Bad Publicity Averted but Not Democratically Healthy or Progressive

The averted massive protest demonstration that had been scheduled to have taken place in the Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai Constituency, in the Akufo-Addo-created Western-North Region, formerly a part of the Old Western Region, on January 9, 2023, provides studious and keen observers of Fourth Republican Ghanaian Political Culture with two important lessons, the first of which is the sort of enviable party discipline that was for quite a considerably while almost uniquely and exclusively associated with the present main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) – (See “NPP Asks Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai MP to Call Off Press Conference, Invites Him to Party HQ” Ghanaweb.com 1/9/23).

Interestingly, however, this author is not very certain whether the kind of “military command culture” that is fast becoming the dietary fare of the political culture of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) is necessarily a good thing or a salutary new development. We learn that the aforementioned protest demonstration was to have been led by first-term New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament Alfred Obeng-Boateng, a Petrochemical Law Graduate of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, in the neighboring Asante Region. The event had been meant to express the great dissatisfaction of residents of the Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai Constituency vis-à-vis what their Parliamentary Representative described as the abject neglect of the material or infrastructural development of the constituency by the New Patriotic Party-dominated Municipal Assembly.

Obviously, not favorably disposed towards the negative publicity that such massive protest demonstration would have brought to the otherwise laudable development track record and achievements of the country’s ruling political party establishment, the national executive operatives of the NPP, led by party General-Secretary Justin Frimpong Kodua – aka “JFK” – decided to promptly intervene well before matters could get way out of hand. On this count, Mr. Obeng-Boateng must also be given some credit for playing the constructive role of a good team player by putting his personal frustrations and those of his constituents on the metaphorical backburner in order to “jowl it out” with the party’s key administrators at the NPP’s Kokomlemle National Headquarters.

As of this writing, Mr. Obeng-Boateng, true to his team player’s spirit, had reportedly called off his scheduled protest demonstration, which was to have brought onto the streets of the Bibiana Municipality at least some 10,000 (Ten-Thousand) protesters. Hopefully, the national executive operatives of the ruling New Patriotic Party would opportunely step up to the proverbial plate, in American baseball speak or parlance, in order to ensure that the residents and citizens of the Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai Constituency get their fair share of the metaphorical National Cake. But, of course, there is yet another politically and morally instructive lesson or two to be learned from what could have very well shaped up to be a major public relations crisis for the party and, in particular, the Akufo-Addo Presidency. And the latter, of course, has to do with the scandalously aborted December 19, 2019 Referendum on the direct election of our Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executive administrators and operatives.

You see, it well appears that some internal party detractors were out to strategically sabotage the fledgling political career of Mr. Obeng-Boateng, as has been widely known to have occurred in dozens of districts and constituencies around the country. It is also undeniable that he was not jiving, when President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo observed, perspicuously, that the December 19^th Referendum was geared towards the salutary “deepening of Ghanaian democracy” at the local or grassroots level. It is also interesting and significant to emphasize the fact that foremost among the ranks of the National Democratic Congress’ opposition politicians who led the politically regressive charge against the salutary deepening of Ghana’s democratic culture was the longtime dynastic General-Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, to wit, Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, who was recently elevated by the grossly misguided congressional delegates of the party to the more powerful post of National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress, a position that immediately prior to his “democratic” elevation, this writer predicted right here, in this very column, would enable General Mosquito, as Mr. Asiedu-Nketia is widely and popularly known, to do more harm and irreparable damage to both his real and perceived internal party enemies and detractors.

So far, The Mosquito well appears to be prosecuting what may be aptly described as the Third Rawlings Revolution. The farcical irony here, though, is that not very long ago, the newly elected National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress virulently accused the late President Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings and his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, of having either converted or unethically transformed the NDC into one of their personal properties. Now, it turns out that the superannuated recent graduate of the Senior-Staff College of the Ghana Armed Forces was well poised to doing just that. It is all really about “The Index-Finger and the Three Counterposing Fingers Theory” of ancient Akan Moral Philosophy. Now, we all just have to wait and see what more irreparable damage the Pesky Mosquito is capable of doing to party stalwarts perceived to rudely pose a formidable challenge to his peremptory authority. Trust me, Dear Reader, not even Yagbonwura Kwame Gonja will be spared the rod, as it were, this time around.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
January 28, 2023
E-mail: [email protected]