We All Know Asiedu-Nketia Is a Political Thug and Scam-Artist

It is a story that is predictable and pretty standard fare among the party headquarters denizens of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). It is often orchestrated by the dynastic party General-Secretary, namely, Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia; and the first striking case in point occurred in the heated runup to the 2016 General Election, when a former NDC District Organizer from Ofankor, in the Greater-Accra Region, who dared to challenge the legitimacy of the pro-forma coronation of the then-incumbent President John “Akonfem-Kanazoe” Dramani Mahama as the unopposed and uncontested Presidential Candidate and Nominee of the National Democratic Congress was literally run out of the party. If a recall vividly, the “Nobody” challenger of Mr. Mahama was called Mr. George Boateng. He was 45 years old at the time, so he must be pushing at least 51 years old presently.

Party stalwarts, led by Mr. Asiedu-Nketia, the former Deputy Defense Minister in the government of the late President Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings, had deployed every dirty trick in the book to put the brakes on the Mahama challenger. But for some weird and inexplicable reasons at the time, the NDC’s strategic braking system did not seem to be catching. Mr. Boateng would actually succeed in purchasing the Presidential Election Nomination Forms that would enable him to vigorously contest Candidate Mahama in the 2015 National Democratic Congress’ Presidential Election Primary. In that instance too, just like the one presently before me on my laptop screen, General Mosquito, as Mr. Asiedu-Nketia is colloquially known, would call a press conference, or some such meeting, and pontifically declare that Mr. Boateng had either been sold or purchased some fake forms from the NDC’s National Headquarters.

Now, we are being told a strikingly similar story. This time, it regards Mr. Winfred Kofi Zoiku, described by the media as NDC Chairman of the Amasaman Constituency in the Greater-Accra Region. Well, in the brief news report before me, Mr. Zoiku has been summarily suspended from the party and his post for purchasing some “fake party cards” for some locally known members of the National Democratic Congress who are intent on running for election as party executives this year, well ahead of the 2024 General Election. Now, what is also clear here is the fact that the Amasaman NDC Constituency Chairman is very likely being suspended because he has dared to back the candidacies of some wannabe constituency executives of the party whose candidacies may not be among the names on the list of the officially approved candidates for the NDC’s constituency elections.

And so in a peremptory bid to effectively preempting and literally eviscerating or quashing the candidacies of these party black sheep, General Mosquito had to come up with his cock-and-bull story about Mr. Zoiku’s having purchased some fake party cards for his local favorites in the upcoming NDC Constituency Primary Elections. Now, the problem that General Mosquito has here is that Mr. Zoiku insists that he, in fact, purchased the allegedly fake party membership cards from the National Democratic Congress’ Kokomlemle National Headquarters (See “ ‘They Say I Admitted My Guilt; Before Who? I Bought the ‘Fake Party Cards’ from Regional NDC Office – Suspended Amasaman Chairman” Modernghana.com 5/20/22). Now, what this means is that the leadership of the National Democratic Congress is in the routine and criminal habit of printing two different sets and kinds of party membership cards and, perhaps, election-nomination forms as well, namely, a real and an authentic one for officially approved party election candidates and contestants; and another fake version of the preceding one that is specially earmarked for party pariahs or “black sheep” – did I hear somebody say “white sheep”?

You see, it would be prime grist for the national comedy circuit, if this at once unethical and patently criminal political racket was purely an internal party affair or political culture. Unfortunately for criminal and dirty politicians like the former NDC-Member of Parliament for the Sunyani-East Constituency, if memory serves yours truly accurately, we are dealing with the very soul and destiny of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana. What this means is that this potentially and nationally destructive political racket needs to be promptly investigated by operatives from our National Security Agency (NSA). There can absolutely be no gainsaying the fact that this is a national security matter and a problem that cannot be allowed to lightly slide by unscrutinized by our law-enforcement establishment as well as our judicial establishment and even more significantly, the Jean Adukwei Mensa-headed Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Moreso, in view of the recent suggestion by Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, the Parliamentary Minority Leader and the National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for Tamale-South, in the Northern Region, that about the only way in which the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress stood to lose the 2024 General Election, would be only in the event of the Electoral Commission’s Chair and her Associate Commissioners colluding with another political party to snatch victory from the clearly criminal political establishment of the National Democratic Congress. You see, the Haruna Iddrisu and the Asiedu-Nketia Gang cannot go into the 2024 General Election with such downright dirty and criminally crooked hands and mindset and expect a clean and an antiseptic outcome.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

May 21, 2022

E-mail: [email protected]