Adam Sheriff Is Darn Frigging Wrong!

I have read Gonja native Dr. Sheriff Adam’s rather facile and desultory attempt to defend the virulently barbaric and uncouth assault on the dignity and integrity of Akyem-descended Ghanaians, and can only conclude that the self-described resident of the United Kingdom of Great Britain is an integral part of the problem (See “If There Was ‘Gonja Mafia’ Why Not ‘Akyem Mafia’[?] – Dr. Sheriff” Ghanaweb.com 9/6/20). We need to quickly point out that it was another Gonja native, from the Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region, who invidiously tagged the ethnicity of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as both “Akyem Mafia” and “Akyem Sakawa Boys.” We definitely have not heard the last of such vitriolic abuse; for the battle for the heart and soul of the JB Danquah-christened or baptized Ghana has only just begun.

Suffice it to observe that it is rather preposterous for the John “Airbus-Kanazoe” Dramani Mahama apologist to categorically state that he has never heard President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo tag or publicly malign the Gonja people, who, by the way, he greatly loves and admires, as globally attested by the Okyeni’s yeomanly achievements in that part of the erstwhile Northern Region, including Nana Akufo-Addo’s creation of the Savannah Region, by either calling the prime beneficiaries of the fulfillment of his region-creation electioneering campaign promise either “Gonja Mafia,” “Gonja Witch-Hunting Sakawa Butchers” or other such culturally and morally incriminating names. And yet, Dr. Adam presupposes that since some elements in Nana Akufo-Addo’s own New Patriotic Party (NPP) establishment have been known to have appropriated the pejorative term of “Gonja Mafia,” in reference to the thoroughgoing corrupt and thievish Mahama regime, it is, perforce, perfectly legitimate for the Gonja-born former President John “Embraer-SADA” Mahama to have scornfully tagged the good and great people of Okyemen, in particular Akyem-Abuakwa, as “Akyem-Sakawa.”

You see, what we are talking about here is “Leadership Responsibility and Competence.” At any rate, it bears observing here that making too much hay or capital out of the tagging of the people of Okyeman – and here, the unmistakable allusion is to “AKyemansa,” or the Three Akyems, namely Abuakwa, Kotoku and Bosome – gives too much credit to a noetic or mentally retarded political rabble-rouser who does not even half-deserve the same. It cannot be gainsaid that what has made the clearly envious tagging of the Akyem people as “Mafiosi” and “Sakawa Boys” gain traction is merely the pedestrian fact that the inveterate anti-Akyem maledictor or verbal abuser, namely, Candidate John Dramani Mahama, is also an accidental former President of Ghana, albeit one who is not known to have remarkably distinguished himself as the highest and most powerful elected public official of the land.

At any rate, the verifiable first use of the derogatory term of “Akyem Mafia,” at least in our time, came from within the New Patriotic Party itself, and not the Akonfem-led National Democratic Congress (NDC). Indeed, it was the virulently anti-Akufo-Addo faction among the ranks of the New Patriotic Party that gave such tagging the sort of staying power it appears to be having today. But, of course, that is not the primary purpose of the present column. Which is why, as a nation and a political party, the key operatives of the NPP ought to be mindful of their utterances in heated moments of power struggle, either within the party itself or outside the same. You see, the Akyem are unquestionably among the most progressive and highest achieving ethnic or subethnic groups in the country. And on the latter count, of course, I am also including the great people of Okuapeman. The Akyem, hands down, do not defer to any other group in the country, in terms of our genius and our achievements, and I am quite certain that Mr. John “Shit-Bombing” Dramani Mahama is well aware of this fact.

Generally, the Akyem tend to be better educated and more culturally enlightened than the naked barbarian vitriol-throwing Akan-women-toe-liking acid-bomb-thrower who, by the way, has also thumbed the ugly nose on his three-day-old stale fufu-like face at The Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori-Panyin, II, and called Kyebi, the majestic ancient royal capital of Akyem-Abuakwa, “The Galamsey Capital of Ghana.” You see, this is not an isolated incident, for the information of Mahama apologists and toadies like Dr. Sheriff Adam. It is also risible for the Mahama agitprop goon to claim that the Gonja people are, by and large, politically more open-minded and ideologically diverse than the Akyem people. Well, the voting records of the Akyems and the Gonjas do not bear out the hallucinatory findings and speculations of Dr. Sheriff Adam. At any rate, the examples cited by Dr. Adam points in one direction, which is that most of the best educated and most prominent Gonja “nationals” tend to be politically leftist in inclination. You don’t see the same monochromatic proclivities among the intellectual class of Okyeman.

It is also morally and intellectually inexcusably insulting for Dr. Adam to cavalierly assert that “If there was ‘Gonja Mafia’ why not ‘Akyem Mafia’? Now, whose judgment call warrants such “equalizational” absurdity? For now, I have to rest my case. God willing, Okyeman shall prevail!

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

September 8, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]