Asiedu Nketia: He Who Has Planted Dragon Teeth

IT IS very easy to assassinate a person's character because you don't need a gun to do so. But how can you mend his broken heart? In fact, it is very difficult to construct a building but it is very easy to demolish it. Only one bulldozer can do the job. If you want to understand me better, take your time and watch how Russian missiles are destroying centuries old buildings in Ukraine. People's hard-won reputation should not be toyed with because unlike commodities that we go to buy at the shopping malls, you cannot get any reputation to buy at the shopping malls or supermarkets. Reputation and honor are priceless. And they are earned through hard work and perseverance.

In the run-up to the NDC National Delegates Congress, I foretold in one of my write-ups that Mr. Ofosu Ampofo had fallen into a snake pit and that he would lose the NDC National Chairmanship race, come what may. I said Mr. Asiedu Nketia and Mr. Mahama, the “President Elect”, have ganged up against the Akyem man in order to push him out because he was suspected of being a sympathiser of President Akufo-Addo, an Akyem royal. To Asiedu Nketia and Dramani Mahama, the sins of the father shall visit the children. To them, if Nana Addo was bad, Ofosu Ampofo too was bad. As the campaign heated up, it became abundantly clear that Mr. Mahama was clandestinely working against the candidacy of Mr. Ampofo. All over the constituencies, the swansong was that Mr. Ampofo did not like Mr. Mahama and so if he was maintained as the National Chairman of the party, he would work against Mahama. Sadly, Mr. Ampofo did not hear the drums being beaten around him so he continued to campaign.

In the beginning, Mr. Ampofo's campaign, supported by well-meaning gurus of the NDC, including mercurial Koku Anyidoho, was gaining grounds and it seemed the project of Mr. Asiedu Nketia and Mr. Mahama was about to hit the rocks. Apart from the lies that Mr. Ampofo did not like Mr. Mahama, those who supported Asiedu Nketia did not have anything against Sammy Photo, a man who has passed through the ranks of the NDC and has risen to be the National Chairman of the party. He was treated like the Devil's Incarnate. As to the charge that he did not like Mahama, nobody knew where it came from because Ghanaians did not hear or see whatever Sammy did to be tagged so. After all, was it not Ampofo who worked so hard to make Mr. Mahama the “President Elect”? Those who were spreading the evil agenda made it look as if Mr. Mahama was everything in the party and that without him, the NDC would fail to be in existence. They forgot that Mr. Asiedu Nketia, who engineered the evil agenda, once referred to the late J.J. Rawlings, the founder of the NDC, as a chained bulldog who could only bark but not bite. What an insult to the man who made Asiedu Nketia and Mahama what they are today! Asiedu Nketia forgot that when times were good between him and the Rawlings' family, the only son of the founder of the NDC, Kimathi Rawlings, used to dash him some of his used clothing. This world, my brother! Ask Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings.

Mr. Ampofo should not listen to those who are calling him to resign from the NDC. The biggest mistake Mr. Goosie Tandoh did in 1992 was when he resigned from the NDC to register his Reformed Party. If you are in a group and things do not go on well, you don't go out to seek for reform. You stay in the group and fight for reform. Mr. Ampofo should stay in the party whiles looking for opportunity to regain his tarnished image among party members which was planned and executed by Asiedu Nketia. After all, did the sages not say truth is like a cork and no matter how hard you try to submerge it under water, it will pop up? It is a matter of time. By now, I know Mr. Ampofo, a Pentecost Elder, will understand why President Akufo Addo continues to say the battle is the Lord's. If Asiedu Nketia thinks he has outsmarted Mr. Ampofo by knocking his head against the delegates, somebody should tell this Seikwa Burga that he has planted a dragon teeth at the backyard of the NDC. He goes about boasting that his so-called leaked tape worked the magic for him to win the chairmanship position. That is fine for him.

If you take an action that is intended to destroy the ambition of someone else but that action actually brings trouble, you have sowed a dragon tooth. Etymologically, dragon teeth are derived from Greek myth where Jason sowed the teeth of a dragon into a field, from which it then sprinted into an army of warriors. The soldiers who grew from the teeth fought each other until only a few remained. This is exactly what Asiedu Nketia has done to the NDC following his revelation when he wanted political power; that indeed, the NDC was not able to collate all their results and ended up going to court without any figures to prove that John Mahama, the “President Elect” won the 2020 Presidential Election. He said the respectable Tsatsu Tsikata, is his witness, and we believe in him because Tsatsu has not come out to deny the story. This Asiedu man told his gullible listeners in the tape that he did not know how to lie but when he sat in the witness box at the Supreme Court, he told the Judges following a question that he left the collated results at home. If you could not collate results, what did you leave at home before going to court? No wonder any foolish man can go to court and mess around like the way Asiedu Nketia did. That is how half-witted men with low intelligent quotients lie through their teeth. Students of literature, particularly Greek Mythology, will explain the Greek myth of dragon teeth to you that when you unreasonably complain about your neighbor being too noisy, you have sown a dragon tooth and your neighbour will not be in good terms with you again. In order words, you have done something damnable which has led to trouble. Asiedu Nketia has done great harm to the NDC. Do you think Mr. Ofosu Ampofo's soul will ever be at peace with Asiedu Nketia?

For now, Mr. Asiedu Nketia and his boss, Mr. Mahama, can be basking with euphoria but in no time, the dragon tooth that Asiedu Nketia has sown will spring up as armed men to devour themselves. The scenario has already started. Supporters of Mr. Ofosu Ampofo are very much peeved due to the lies Asiedu Nketia told about their man which led to the delegates turning against him at the last moment. To such persons, payback time is just around the corner. The Council of Elders of the NDC has no moral right to rein in anyone who may choose to go wayward in the party because, they sat down and allowed Asiedu Nketia to lie and destroy the hard-won reputation of no other person but a sitting National Chairman and Leader of their party.

But come to think of this: how did Mr. Mahama feel when he heard Asiedu Nketia's tape? Ashamed? Disappointed? Betrayed? Embarrassed? May be all, because Mr. Mahama made the whole world to understand that he was in possession of all the collated results of the sixteen regions of Ghana, which indicated that he won the 2020 Presidential Election. He went further to take the seven Supreme Court Judges who sat on the case to the cleaners, virtually calling them criminals. According to Mr. Mahama, the ruling was a 'Travesty of Justice” and that the Supreme Court Judges have become a laughing stock of Ghanaians. Ebei, Mahama! Are you qualified to be called a Statesman and be respected like Ghanaians do to Ex-President Kufuor? Say NO, because you have stooped so low. Now that Asiedu Nketia has let the cat out of the bag, who is a laughing stock? The Judges who unanimously ruled against the petition based on the rule of law or Mr. Mahama who lied that collation made by his party indicated that he won and has since refused to accept defeat by congratulating President Akufo-Addo? And this is a man without shame who wants to become the President of Ghana again!

As for me, I am 'sitting my somewhere' minding my own business. If the fight in the NDC starts, I will not get near. If you don't want monkey tail to touch you, there is no need to go to monkey dance because monkeys have long tails. Abi ino bi so? In times like this, how I feel like going back to my cigar-puffing days and just be.

BY Eric Bawah