-thinking people of this country that Flt. Lt Rawlings used state resources to transform the draconian PNDC military regime into the bludgeoning monster called NDC to perpetrate his rule.  With himself as a player, the referee, the referee assistant and the match commissioner, he twisted the electoral system to ensure his continuous grip until the constitutionally allowed eight-year term of office ran out. Now the truth has been told in far away New York in front of the greatest international gathering of eminent personalities. On page 12 of The Chronicle of Monday, September 26, 2011, the speech delivered by President Mills to the current session of the United Nations was published in full.  A closing paragraph of the speech read: 'To ensure that Ghanaians enjoy an election which is peaceful, free and fair, the Electoral Commission, which has successfully conducted the last three elections, since 2000, has put in place measures that will safeguard the rights of the people to elect a government of their own choice.'

The only logical conclusion which any right-thinking human being can make of President Mills's speech at the United Nations is that all elections held during the 'Fourth Republic' before 2000 and which were conducted under the NDC administration were not peaceful, free and fair. So all along President Rawlings and Vice-President Mills ruled this nation by default, deceit and political subterfuge following elections conducted in a climate of violence, intimidation, vote buying, ethnic divide and arm twisting of the Electoral Commission. President Mills's speech creates a credibility gap for the Electoral Commission which some of us have suspected all along. I personally believe that the cleanest elections ever held during the 'Fourth Republic' were the 2004 elections.

If anybody has a contrary interpretation of President Mills's speech, let him or her stand up and be counted. Readers should by now begin to understand the true meaning of the title to this piece. That portion of President Mills's speech quoted is only a sample of the 'mediocre', 'standard seven', 'Team B' speech delivered by President Mills at the United Nations and which has characterised every thinking, decisions and actions of President Mills's NDC administration. President Mills has now confirmed the reason I offered last week as to why he subjected himself to body checks at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) when without any reasonable proof promised to fight the drug menace in the country.

Now, let us go back to Mr. Kan Dapaah's call. At this time in our national life  while we are celebrating the uncertified birthday of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, all those like me who watch evens from the touch line with eagle eyes and monkey ears would have sensed that two of the projects which Dr. Kwame Nkrumah embarked upon which his vociferous critics  have continued to use against him are the introduction of the Preventive Detention Act and Dr. Nkrumah's support for the May 1956 referendum which incorporated the Trans-Volta Togoland into Ghana.

As somebody who treasures human rights, I can never forgive Dr. Nkrumah for his human rights abuses which as a child I observed with my own two eyes. In my holy paternal village of Adansi Brofoyedru, three innocent citizens were plucked like ripe mangoes and thrown into dark dudgeons of Dr. Nkrumah's prisons for no crime but for the simple reason that they belonged to the opposition UP. They were lucky to be found alive to be released following the February 24, 1966 coup which overthrew Dr. Nkrumah. My history master at Mfantsipim was not that lucky. We returned from holidays only to be told that the young gentlemen was arrested and imprisoned while we were on holidays only to die mysteriously in Dr. Nkrumah's prison. I still remember today the lonely, forlorn look in the eyes of my senior, Duke Danquah, the son of the late Dr. J.B. Danquah, when his father's death was announced. My own Headmaster at Mfantsipim, the late Rev W.G.M. Brandful was dismissed for opposing the establishment of the Young Pioneer Movement at Kwabotwe. When Dr. Danquah realized that he was dying, he wrote a passionate letter to Dr. Nkrumah to release him from prison. Dr. Nkrumah refused and allowed Dr. Danquah to die in prison.

When the colonial government imprisoned Dr. Danquah, Dr. Nkrumah and other agitators for independence, they were treated like kings and allowed access to reading and writing materials. In contrast, in Nkrumah's prison, Dr. Danquah was allowed access only to his Holy Bible. When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned and contracted tuberculosis, the white apartheid government of South Africa transferred him to a first class hospital for first class treatment. Yet, there are people in the Nkrumah tradition who religiously defend such atrocities while they hope to use the democratic system to achieve power. Of what use has been our independence when, currently, serial jokers who in enlightened democratic society, would be classified as certified idiots are managing our lives for us?

As a Pan-Africanist, Dr. Nkrumah was on solid grounds when he actively supported the referendum to incorporate Trans-Volta Togoland into Ghana. He understood the strength in diversity in order to build the new nation state. Indeed, the United States is the greatest country because of the unity it has forged out of diversity. Dr. Nkrumah took immediate steps to build a united nation once the referendum result favoured him. He abolished the use of the word 'tribe' from all official forms. He continued with the colonial policy of establishing boarding schools which proved to be the crucible for nation building. When the late Asantehene, Nana Agyemang Prempeh II realsied that Asanteman was lagging behind in education, he called on the Asanteman Council to establish a scholarship scheme to aid needy but brilliant students from Ashanti to pursue higher education. After the first awards had been made, Dr. Nkrumah called for the abolition of the Asanteman Council Scholarship scheme and replaced it with the national scholarship secretariat.

Unfortunately, during the period between the overthrow of Dr. Nkrumah's CPP and the inception of Dr. Limann's PNP, cases of tribalism which Dr. Nkrumah sought to eliminate resurfaced on the national landscape. However, by the time of Dr. Limann's overthrow, the country was getting back to the Dr. Nkrumah era as far as tribalism was concerned.  However, since the inception of Flt. Lt. Rawlings's PNDC to be followed by President Rawlings's NDC to be succeeded by President Mills's NDC, tribalism has reared its ugly head with vengeance on the national scene.

Interestingly, either rightly or wrongly, the perception is that any rumbling about tribalism is an issue which concerns the Akans and particularly the Ashantis and the Ewes. What are the grounds for this perception?

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By Kwame Gyasi