Who Weeps for Yaa-Naa Yakubu Andani, Mr. Harruna Attah?

I long ago – in political time, that is – decided that the former Editor of The Statesman, the newspaper originally founded in the late 1940s by Justice Edward Akufo-Addo, later to become Ceremonial President of Ghana under the Westminster-fashioned tenure of Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia, and the father of our incumbent President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, was not worth the least bit jousting with publicly. You see, this is a former Akufo-Addo protégé, a Rawlings-immured refugee ostracized by the recently deceased Founding-Father of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and husband of the younger sister of Mr. Rawlings widow, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawling, and a Mahama-minted mercenary “Ambassador” or “High Commissioner.”

So, when the Ghanaian taxpayer’s saprophyte asks his most recent former paymaster not to concede defeat to President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in the wake of the resonant affirmation of the former New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa-South by the Ghanaian electorate, it is perfectly to be expected because among the Akan-speaking Ghanaian majority populace, there is a maxim that says that “One does not bite the hand that feeds one,” or even more intimately and poignantly, “You do not bite the hand that feeds you.” In brief, Harruna Attah is a famished failed wannabe bigtime politician who catastrophically, in retrospect, hitched his wagon to the proverbial star of the late former Vice-President Aliu Mahama, the putatively loyal Kufuor arch-lieutenant hung out to dry his two-term immediate boss in the leadup to the 2008 Presidential Election.

I have written quite extensively about this very most unfortunate but all-too-Kufuor episode and so do not find the same the least bit necessary to reprise here, except to tangentially observe that the Editor-Publisher of the long-defunct Accra Daily Mail, if memory serves yours truly accurately, has never forgiven Nana Akufo-Addo for not having cowardly backed down for the Kufuor-jilted Alhaji Aliu Mahama to gun for the presidential candidacy and nomination of the then-ruling New Patriotic Party in the leadup to the 2008 Presidential Election, gratuitously, fatuously and conveniently ignoring the fact that scapegoating Nana Akufo-Addo for the epic electoral failure that was his extant paymaster and homeboy will not get this disgruntled Aliu Mahama surrogate anywhere.

You see, the Tamale native – he may actually be some remote village boy – has been, naturally, too diffident and cowardly to take on the John Agyekum-Kufuor-chaperoned Asante-Mafia Establishment, which brazenly backed the Presidential Candidacy of Mr. Alan John Kwadwo Kyeremateng, the Kufuor clansman and, instead, finds it much safer and very convenient to virulently fault “the Little Man from Kyebi” who had been even more viciously and scandalously victimized by my good, old Uncle Kofi Diawuo until very, very recently. This, in a nutshell, is the tragi-comical grievance of the Secretary-General of the Northern Alliance of Akufo-Addo Detractors (NAOAD), pronounced NAWAD. I hereby profoundly apologize and make exception of the millions of Akufo-Addo-loving Gonjas and Dagombas, among a host of other Ghanaian citizens of northern descent, who are forward-looking, peaceful and have absolutely no time for the political frivolities of petit-bourgeois scam-artists and SADA-Akonfem Apostles like Messrs. Abdul-Rahman Harruna Attah, Haruna Iddrisu and Inusah Fuseini.

You see, the validity of the renewal of the mandate of President Akufo-Addo does not statutorily depend on the say-so, concession or the affirmation of the man the late acclaimed founder of whose own party publicly and perennially and authoritatively described as the most corrupt Ghanaian leader since Independence (See “Akufo-Addo Brought Jean Mensa to Rig Polls, Don’t Concede – Harruna Atta to Mahama” 3News / Ghanaweb.com 12/18/20). Mr. Harruna Attah would be far better off and far more credible, if he could tell Ghanaians about his own role in the grisly regicidal slaughter of Yaa-Naa Yakubu Andani, II, and at least 40 of his courtiers, directly or indirectly, than unconscionably, mischievously and cavalierly pretending that, somehow, the overwhelming majority of the global Ghanaian citizenry are too naïve and undiscerning to ignore the fact that un-convicted criminal barbarians like Messrs. Mahama and Haruna Attah – remember Peter Kenyenso, Adams Mahama and JB Danquah-Adu, and these are only just three of dozens of prominent and distinguished Ghanaian citizens slaughtered under the watch of an impenitent President Mahama – have any moral authority to grandstand and lecture Ghanaians about which of our fellow citizens have their hands dripping with the blood of our innocent brothers and sisters.

You see, Mr. Harruna Atta and his gang of thieves and human butchers will do themselves a lot of good to learn a little bit of their own history from the K. Kakraba-authored insightful article captioned “A Murderer Is Dead! Where Do We Bury Him to Ease the Conscience of a Nation?” This understandably emotionally fraught but morally edifying and frank and significant piece of historical journalism was WhatsApped to me by one of my brothers-in-law just this morning. I hope Messrs. Mahama, Fuseini, Suhuyini, Ablakwa, Doe Adjaho and Asiedu-Nketia, among a host of National Democratic Congress’ apparatchiks, would have a great time enjoying the same. Now, who signed the AMERI Power Deal that was sole-sourced at $ 510 Million (USD), a whopping $ 150 Million (USD) inflated beyond the going market price, or value, “Alhaji” Harruna Attah? I wish you and your bonny family a very happy and prosperous new year.

By the way, recently, I read a very fine piece of writeup on Akan Culture in the New York Times that was authored by your Ivy-educated brilliant daughter, Aisha. I wish you could write like that yourself. I must confess, I am very proud of Aisha, but I don’t know whether Aisha is proud seeing you, her own beloved father, make such a withering clown out of yourself, all because of a piece of diplomatic tripe thrown at you by severely trounced and logically challenged Candidate John “European Airbus” Dramani Mahama. Does Aisha get her flair for thoughtful and felicitous writing from you or her mother, that is, your calm, collected and beautiful wife? Ciao!

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

January 4, 2021

E-mail: [email protected]