From Spare-Tire to Feminist? Scheisser!

Well, as New Yorkers are wont to say, “It is payback time,” and absolutely no holds must be barred when it comes to returning the servings of the cheap and tawdry politics of convenience and shameless and reckless opportunism by Candidate John Dramani Mahama, over the past dozen years, in the runup to the 2020 General Election. In this column, we focus on the selection of the former President’s former Education Minister, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, as Mr. Mahama’s running-mate.

Indeed, even as many Ghanaian voters and citizens may vividly recall, in the wake of the “mysterious” passing of the then-President John Evans Atta-Mills and the then-Vice-President Mahama’s step-in appointment as Ghana’s Interim-President, during an electioneering-campaign stop in Tamale, the Northern Regional Capital, Candidate Mahama pontifically declared to the teeming crowd of his fellow northern-descended tribesmen and clanswomen that about the only smart way that these northern-descended kinsmen and women could be expected to vote for Mr. Mahama’s main political opponent, would be for Candidate Akufo-Addo to reverse presidential-ticket positions with Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, the New Patriotic Party’s Vice-Presidential Candidate.

What the preceding meant was that absolutely no northern-descended eligible Ghanaian voter was to cast their ballot in favor of Candidate Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, unless Nana Akufo-Addo was demoted to the status of Vice-Presidential Candidate of the then-main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), with the NPP’s Vice-Presidential Candidate, Dr. Bawumia, being named the Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party. You see, with Candidate Mahama, every aspect of electioneering politics has to be seen through tribal lenses, not administrative performance or the abject lack of the same. Back then, during his Tamale electioneering campaign, that is, a pumped up Candidate Mahama rapturously declared, “Fellow Northerners, it would be criminally stupid for any of you to vote for that short, fat and dirty Kabonga, unless our circumcised and wholesome brother, the Vice-Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Dr. Bawumia, is put on the top of the NPP’s Presidential Ticket.

So, obviously, the logical question to ask here is as follows: Why would Candidate Mahama expect any Akan-descended southern-born eligible Ghanaian voter to cast their ballot for a National Democratic Congress’ Presidential Ticket with Candidate John Dramani Mahama’s name on the top of the ticket, instead of the name of Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang’s name on the top of the ticket? Or is this because the Gonja-born Candidate Mahama supposes that Ghana’s Akan-majority populace and ethnic group is essentially made up of mentally retarded humans, who have absolutely no sense of collective self-esteem? These two questions are very crucial because Candidate Mahama has been telling Ghanaians that it is perfectly the right time to have a woman Vice-President (See “It’s the Right Time to Have a Female Vice-President – Mahama” ClassFM.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/9/20).

Now, this is rather condescending and downright patronizing. It is also patently sexist and absurd. I mean, what prevents Ghanaians or any of the country’s two major political parties from directly fielding a well-qualified and administratively competent, payola-untainted and non-national-security-risk woman from heading the top of its Presidential Ticket? And yet, Candidate Mahama would also have the rest of the nation believe that the veritably sidekick portfolio of Vice-President in all governments run by the National Democratic Congress is one that most well-educated and professionally and administratively competent Ghanaian women, somehow, avidly aspire to in a very enlightened and progressive age in which a significant percentage of the heads of major public and private institutions and enterprises are headed by women.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

July 11, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]