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28.10.2020 Feature Article

Pinch-Hitting Emergency Wife Politicians Is Very American But Good for Ghana Too

Pinch-Hitting Emergency Wife Politicians Is Very American But Good for Ghana Too
28.10.2020 LISTEN

The obscene sexism of the so-called Concerned Youth and Citizens of Mfantseman Constituency, which suffered the barbaric slaying of its incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP), Mr. Ekow Quansah Hayford, on October 8, 2020, exactly two months to the December 7 scheduled General Election, must be roundly condemned in toto (See “Concerned Mfantseman Youth Kick Against Wife of Slain MP as Parliamentary Candidate” Ghana News Agency (GNA)/ JoyOnline.com 10/15/20).

The reason allegedly given by the grossly misguided protesters, who claim to be bona fide members of the ruling New Patriotic Party, is unmistakably absurd and inexcusably suspect. Very likely, some nefarious elements from the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) may very well be smack behind the grisly murder of the Mfantseman NPP Member of Parliament. The forensic contours of Mr. Quansah Hayford’s murder may very well not be very different from the brutal bedroom-stabbing death of Mr. Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu, the cousin of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, under the strategically chaotic national security tenure of former President John “Akonfem-Kanazoe” Dramani Mahama.

As of this writing, at least six criminal suspects had reportedly been picked up by personnel of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) in the Asante Regional Capital of Kumasi. Like the horrific Danquah-Adu slaying, it may very well turn out that the point-blank shooting death of Mr. Quansah Hayford was not a typical case of armed robbery at all, but one that was deliberately and systematically orchestrated by elements of the main opposition National Democratic Congress. The leaders of the NDC have an unenviable track-record of staging this kind of political killing, beginning with the “mysterious” assassination of President John Evans Atta-Mills, which Candidate Mahama, President Mills’ immediate successor and extant arch-lieutenant, recently lamely denied by bizarrely and curtly intoning thusly: “I did not kill President Mills.”

The preceding infantile denial came shortly after the Bono Region’s Chairman’s of the New Patriotic Party, Mr. Kwame Baffoe, alias Abronye DC, had fiercely contested the rather murky circumstances under which President Mills lost his life. That Candidate Mahama could not look Ghanaians straight in the eye and tell us precisely who else killed the Jerry John Rawlings-coronated former tax-law professor of the country’s flagship academy, the University of Ghana, makes matters all the more suspicious and bizarre, especially since Mr. Mahama could also not readily inform the global Ghanaian community about the fact of whether President Mills had died of natural causes or via foul play, as many Ghanaians have suspected for quite some time now.

Now, regarding the parliamentary replacement of the late Mr. Quansah Hayford, the so-called Concerned Mfantseman Youth would rather have Mr. James Korsah-Brown, the candidate who placed second in the NPP’s 2020 parliamentary primary in the Mfantseman Constituency, replace the late Mr. Quansah Hayford, instead of the widow of the latter who, until just a couple of weeks ago, was a senior officer of the Ghana Police Service. The grounds of the dissenters are that Mrs. Ophelia Hayford is not known to be a card-carrying member of the New Patriotic Party. As well, the Concerned Mfantseman Youth group members claim to have never seen Mr. Quansah Hayford’s widow on the campaign trail with her late husband.

Now, this is rather absurd because the devoted spouse of the deceased, that is, Mrs. Ophelia Hayford, was existentially integral to the political activities of her husband. But even more significant to note is the fact that as a professional police officer, as well as a peace officer, Mrs. Hayford, by law, could not have been expected to be actively engaged in partisan politics. Then also, the very circumstances under which Mr. Quansah met his death makes it an imperative necessity for the person who knew the beloved parliamentarian better than anybody else, and thus best positioned to carry out the political and development agenda of the very dynamic and progressive Mfantseman National Assembly Representative, to be duly and promptly selected as Mr. Quansah Hayford’s most trusted replacement. Then also, while Mr. Korsah Brown has not been officially charged with any foul play in the brutal execution of Mr. Quansah Hayford, and may very well be totally innocent of any wrongdoing in the same, nevertheless, the man who was handily defeated by the late Mfantseman MP in the 2020 parliamentary primary cannot be totally ruled out of suspicion either.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

October 21, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]

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