Here Are the Facts the Dormaahene Did Not Correct

I have said this time without number, that any government that leaves more uncompleted projects in its wake than it was able to accomplish prior to its being voted out of power does not deserve to be returned to Jubilee House or into governance for the second time. It is simply irrational and downright illogical for grossly incompetent operatives like the democratically ousted Mahama Posse to be desperately clamoring for a second chance at governance, something that Kwame Gonja and his gang of clinical and pathological kleptocrats have proven themselves to be woefully and scandalously incapable of. You see, being rewarded with a second chance at governance ought to be squarely predicated on an impressive performance, of which the former President cannot confidently and credibly lay claim to having creditably acquitted himself. In this column, however, we intend to focus on something that the Paramount Chief or King of Dormaa Ahenkro, Osagyefo Oseadeeyo Agyeman-Badu, recently said that made the banner news headlines.

We are reliably informed that Nana Agyeman-Badu made the very controversial remark that has been attributed to him while inaugurating a community library built for the people of Dormaa-Akwamu in memory of the late Queenmother of the Dormaa State, presumably his own birth mother, Nana Akosua Ansuaa. Now, this is a very laudable project which, we are reliably informed, was underwritten by Mrs. Anna Agyeman-Badu, wife of the Paramount Chief or King of Dormaa Ahenkro. In the news item that we are using for the composition of this story, Mrs. Agyeman-Badu is rather quaintly and anachronistically described as “Lady” Anna Agyeman. As one who makes pontifical claim to scholarship and the self-proclaimed author of seven books, Osagyefo Agyeman-Badu ought to know that there is absolutely no title called “Lady” that is conventionally prefixed to the names of the wives or spouses of Ghanaian chieftains.

By the way, the Dormaahene is not the only one whose wife is often addressed as “Lady” Agyeman-Badu. I have seen the same title prefixed to the name of the wife of The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, and have been wondering why, to-date, the Ghana National House of Chiefs has not come out with any official protocol or guidelines vis-à-vis how the spouses or wives, in this particular instance, of our Kings and Chiefs, are to be officially addressed. There is something “grammatically” absurd, if not grotesque, at least by my own personal lights, about appending the word or title of “Lady” to the names of the wives of any of our local chieftains, unless, of course, the wives of these chieftains have officially been knighted by Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, II, or any one of the currently legitimately recognized European monarchs, such as the Queen of Denmark or Swede.

You see, a very significant aspect of claiming to be a Sovereign Nation entails locally minting the titles by which we address prominent invested traditional personalities and dignitaries. And I don’t suppose that laying down such guidelines would necessitate the acquisition or sourcing of any substantial caches of foreign exchange or hard currencies like the Dollar, the Euro or the Pound Sterling. If you claim to have authored seven books, as Osagyefo Agyeman-Badu is widely reported to be claiming, but you have absolutely no clue vis-à-vis the official form of address by which your own spouse is to be publicly recognized and/or identified and addressed, then, of course, it goes without saying that Author Agyeman-Badu is socioculturally as insignificant or ordinary as somebody who has not authored even a single sentence, let alone a single newspaper article. You also cannot presume to “correct” the distorted history of your own society or people, if you also have absolutely no clue of how your own spouse is to be publicly and officially addressed. After all, has it not been said ad nauseam that “Charity must begin from home”?

When he bitterly asserts that the failure by the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party to complete several major projects left behind by the previous Mahama regime is tantamount to “deliberate and selective discrimination,” it is not clear to me whether the Dormaahene is also referring to Dumsor, which was the major energy policy plank of the previous Mahama regime but is presently practically nonexistent across all 16 regions of the country, including the Bono Region? Even more significant, did Osagyefo Agyeman-Badu compare notes with his fellow chiefs in the country’s other 15 regions vis-à-vis the pace and distribution of national development projects under the watch and tenures of Presidents Atta-Mills, late, and Mahama? As well as the percentage of uncompleted John Agyekum-Kufuor projects or “Asante Projects,” as the late President John Evans Atta-Mills preferred to call then, that were completed by the Mills-Mahama Presidency or Presidencies? You see, in many a democratic political culture around the globe, your choice or choices of leadership are a serious gamble whose equally logically particular consequences the elector or voter must be prepared to live with, all pontifical and self-righteous pronouncements to administrative neutrality notwithstanding.

Finally, talking about Sovereign Autonomy, maybe somebody more sober needs to apprise Nana Agyeman-Badu of the fact that until the accession of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah to the helm of Modern Ghana’s affairs, the vast region formerly called the Brong-Ahafo Region, was actually called Western-Asante Region. Well, there is a well-known maxim among the Akan-speaking people of Ghana which runs as follows: “It is only The Okyenhene who has an established tradition of hand-shaking with The Asantehene.” Could Osagyefo Agyeman-Badu cite us the Bono equivalent of the preceding maxim? In short, just as no two doctoral degrees are exactly the same in value or utility, not all “Osagyefos” are really genuine or authentic Osagyefos or rather “Asagyefos.” One cannot pepper over the established and unvarnished truth by writing and publishing Seven Books. There is the real and original truth, and then there is the revised and “corrected truth” of “Osagyefo” Agyeman-Badu. Even “Osagyefo” President Kwame Nkrumah knew the stark difference between the title of the Osagyefo whose status and stature he so cavalierly and blasphemously presumed to have usurped. There is The Otumfuo Asantehene, and then The Ya Naa and The Osagyefo of Okyeman-mu or Akyem-Abuakwa. No need for either envy or hatred here, Aduana Abusuapanyin!

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

January 1, 2022

E-mail: okoampaahoofekwame@gmail.com

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