Alhaji Osman Masawudu Offers the Best Response to NDC’s Alhaji Saїd Sinaré

Once again, we are back to square one - which is to say that we are back to the bad, old days when the virtual and the veritable one-party government that was the late Chairman Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings-led extortionate junta of the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) called all the shots and hermetically, exclusively and peremptorily dictated the terms and the pace of human existence in our beloved Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana.

Back in those days, we were soberly informed by the core operatives of the Rawlings-Tsikata Trokosi Nationalist Diarchy that the salutary and the civilized political culture of constitutional democracy only existed in the chimerical imagination of the Euro-Western Imperialist World and had absolutely nothing to do with the “communalist” existence of Traditional African Societies. So, it comes as completely nothing out of the ordinary that even in the wake of what many of us consider to have been the ejaculatively premature concession of defeat by Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia to the “Lt-Col.” Johnson “The Mosquito” Asiedu-Nketia-coronated Serial and the Dynastic Presidential Candidate of Ghana’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), a dubiously triumphant and guiltily celebratory leadership of the latter political party establishment has apparently decided to celebrate their clearly and flagrantly extorted electoral victory by siccing their rank-and-file membership on the members, supporters and the sympathizers of the ruling but soon-to-be-outgone New Patriotic Party (See “#Election2024: NPP men should revenge the attacks, go home and bring out your guns — NPP Chairman declares war against NDC [Video]” Modernghana.com 12/14/24).

It goes without saying that the parenthetically referenced caption of the news story on which this brief commentary is based is rather incongruously skewed in favor of the mayhem makers, being that it was ironically the membership of the National Democratic Congress, publicly and officially prompted by their former National Propaganda Secretary, presently strategically albeit falsely redesignated as the party’s National Communications Officer, namely, Mr. Samuel “Sammy” Gyamfi, who first declared an all-out war against their main counterparts of the recently democratically ousted New Patriotic Party.

But that the International Media - such as Reuters, Agence-France Presse, BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera - that gave prime and prominent play to Ghana’s December 7, 2024 General Election have, for the most part, been conspicuously mute about the wanton and the seismic wave of violence and raw intimidation raging all across the length and the breadth of Ghana, which is slightly geographically smaller in size than “mainland” Britain, ought to give the International Community great cause and pause for concern.

You see, people who claim to have genuinely won an election do not ordinarily resort to wreaking untold destruction of both state-owned or publicly and privately owned properties and looting of shops and supermarkets as well as state-owned warehouses. They are also not usually known to resort to the criminal use of firearms and other forms of homemade missiles and molotov cocktails as a means of affirming or driving home a fact that has supposedly and clearly already been established beyond any iota or a shadow of a doubt, that is, assuming at least hypothetically that, indeed, the John “Nkokonketenkete” Dramani Mahama-led National Democratic Congress won the 2024 Ghana General Election fair and square.

Now, one curious aspect of the 2024 General Election is the fact that a remarkable percentage of the ballot boxes that were being legitimately and legally transported by returning officers from the various polling stations to the Collation Centers, were widely reported by the local media to have been violently intercepted and either totally destroyed or significantly damaged by hired National Democratic Congress-sponsored thugs and sympathizers. What the preceding means is that should the results of any of the Parliamentary Elections be disputed by any of the losers, irrespective of political affiliation, there will be absolutely no way or credible means by which the Jean Adukwei Mensa-Headed Independent Electoral Commission (IEC/EC) would be able to rectify any errors or anomalies.

This is what the leadership of the National Democratic Congress is obviously afraid of confronting, thus their treasonous decision to use violent and other forms of crude intimidation tactics to ensure that their apparently unwholesome extortion of an electoral victory will not be vehemently and fiercely challenged. In all likelihood, we have not heard the last word from the 2024 General Election yet. What this means is that the results of dozens of electoral districts or constituencies across the country may have to be either critically reviewed or completely scrapped and rerun all over again, if Ghana’s hard-won and enviable democratic cultural credentials are to be legitimately and inviolably preserved in a peaceful atmosphere and climate in the offing.

It is in direct response to the foregoing ramshackle state of affairs that forced Alhaji Osman Masawudu, the Third-Vice Chairman-in-Charge-of-Operations of the New Patriotic Party, to issue an order for all besieged members of the ruling party not to hesitate to return fire for unprovoked fire form the National Democratic Congress-sponsored thugs and goons. In the Akufo-Addo-created Bono Region, one of six, for example, the Lady Regional Minister, Ms. Justina Awo Owusu-Banahene, 54 years old, a professionally trained educator, had to literally flee her official residence, when hired gun-toting and machete-wielding National Democratic Congress’ thugs overpowered her bodyguards and ransacked the Residency, as the official residence of the Regional Minister is also called.

As of this writing and press preparation, Ahaji SaÏd Sinaré, a Vice-Chairman of the National Democratic Congress, whose mother is an Ethnic Arab of Egyptian Descent and Nationality, and a former Mahama-appointed Ghana’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, was widely reported to be one of the key architects behind the current open season eruption of violent intimidation, mayhem and the wanton destruction of both public and private properties raging across the country.

An equally curious aspect of this dismal state of affairs is the fact that officially, the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party is still in charge of Ghana’s affairs, including command of the country’s National Security Apparatus, until January 7, 2025, when former President and, presently, President-Elect John “European Airbus SE Payola” Dramani Mahama assumes the democratic reins of governance. Which is why a remarkable mass of Ghanaian citizens and residents have been wondering whether the New Patriotic Party has already given up administering the affairs of the country until the aforesaid date and time.

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
December 14, 2024
E-mail: [email protected]