There Was an “Asante Project” before there Was an “Akyem Project” – Part 12

What is also equally important to underscore here and, perhaps, ought to have been highlighted well before presently, is the fact that unlike such National Democratic Congress-appointed Chairpersons of the Electoral Commission (EC) as Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan and Mrs. Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei, it is emphatically clear that the current Akufo-Addo-appointed Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, the former Member of the Atta-Mills-constituted National Constitution Review Committee and former Executive-Director of the renowned and the well-respected Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), original organizers of the apparently defunct Presidential Debates, “does not play ball” with the Kyebi and the Akyem-Abomosu Mafia.

In other words, by all measures and accounts, as it were, it is inescapably and incontrovertibly clear that Jean Mensa is an astute and a consummate professional at the highly sensitive job of Electoral Commissioner who cannot be influenced or manipulated in the crude, overt and brazen and flagrant manner in which Dr. Afari-Gyan and Mrs. Charlotte Osei had been known to have effectively and routinely been manipulated or been kept at the beck and call of former President John “Ford Expedition Payola” Dramani Mahama, with Mrs. Osei having been literally and unconstitutionally transferred from her Chairpersonship of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to the Electoral Commission (EC), as renowned Constitutional Lawyer and Law School Dean Prof. Kofi Abotsi rightfully and promptly pointed out in a widely circulated article that was published by the media at the time.

Now, we know that Mrs. Mensa cannot be cheaply bought or manipulated because in the section of the “Agyapadeε” Document pertaining to the Electoral Culture of Fourth-Republican Ghana, the authors of the latter document hint at their steely determination and intent to using some lower-rung members and operatives of the Independent Electoral Commission, presumably and implicitly on the blindside of the Electoral Commission’s Chairperson, to do their dirty work of ballot-rigging for them; they also intend to financially induce the leaderships of some pro-New Patriotic Party sympathizers, such as the “LPG, GUM, Akua Donkoh[sic] and GCPP,” as well as to ensure that the foregoing parties are promptly and duly registered to participate in all General Elections in the country.

On the other hand, toothless bulldogs and sacred political cows like the rump-CPP, PNC and the APC would be granted carte-blanche or unfettered access to file their registration papers to contest in all General Elections, so as to create a semblance of a level playing field. Those that cannot be easily manipulated, such as “Maverick Kofi Gane, Kofi Koranteng, Akwasi Odike of the United Progressive Party, Kwasi Busumburu of the People's Action Party, New Vision Party, United Renaissance Party and the UFP,” depending on how attempts to manipulate their leaderships go, could be eliminated by pulling some presumably familiar levers at the Electoral Commission.

There is absolutely nothing new here, of course. We witnessed pretty much the same tactically not so suave or subtle tack deployed by Dr. Afari-Gyan, at least twice, to deny the Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings-founded National Democratic Party (NDP) access to participate in the General Elections in the country, although one would have expected the leadership of the Akufo-Addo Faction of the New Patriotic Party to have pursued and maintained higher moral and political standards than the populist and faux-socialist National Democratic Congress. Once again, the Kyebi/Abomosu Mafia finds a useful human tool in the person of Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, the Orwellian Benjamin whom they intend to use to maximum benefit and then eventually discard, when it comes to tactically and strategically reining in the leaderships of the Non-Mainline Churches or One-Person Churches.

Now, where the “Commander of the criminal elements” of the New Patriotic Party comes in handy regards Mr. Agyapong’s recent assault on the putative false prophets who have forged a lucrative career out of milking key operatives of whichever of the country’s two major political parties happens to be in power. The Kyebi/Abomosu Mafia appears to have great admiration for the way and the manner in which Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has dealt with the spiritually unhealthy proliferation of “Mushroom Churches” in that East-Central African Nation. But it well appears that the Generalissimos of the Kyebi/Abomosu Mafia find themselves to be rather too weak-kneed to pursue President Kagame’s more radical course of action. So, instead, they intend to use bribery and other typically Ghanaian forms of arm-twisting to woo such formidable Christian clerics as Bishop Duncan Williams, a man about whom we are informed is profusely and inordinately given to bribery, flattery and plain vanity.

Where I fail to get it, as it were, regards the very weird notion of “Jezebelizing” Jean Mensa by involving Electoral Commission’s Chairperson in this most lurid and dastardly attempt to tame, control and manipulate Archbishop Duncan Williams who, like most of his other evangelical and clerical peers, is publicly known to be a National Democratic Congress’ sympathizer. Which also immediately resurrects something that several members of the Ofori-Panyin and the Ofori-Atta Clan – the Dear Reader may choose his/her own pick – have been bitterly telling this author for quite a considerable while now. Which is that the members of the Kyebi/Abomosu Cabal seem to be pathologically afflicted with a viral level of selfishness that dangerously verges on an incurable form of Terminal Cancer.

In other words, it well appears that the operatives of the Kyebi/Abomosu Mafia Cabal have, by their very primitive and highly unenlightened penchant for acquisitive grubbiness, made themselves even less attractive than pigs perpetually addicted to mud baths. Ordinarily, there would absolutely be no other way for Yours Truly to know this, being that like the favorite Grandson of The Asiakwahene and the Grandnephew of the Globally Immortalized Barima Ohemeng – aka Nana Akyea-Mensah – The Apedwahene (See Richard Rathbone “Murder and Politics in Colonial Ghana” (Yale University, 1993), I prefer to keep at least a 40-foot pole distance between myself and the rest of the Gabriel “Gabby” Asare Otchere-Darko-Captained Hoodlum Pack.

You see, the dastardly attempt by the Kyebi/Abomosu Mafia Cabal to use the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission to rig elections in favor of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party does unspeakable damage to the hard-won image and the reputation of Ghana’s best and most celebrated Electoral Commissioner, at least per the Clean Bill of Health issued Ms. Mensa vis-à-vis her well-above-board conduct of the 2020 General Election, according to credible reports of foreign observers, including Representatives of the European Union, the African Union and the United States of America. My humble suggestion here for the Kyebi/Abomosu Cabal and, indeed, for the leaderships of both major political parties in the country, is that the most effective antidote for undesired, but not necessarily undeserved, criticism is good governance and fair play in the spread of our collective national development resources.

In short, it is not the brutal use of the coercive apparatus of The State in the vindictive manner counseled by the authors of the “Agyapadeε” Document, vis-à-vis Bishop Charles Agyin Asare, a specifically named target of intended official abuse and vilification that is apt to bring peace and prosperity to the country. Rather, it is genuine and people-oriented policy initiatives as that which clearly and undoubtedly informed the landmark implementations of the John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor and the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, respectively, established National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the Fee-Free Senior High, Technical, Vocational and STEM Education System.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
August 12, 2024
E-mail: [email protected]