Bad Chiefs Like the Dormaahene Are a Curse unto Their People

He is a publicly shameless staunch supporter of the John “Akonfem-SADA” Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) who spent most of the last five years taunting the operatives of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) government and scurrilously claiming that the NPP has done absolutely nothing, historically speaking, to improve the lives of the people of the Bono Region, formerly a part of the Old Brong-Ahafo Region. The irony here is that one of his own uncles, Mr. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, is the substantive Minister of Health in the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party, which has indisputably done more to improve the lives of the chiefs and people of the Bono Region than was ever done or attempted by the previous Mills-Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress, including the construction of an ultra-modern sports complex, a health facility and a community center – I stand to be corrected – if memory serves yours truly accurately (See “I’m Correcting the Distorted History – Dormaahene” 3News.com/Ghanaweb.com 12/31/21).

There is a videotape that has been circulating on the Internet or the Almighty Google for quite a considerable while now, on which the Queenmother of the Dormaa Traditional Area, who, by the way, is also traditionally the highest-ranking invested Chieftain and Kingmaker of Dormaa, is seen and heard vehemently contradicting the historically and politically mendacious claims of Osagyefo Oseadeeyo Agyeman-Badu to the scandalous effect that the previous Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress did more to significantly improve the living standards of the people of the Bono Region than the present Akufo-Addo Administration. Between the Dormaahemaa and the Dormaahene, there is absolutely no doubt that it is the former, that is, the Queenmother of Dormaa Ahenkro, whose counterclaim rings more credible.

The comical and scandalous irony here is that it was President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who made it possible for each and every able-bodied youth of the Bono Region to readily access the current Fee-Free Senior High School System which, by the way, Osagyefo Agyeman-Badu’s own political hero, namely, Kwame Gonja, as former President Mahama is also popularly known, not very long ago, insisted was a practical impossibility which only a desperate politician seeking to be undeservedly elected President would promise. Now, could the Paramount Chief of Dormaa Ahenkro look straight into the eyes of his own people and swear under oath that the citizens and residents of his municipality or metropolis have been denied access to the Akufo-Addo-implemented Fee-Free Senior High School System? Absolutely not, I am very certain!

As well, we need to promptly highlight the fact that the people of Dormaa Ahenkro, in particular, and the Bono Region, in general, did not benefit from readily accessing the so-called Mahama Hospital and Healthcare Facilities (HHF), when Kwame Gonja and Mr. Sylvester Mensah, the man that former President Mahama appointed as Executive-Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), literally squandered funding meant for the payment of healthcare providers under the John Agyekum-Kufuor-established landmark National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). The grim and stark fact of the matter is that the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and the government of the New Patriotic Party have done far auspiciously and progressively more to significantly improve the quality of the lives of the people and residents of the Bono Region than was done by the previous Mills-Mahama regime, including the creation of what the late Elder President George Herbert Walker Bush, of the United States of America, would have progressively termed or characterized as “The thousand points of light,” that is, the politically progressive splitting of the Old Brong-Ahafo into three discrete administrative regions, namely, Bono, Bono-East and Ahafo regions, to more evenly spread out our national development resources.

Ever the empty-talking promiscuous political promise-maker, Mr. Mahama had also promised to evenly spread out our national development resources by creating more administrative regions but did absolutely nothing. Not that Kwame Gonja did not want to; rather, the stark fact of the matter is that the man had absolutely no viable flair for governance or the talent and simply did not know where to start from. We will take up the equally significant matter of uncompleted projects left behind by the previous Mills-Mahama regime in a soon-to-be-published column.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

January 1, 2022

E-mail: [email protected]