Time to Throw the Book at Captain Smart

This is not the first or the second time that Captain Smart, aka Blessed Godsbrain Smart, has roiled up seditious controversy in the country. Seditious and treasonable controversy appears to be his modus operandi, his stock-in-trade or his trademark. The John “Six Cars” Agyekum-Kufuor and Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor nephew needs to be promptly and swiftly punished to serve as a deterrent to all media operatives and, indeed, all members of the general Ghanaian public who might be tempted to follow the civically reckless path of the subject of this column, that Ghana is a country and a nation of laws and not a political jungle, as the subject of this column well appears to be thinking (See “Captain Smart Arrested for Inciting ‘Rwanda’” Modernghana.com 12/2/21).

Now, what the foregoing means is that the subject of this brief column needs to serve at least a couple of months, like the infamous Montie Trio, in the slammer or the stir-house, as Britons are wont to call a jailhouse, if it is forensically proven that Captain Smart has, indeed, used his privileged position as a broadcast journalist to criminally incite military insurrection against any of our three branches of democratic governance, namely, the Executive, Judiciary and the Legislature. In the latest instance of such incitement to hatred and national destabilization and, in effect, the summary overthrow of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Captain Smart is alleged to have used his privileged position as host of the Onua FM/TV Morning Show to call on members of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) to invade Parliament or our National Assembly in order to stem the admittedly irascible tide of the infantilely chaotic behavior of our elected representatives.

You see, the real problem here is that the rabid inciter does not really envisage the institutional establishment of the Ghana Armed Forces as an instrument of national stability or the promotion of peace, security and tranquility. He simply wants the military to intervene in the civic life and democratic culture of the country, merely because the station-hopping self-styled antiestablishment broadcast journalist does not like the bipartisan wrangling that appears to have usurped the sanity and civic conduct of our National Assembly Representatives. He also clearly has absolutely no respect for the institutional establishment of the Ghana Armed Forces, which is precisely why Captain Smart is widely reported to have caustically castigated the leadership and general membership of the GAF in the following immitigably vituperative and intemperate terms: “Where we have reached, we require an uprising with a positive defiance. I am even shocked at Ghana’s soldiers. You can enter Parliament when MPs are being sworn in[,] but when MPs are fooling [around with the time and resources of the Ghanaian taxpayer], you can’t enter Parliament. Everybody is quiet in this country.”

The preceding quote is a strong indictment against this iconoclastic critic. In other words, it is not that Captain Smart is desperate and eager to see democracy function progressively and effectively in the country. The man simply wants our hard-fought constitutional democracy to be literally washed away or thoroughly wiped out because this inveterate and vitriolic critic of the Akufo-Addo Government simply cannot abide the latter’s popular and legitimate mandate. It is also quite certain that Captain Smart would not be calling for the overthrow of the Akufo-Addo Administration, if the head of the present government were his own uncle, to wit, Mr. John “Six Cars” Agyekum-Kufuor. But, perhaps, even more significant to adumbrate here is the fact that Captain Smart is rather much too young to fully appreciate the extent and level of damage caused the country by military adventurism of the kind spearheaded by the Rawlings-Tsikata Diarchy, an extortionate and sanguinary regime under which Ghanaians witnessed the vicious abduction and summary execution of High Court Judges whose judicial orientation, pronouncements and decisions Messrs. Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings and Kojo “The Butcher” Tsikata vehemently disagreed with.

Even worse, Captain Smart clearly does not appear to have given himself the time and chance to systematically and meticulously study the history and the deleterious impact of military intervention and domination of Ghana’s political culture. The tragedy and pity here is that Captain Smart seems to be blissfully smug in his ignorance of what repercussions military intervention would mean for the inalienable human and civil rights of the Ghanaian citizenry. He needs to study the history of the Ghana Armed Forces in the postcolonial era and, even more significantly, what the implications of military intervention would have on his own media profession. He may blasphemously envisage himself to be a “Blessed Godsbrain,” but it is unarguably obvious or crystal clear that Captain Smart is just another mentally deranged and spiritually retarded and grossly misguided oaf trying to play Russian Roulette with the hard-won civil liberties of his own people. He must be promptly deterred and severely disciplined. Even possibly indefinitely suspended from disseminating his nation-wrecking tirades on our airwaves.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

December 3, 2021

E-mail: [email protected]