This Trumpian Twist Will Not Wash Here

These are serious allegations that ought to be promptly answered by the accuser, that is, the confusionist leadership of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). And it has to do with mendacious claims that the key operatives of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) have, somehow, conspired to print some 150,000 ballot papers, far in excess of the constitutionally established stipulation, implicitly, in a mischievous attempt to prejudice the integrity of the 2020 general election in favor of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) – (See “Silence Isn’t Golden Here: Respond to EC Now! – Kweku Baako Charges NDC” Peace-FM / Ghanaweb.com 11/5/20).

We are informed that the standard procedure is for the IEC to print about 5 percent in excess ballots for every one of the 38, 630 (Thirty-Eight-Thousand, Six-Hundred-and-Thirty) polling stations across the country. It is not clear to me from the afore-referenced news report whether the 150,000 (One-Hundred-and-Fifty-Thousand) ballots which the Asiedu-Nketia Gang is claiming has been printed on the side by the Jean Adukwei Mensa-led Independent Electoral Commission is a mischievous set-aside for each and every polling station in the country, or it is a set-aside tranche of ballot papers that is meant to award an undeserved advantage to the ruling New Patriotic Party. The latter instance well appears to be the case, which would make such an ungodly advantage seem all the more absurd, if also because in 2016 when an NDC-appointed IEC Chairperson and staff ran the IEC, Candidate Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who, relatively speaking, did not possess much of an impressive political track-record, other than his own personal achievements, for the most part, handily defeated an incumbent President John “Akonfem-Kanazoe” Dramani Mahama with more than One-Million Votes.

Compare the preceding tentative case scenario with a President Akufo-Addo who, in the leadup to Election 2020, has authoritatively and convincingly established his credentials as unarguably the most visionary and progressive leader of Ghana’s Fourth Republic, and such accusation could not be more asinine and inexcusably outrageous. But, of course, this is standard NDC attempt at provocation. Mr. Kweku Baako’s call on the Asiedu-Nketia Gang to answer the press statement released by the Independent Electoral Commission, clearly indicating that, in fact, absolutely nothing out of kilter with established protocol is being done under the tenure of Mrs. Mensa is an appropriate challenge that must be promptly answered by the Mahama Posse, or find their already virtually nonexistent credibility further eroded by such viciously calculated mischief.

In all likelihood, the Asiedu-Nketia/Mahama Gang will not be able to respond to the gauntlet thrown by the IEC because, characteristically mendacious bluster and all, the NDC operatives have absolutely no credible research findings and/or analysis from the 13 unnamed regions whose ballot-printing figures they claim to have critically examined and analyzed. It is crystal clear that these rabble-rousing propagandists have absolutely no forensically credible evidence to back up their unconscionable claim. The proprietary arrogance and insufferable sense of entitlement of the leaders of the National Democratic Congress must be squarely seen for what it is. And here, of course, we are referring to this farcical idea that, somehow, the Manager of the state-owned Assembly Press ought to be an appointee from the camp of the National Democratic Congress, when the long-established protocol has been for the incumbent government to call its own shots vis-à-vis who gets named Manager or Managing-Director of the Assembly Press which, by the way, contrary to what the infamous fake news fabricators of the National Democratic Congress would have the general Ghanaian public believe, is state-owned rather than it being the private company or enterprise owned by an Akufo-Addo associate.

This strikingly Trumpian act of desperation will not wash, and the Mahama/ Asisedu-Nketia Posse had better face the stark reality of the fact that Ghanaian citizens, by and large, are far smarter than these political scumbags and shameless parasites of the NDC’s Looting Brigade to be so cheaply hoodwinked into committing mass political suicide by returning the trial-and-error thuggocrats of the National Democratic to Jubilee House.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

November 5, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]