Disingenuous Kwesi Pratt Cannot Fool Anybody on the Volta Vote

Scapegoating Napo, nickname of the 2024 Presidential Running-Mate of Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, namely, Dr. Matthew Opoku-Prempeh, for the age-old neglect of the Keta-Anloga enclave of the predominantly pro-National Democratic Congress Volta Region by the leadership of the NDC, is highly unlikely to wash with any critical and studious observer of the voting pattern of Voltaic or Voltaian residents, vis-à-vis the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), in Ghana’s Fourth Republic, as Mr. Kwesi Pratt would disingenuously have Ghanaians believe (See “2024 election: What's the rationale behind Napo's selection as running mate; NPP will lose votes in Keta, Volta Region — Kwesi Pratt” Modernghana.com 7/11/24).

It is also absolutely not for nothing that the Volta Region has been dubbed as The World Bank of the National Democratic Congress, electorally speaking. And the Editor-Publisher of the so-called Insight newspaper is pretty well aware of this NDC’s leadership mantra. So, why is the Agona-Nsabaa native, from the Central Region, pretending as if the Volta Region were a tossup or a “swing region” to be evenly contested between Ghana’s two major political parties, namely, the ruling New Patriotic Party and the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress?

You see, long before the former Energy and Education Minister made the decidedly despicable remarks attributed to Dr. Opoku-Prempeh, vis-à-vis the perennial neglect of the Keta-Anloga Levee or Seawall, the annual flooding of the southeastern strip of the Volta Region had not been seriously tackled by any Ghanaian government, democratically elected or a junta dictatorship, such as the late Chairman Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings-led Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), which hermetically dominated Ghanaian political culture for more than a decade, as well as the “democratically elected” Rawlings-led National Democratic Congress (NDC), which extortionately ruled Ghana for close to a decade.

Now, what is most significant to underscore here is the fact that Chairman Rawlings, who officially and publicly identified himself as an ethnic Ewe, also identified his moorings or geographical and geopolitical origins with Sogakope and/or Dzelukope, both townships of which happen to be located within the heart of the Keta-Anloga District. So, blaming Napo for protesting the inclusion of the construction of the Keta Seawall in the national-development budget of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party, flagrantly and flagitiously ignores the unvarnished facts of the history of leadership neglect on the part of the movers-and-the-shakers of the faux-socialist and pathologically populist National Democratic Congress, who clearly and obviously appear to have taken the electoral loyalty of Voltaians/Voltaics literally for granted.

So, wherein really comes this rather morbidly disingenuous and downright hypocritical plaint by a characteristically farcical and logically buffoonish and unspeakably comical Mr. Pratt “The Brat,” to squarely blame Candidate Opoku-Prempeh for rudely albeit darn accurately telling it like it is? There is absolutely no polite way of getting around the perennially peevish and adamant electoral irresponsibility of the predominantly fanatical partisan residents of the Keta-Anloga District of the Volta Region, although I instantly grant that a Manhyia-raised Dr. Matthew Opoku-Prempeh could have felicitously done with a salt-pinch display of diplomacy here.

I have also said it innumerable times before that Napo could have auspiciously and opportunely used the occasion of the bitter, even if also grossly misplaced, plaint of the Keta-Anloga residents to soberly and instructively remind the registered and the eligible voters among the latter about why they carefully and wisely needed to consider which leadership group of the country’s two major parties had demonstrated itself to be more concerned and responsive to the plight and the most pressing and basic needs of underprivileged Ghanaian citizens like themselves.

It is also downright criminal and heretically scandalous for the National Democratic Congress’ Parliamentary Minority to pretend as if the bounden obligation of solving the problems of the people, especially citizens and residents of the electoral strongholds of the National Democratic Congress, was the unique and the especial responsibility of their New Patriotic Party counterparts. No such leadership neglect or responsibility shirking attitude could be more criminal and genocidal, at least in the case of the Keta-Anloga annual natural disasters.

Maybe we also need to remind the twice-defeated, one-term former President and the Serial and the Dynastic Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress, namely, Mr. John “I Have No Classmates in Ghana” Dramani Mahama, that his indelible performance record of fostering and incubating rank corruption among the members of his cabinet and executive operatives, makes it damn too difficult for Ghanaian voters to believe in the practical validity of every single one of his legion promises in the frenetic runup to the 2024 Presidential Election.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
July 21, 2024
E-mail: [email protected]