Nothing Really Insightful about CDD Post-Election Survey

To make a meaningful sense of the recent postelection 2020 survey published by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (G-CDD), as I told one of the senior administrators at the New York State Community College (SUNY-Nassau) where I have been teaching English and Journalism for nearly a quarter century now, the Henry Kwasi Prempeh-led think-tank ought to have put this survey in a comparative context with all the Fourth-Republican governments that preceded the present Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Seen in complete isolation, the admittedly seemingly lackluster attitude of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his cabinet appointees and other executive administrators towards the fight against rank official corruption does not give us any palpable or meaningful sense of the general state of the battle against corruption, or the abject lack thereof, in Fourth-Republican Ghana.

Scapegoating Nana Akufo-Addo makes the Afrobarometer Survey seem all the more suspect and politically motivated (See “CDD Post-Election Survey an Indictment on Akufo-Addo’s Performance – Segbefia” Modernghana.com 9/1/21). An objective comparative analysis of corruption perception between at least the previous Mills-Mahama regime and the current one would have immediately shut the diarrheal mouth of pathological mischief-makers and downright criminal ministerial failures like Mr. Alexander Segbefia, the so-called Head of the International Relations Desk of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). And on the latter count ought to be equally highlighted the fact that it was Mr. Sebgefia who, as the Mahama-appointed Health Minister, imported into the country from Germany some 300 engineless vehicular hulks or empty vehicular shells that were scandalously paraded before Ghanaian citizens as a fleet of new ambulances earmarked for the augmentation and improvement of the National Ambulance Service (NAS).

Now, listening to the Mahama propaganda shill accuse the Akufo-Addo government of fostering a culture of impunity, one could not but disconsolately lament the fact that Mr. Segbefia has yet to be brought to condign justice. You see, the real culture of impunity was when the Mahama cabinet and executive appointees, for more than four years, illegally took home double salaries at the expense of the wantonly exploited and woefully underpaid blue-collar Ghanaian worker. That was also when the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), the bank and ultimate financial resort of Ghanaian civil-servant retirees, literally became the private piggybank of the Mahama Posse. I mean, whatever happened to the $ 72 Million (USD) Boondoggle that occurred under the ministerial watch and supervision of Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, at the time the Labor and Employment Minister and, presently, the NDC’s Parliamentary Minority Leader?

For the education and enlightenment of pathological kleptocrats like Mr. Segbefia, this is what a true culture of impunity looks like. At least on the question of the administration of justice in the country, a relatively substantially significant percentage of Ghanaian citizens have far more confidence in Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo than they did under the anti-judicial rankly corrupt government of the National Democratic Congress, at least by the authoritative and incontrovertible lights of the late President Jerry John Rawlings, the universally acclaimed Founding-Father of the National Democratic Congress. It is also nothing short of unpardonably insulting for the man who has been fiercely defending the forensically proven Mega-Thief in the European Airbus Payola Scam to be claiming a higher moral ground in the fight against corruption for his former paymaster.

Indeed, it unreservedly goes without saying that warts and all, President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo stands head and shoulders over and above all four of his predecessors without exception. At least with Nana Akufo-Addo, palpable material development can be seen all over the ground. By all means, let the CDD mavens trot out all the postelection corruption and quality-of-life perception figures going back to 1992 or 1993, and then we can have a more meaningful and progressive conversation about official corruption and quality-of-life issues in our beloved nation.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

Sept. 1, 2021

E-mail: [email protected]