Only Nana Mensah-Bonsu and His NDC Sponsors Think “Ashantis” Are Fools

In all likelihood, Otumfuo’s Ahenenananomhene, to wit, the Chief or Dean of all the grandchildren and, one presumes, the great-grandchildren, of The Asantehene, His Majesty, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, and his Divisional Chiefs and their Sub-Chiefs, was presented with “payola” gifts of a couple of sheep and/or goats and, perhaps, a bottle or two of Dutch-distilled Schnapps prior to Nana Kwame Mensah-Bonsu’s granting of his alleged interview with the broadcast journalist by the name of Okatakyie Afrifa, to get the Ahenenananomhene to virulently castigate the present Akufo-Addo-led government of the predominantly Asante-founded, dominated and led New Patriotic Party (NPP), for supposedly taking Akans of Asante identity and subethnicity for granted.

Actually, Ohenenana Kwame Mensah-Bonsu is quoted to have caustically accused the leadership of the New Patriotic Party of taking Asantes for fools (See “NPP Thinks Ashantis Are Fools – Otumfuo Ahenenanom[sic] Hene” Ghanaweb.com 5/24/23). Now, this reeks of nothing short of the inexcusably heretical and blasphemous. Besides, the very fact that the reporter who composed the afore-referenced news story could not even correctly spell the official title of Nana Mensah-Bonsu of “Ahenenananomhene,” ought to tell the critically thinking reader that there is something inescapably sinister at work here. Very likely, the story was written by one of those inveterate Anti-Asante agitprop snipers of the National Democratic Congress. It is absolutely needless for this author to hazard a guess here at this time.

At any rate, what needs to be highlighted here is the fact that it was Serial and Dynastic Candidate-General John “Gnassingbe” Dramani Mahama, and not President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who brazenly and characteristically uncouthly told ethnic Asantes in their own courtyard of the globally renowned and celebrated Garden City Royal Capital of Kumasi that so congenitally and pathologically ungrateful were they, that is, ethnic Asantes, that even if the Bole-Bamboi native, from the Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region, paved all the streets, alleyways and highways of the Asante Region with gold, still, these innately haughty and disdainful Asantes would adamantly cast their ballots on behalf or in favor of the New Patriotic Party, as they had always blindly done since the foundation of Ghana’s Fourth Republic.

Now, if such morally and psychologically withering verbal abuse and emotional abuse as well, to be certain, of Ghanaian citizens of Asante subethnicity is not reflective of the unspeakably low opinion that Okogufuo Yagbonwura Gnassingbe Kwame Gonja Dramani Mahama has about the humanity and the integrity of the single largest, most populous and socioeconomically, culturally and politically dominant of all the indigenous polities of the country is not tantamount to literally taking “Ashantis” for fools, then Nana Mensah-Bonsu is darn obligated to tell us precisely what this genocidal deployment of political rhetoric is.

It is also preposterous to suppose that the “Little Man from Kyebi,” who unprecedentedly implemented the Fee-Free Senior High School System as a result of which he had been called a delirious and a megalomaniacal politician who was hellbent on grabbing undeserved power at all costs belongs to the same category of leadership as Nana Akufo-Addo’s immediate predecessor who, by the way, self-righteously asserted that the implementation of a Fee-Free Public Education System would spell the doom of qualitative education in the country. In short, for Serial and Dynastic Candidate-General John “Gnassingbe” Dramani Mahama, an elitist public school system that exclusively targeted the children, wards and the relatives of the rich and powerful in Ghanaian society, was the best and the most suitable policy agenda worthy of the dogged pursuit of all leaders of the Dumsor Republic of Ghana such as the one over which Kwame Gonja callously presided for nearly five of the longest years of postcolonial Ghanaian history.

In short, it would have been far more appropriate if Ahenenananomhene Mensah-Bonsu had first compared the relative national development achievements of former President John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor with those of the present Akufo-Addo government before proceeding to make an objective and emotionally dispassionate analysis of the development achievements of the man the Founding-Father of whose own political party is indelibly on record as having described him as the most thoroughgoing corrupt postcolonial Ghanaian leader. Could Nana Mensah-Bonsu, indeed, be more knowledgeable about the leadership achievements or the abject lack thereof of Mr. John “Gnassingbe” Dramani Mahama than the late President Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings?

As well, would Otumfuo’s Ahenenananomhene also authoritatively assert that the downright criminal and unconscionable bankrupting of the Agyekum-Kufuor-established National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) deserves to be counted among the so-called massive and sterling Asante Regional Development Achievements of the Mahama-led rag-tag regime of the National Democratic Congress? Now, I have decided to steer clear of the $ 29 million (USD) boondoggle of taxpayers’ money that former President John “Gnassingbe” Dramani Mahama allegedly sunk into the no-show Kumasi International Airport, which had to be completely redone by the present Akufo-Addo Government of the New Patriotic Party, because I strongly believe that those among the vanguard ranks of the leadership of the present government on the proverbial Ground Zero may be able to do a better job on this question and subject.

I will, however, conclude this rather brief rejoinder to Nana Mensah-Bonsu by asking this armchair critic and obvious National Democratic Congress’ superannuated Propaganda Shadow Minister to recall the list of all those “Asante Projects,” initiated by his own kinsman, namely, former President John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor, that the viscerally inveterate Anti-Asante Mills-Mahama regime deliberately abandoned as its topmost priority of “Systematic Asante Underdevelopment” on its first day in office. You see, physical or clinical blindness ought not to be equated with crass and self-willed ignorance. It absolutely does nobody any good.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
May 24, 2023
E-mail: [email protected]