What Is Good for the Goose Is Equally Good for the Gander – Part 1

We don’t know all the details of the Agyapa Deal, except for the widely known fact that it is subtended or underscored by good intentions, that is, the decision by the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to wisely and profitably consolidate and invest royalties accruing from Ghana’s considerable mineral wealth on both the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE), with the quite laudable objective of raising adequate capital – approximately $ 1 Billion (USD) in the near future – for the massive and rapid infrastructural and industrial development of the country. We also know that the government of the late President John Evans Atta-mills, of which the now-Candidate John “Airbus-Kanazoe” Dramani Mahama was the substantive Vice-President – “Bad President,” as my teenage son calls it – floated around a similar concept or policy proposal in or about 2010 and 2011, something called the Ghana Gold Company (GGC), although the proposal does not seem to have left the proverbial drawing board.

I have this information in one of my WhatsApp files and intend to work on it in the very near future. At any rate, I didn’t expect the then-Vice-President John “Embraer” Mahama to have been very concerned about the aforesaid proposal because the globally infamous kleptocrat was probably very busy scamming Ghanaian taxpayers, in what has come to be inconclusively called the Brazil Embraer Aircraft Scandal, in which Mr. Mahama is widely alleged to have either “blown” – and here, of course, I am using the horse’s own words – or plain stolen some $ 170 Million (USD). This figure could be much higher, perhaps well above the vicinity of $ 200 Million (USD). We are also informed that a severely terminally ill President Atta-Mills had even set up a high-powered three or four-person commission to probe the matter.

And then, of course, the former tax-law professor, of the University of Ghana, the nation’s flagship academy, literally vanished into thin air. Some prominent names have been mentioned vis-à-vis the membership of the alleged commission of enquiry established by the deceased sitting President to investigate what clearly appears to have been a much bigger Woyome-like heist. There was also clearly a trust-deficit issue here. Which makes Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings somewhat of a prophet, in retrospect, going back to 2007, or thereabouts, when the then-Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills selected the former Rawlings-appointed Minister of Communications as his running-mate. Not surprisingly, none of the owners of the names of the alleged secret panel established to enquire into the Brazil Embraer Deal have come public to either affirm or deny the aforesaid allegation. So, it has perennially become a rumor whose underlying truth or falsity may never be known or ever be resolved.

Characteristically, Mr. John “Airbus-Kanazoe” Mahama has remained deathly silent on this matter, although there has been quite a considerable amount of media groundswell around this matter. Now, what is clear about the Agyapa Royalties Investments Deal, that has been vehemently opposed by the very key operatives of the National Democratic Congress’ Parliamentary Minority, prior to its approval by the Full-House of Parliament, is that it has given the lie to the fact of the thoroughgoing incompetence of the leaders of the National Democratic Congress. We need to remember that the key operatives of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress had also promised in the runup to the 2016 general election, that they intended to create several more regions in addition to the 10 that already existed but had either woefully lacked the vision to do, during the 8-year tenure of the Mills-Mahama regime, or they simply lacked the requisite talent and know-how to bring about the same.

To be certain, the chiefs and people of the erstwhile Gonja enclave of Mr. Mahama’s native Northern Region had been clamoring for their own region ever since any of us can remember, perhaps primarily because of the protracted Dagbon Chieftaincy Crisis, brough about in recent times by the brutal assassination of Ya-Naa Yakubu Andani, II, in or about 2002, which appears to have brought the development of the entire Northern Region to a standstill. Well, now, thanks to the visionary and missionary foresight of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, not only has the protracted Dagbon Chieftaincy Crisis been definitively resolved, at least that is what every progressive-thinking and peace-loving Ghanaian citizen is hoping for, the Overlord and chiefs and people of Gonjaland have, finally, gotten their dire wish of having a separate region of their own region auspiciously and opportunely fulfilled.

The preceding are only a couple of the major headaches of the grossly incompetent former President John “Airbus-Kanazoe” Mahama, who is now accusing the good, smart and hardworking people of Akyem-Abuakwa of having colluded with the globally celebrated son of their soil, to wit, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to “State Capture” the collective resources of all Ghanaian citizens in the foresighted striking of the Agyapa Royalties Investment Deal. Now, the preceding is strikingly different from what we saw during the four-and-half-year tenure of the Mahama regime, when Airbus’ Government Official Number One Literally gifted the entire mineral wealth of Ghana to his younger half-brother and mining company proprietor, Mr. Ibrahim Mahama.

The good news here is that there is absolutely no evidence of an “Akyem Mafia,” that is, the hateful epithet from the same man who, as substantive President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana, disdainfully called Kyebi, the ancient Okyeman royal capital, “The Galamsey Capital of Ghana,” having deliberately, strategically and chauvinistically hijacked the resources of the country of which, by the way, a disproportionate percentage are buried in Akan soil and commercially cultivated on the same. The incontrovertible evidence is there for all to see, to wit, that unlike the crude attempt by the Mahama Clan and the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress to shamelessly and effectively cannibalize the resources of our country, the Agyapa Deal has absolutely no unique or exclusive imprint of “State Capture” on the same.

What is inexcusably repugnant here is the fact that the perennially vulturous leaders of the Rawlings-founded National Democratic Congress appear to have convinced themselves that, somehow, they are some Super-Ghanaian citizens with an inalienable constitutional right to lay proprietary claim to the collective resources of our country. The struggle for the eternal defeat of the self-righteous political vampires of the National Democratic Congress continues unabated. We shall prevail!

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

September 3, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]