It Is Mahama’s Logo, Not Charlotte Osei’s Logo

The 3News.com news report was captioned “Stop Using Charlotte Osei’s Logo – EC Tells Media” (Ghanaweb.com 6/12/20). In reality, the logo that was commissioned by the Electoral Commission (EC) when then-President John Dramani Mahama casually violated the Constitution by transferring Mrs. Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei from the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), to the Afari-Gyan-vacated EC, best represented the former Atta-Mills’ Arch-Lieutenant’s dastardly attempt to criminally privatize the country’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) as being the corporate and exclusive property of the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). It was yet another way of thumbing his nose at the Ghanaian citizenry and the electorate by demonstrating that the Bole-Bamboi native stood well over and above the laws of our country.

As one of the cardinal institutions of Fourth-Republican Ghana, if not the foremost democratic establishment, the use of our National Coat-of-Arms could not be better represented by any other institutional establishment in the country than the Electoral Commission, with the possible exceptions of the Ghana Armed Forces, the Ghana Police Service and the entire National Security apparatus. Symbolically and institutionally divorcing the Electoral Commission from the rest of our entrenched statutory establishment is another salient characteristic of Candidate John Dramani Mahama’s gross leadership irresponsibility, and another prime reason why the former President does not deserve to be returned to Jubilee House or the Presidency. Indeed, it is akin to an obdurate refusal by the First Officer of the Land to stand up for the National Anthem and our National Flag, even as the National Anthem was being played with our National Flag raised at Full-Mast.

Add to the preceding the fact that the Mahama Logo turned out to have been plagiarized from a Turkish masonic lodge, or some such private institution, and the national contretemps roiled up by such intellectually amateurish behavior could not be even more withering in thrust and deed. And then, of course, there was the equally financially draining and wasteful aspect of such intellectual and artistic property theft for which the Ghanaian taxpayer had to fork up several thousands of American dollars, perhaps even tens of millions of American dollars. Under four-and-half years of the extortionate Mahama tenure, Ghana sank to the lowest level of its stature and dignity in the global community.

Some of us, it must be put on record, fiercely fought to have the original National Coat-of-Arms restored by the EC, all to absolutely no avail. So, it comes as quite refreshing to learn that, once again, the EC has been sensibly returned to its old glorious institutional respectability and dignity under the progressive and visionary tenure of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, a legal maven and luminary who fully appreciates the full-suit of what Ghanaian citizenship entails. If, indeed, more than two years after the EC’s symbolic restoration to its original institutional respectability and dignity some newspaper operatives in the country are still using the old logo in their publication of news items having to do with events and activities of the EC, then, perhaps, two things need to happen here. One, it could very well be that the December 4, 2018 decision by the EC to revert to the all-too-appropriate use of the old statutorily mandated logo was not adequately publicized.

In view of the high likelihood of the foregoing having occurred, a collaborative public education campaign could be launched by the Electoral Commission and the National Commission for Civic Education, with the active involvement of all the legitimately established media houses and institutions themselves across the country. Such EC logo-restitution education campaign must be launched within a clearly defined period of time, such as one month or thereabouts, after which period any media establishment that persists in using the Mahama Logo could be taken to court and handsomely fined for deliberate breach of the law.

Such regressive state of affairs pretty much reminds me of the persistent conversion of the cedi-value shinplaster that was the grossly incompetent hallmark of the messy economic policies of the Rawlings-led regime of the National Democratic Congress, which continues to be scandalously invoked as a means of ironically proving that governments these days may be guilty of wastefully spending the Ghanaian taxpayer’s money when, in reality, retroactive conversion of the current value of the cedi to what prevailed under the Rawlings-led regime of the National Democratic Congress ought to be educating Ghanaians about the grossly incompetent management of the cedi under the implacably extortionate Rawlings’ regime.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

June 18, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]