Bryan Buabeng May Be Clinically Unhinged

Following the public screening of the Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ documentary movie titled “Galamsey Economy,” the Head of New Media in the Office of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, that is, the President of the Democratic Republic of Ghana, was reported to have posted a tweet in which Mr. Buabeng sarcastically questioned the timing of the release of his documentary exposé by the Tiger-Eye PI proprietor, because “Galamsey Economy” was filmed some four years ago (See “Galamsey Economy: Why Show a Four-Year-Old Video Now? – Presidential Staffer Quizzes Anas” Modernghana.com 11/15/22). My gut, instinctive or reflexive reaction was to question why a progressive-minded leader like Ghana’s former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice would hire somebody who clearly lacked any remarkable critical-thinking skills to handle the cutting-edge media operations in his Presidential Suite.

You see, Mr. Samuel Bryan Buabeng’s very questioning of the timing of the release of the Anas Aremeyaw Anas documentary clearly evinces the mindset of, at best, a mildly retarded person. You see, the critical concern here inescapably regards the fact of whether, indeed, Mr. Charles Adu-Boahen, the recently fired Minister of State for Finance, actually said the things that have been attributed to the Harvard-trained businessman, in particular, the very serious allegation that any prospective entrepreneur eager to establish a business in Ghana would need to pay, upfront, the relatively humongous liquid-cash sum of $ 200,000 (USD) to Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia. You see, it does irrefutably matter whether Mr. Adu-Boahen made this inexcusably outrageous allegation against the former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Ghana or not. As well, what inescapably matters here is the fact of whether, indeed, Vice-President Bawumia has ever demanded and/or ever received the payola sum of $ 200,000 (USD) in the name of an “appearance fee” or as a means of gaining access to him or his office for the express purpose of facilitating the successful entrepreneurial establishment of any prospective foreign investor in the country.

Cavalierly pooh-poohing this treasonable allegation on the lame grounds of temporal obsolescence or because it is four years old or behind schedule, as it were, presupposes some form of statute of limitations, whereby a crime committed or perpetrated in the recent past ceases to be a crime merely because the witness had failed to promptly report the same at the time of its commission or perpetration. Now, whether the investigative journalist who used the professionally unethical method of entrapment, by using financial or monetary bribery to induce Mr. Adu-Boahen into literally letting the proverbial cat out of the bag ought to be shamefully exposed to ridicule and even criminal prosecution for his professionally unorthodox mode of operation, in due course or time, as vengefully suggested or predicted by Mr. Buabeng, is decidedly beside the point. We must, however, quickly point out that since the “Galamsey Economy” documentary had its first global public screening, the Vice-President has released an official statement vehemently denying having either ever demanded or received the sum of $ 200,000 (USD) or any such similar sum in the name of an “appearance fee” from any prospective foreign investor or entrepreneur.

And for good measure, we have also even learned to our great satisfaction, for the most part, that as of this writing, President Akufo-Addo had ordered Mr. Kissi Agyebeng, the Independent Special Prosecutor, to investigate the charges leveled against Vice-President Bawumia by the dismissed Minister of State for Finance and other related matters. The full or detailed terms of reference of the Special Prosecutor have yet to be made public. But it is hoped that all the necessary bases, as it were, would be touched by Mr. Kissi Agyebeng and the necessary punitive or disciplinary measures and actions promptly taken by the President.

Paradoxically, it is on the preceding count that many of us avid observers and students of Fourth Republican Ghanaian political culture have our own reasonable doubts, largely based on the steely reluctance with which Nana Akufo-Addo has, so far, attended to matters pertaining to the sanctioning or the prompt and resolute disciplining of his erring executive appointees and operatives. But that Anas Aremeyaw Anas continues to rather curiously demonstrate that he is unabashedly Mahama- and NDC-blind when it comes to his otherwise laudable anti-corruption sleuthing, is all the more worrisome and disturbing, considering the well-known and incontrovertible fact that at the barest minimum, the leadership of the National Democratic Congress, beginning with the late President Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings, the Founding-Father of the National Democratic Congress, has been known to be as thoroughgoing corrupt, or even more so, as its counterpart of the presently ruling New Patriotic Party.

Perhaps the preceding was what he meant a dozen years ago, when then-President John “Kofi Diawuo” Agyekum-Kufuor smugly and cavalierly observed that corruption was an inextricable human foible that dated from the time of the Biblical Adam and Eve, or the primal pair of global humanity. Anas Aremeyaw Anas cannot pretend and/or presume the leadership of the National Democratic Congress to comfortably stand over and well above the gravitational laws of human morality and conduct, including, you guessed right, Dear Reader, the Almighty Official Corruption.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

November 17, 2022

E-mail: [email protected]