A multiplicity of factors precipitated the smashing defeat of the then-ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the December 7, 2024 General Election, not the least of which had to do with the apparently conspicuously poor upbringing of the twice, consecutively elected President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. Many Ghanaians have spoken both publicly and privately about the abjectly unprepossessing behavioral conduct of the former John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor-appointed Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and, subsequently, Minister of Foreign Affairs and ECOWAS Integration.
So, contrary to what the New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Subin Constituency, in the Kumasi Metropolitan Area, would have the rest of the nation believe, at least implicitly, that is, the 2024 General Election Season was not the very first time in the Akufo-Addo Presidency that the man who is inordinately and, some would even say, offensively taken to bragging about his late father’s status and stature in Ghanaian society, almost as if that was what most conspicuously differentiated him from his pack of rank-pulling peers on Ghana’s political terrain, had made or was making foot-shooting or morally and strategically unfortunate remarks that were likely to prove suicidal to the collective fortunes of the party in the then-upcoming 2024 General Election (See “Angry Akufo-Addo, Vote Against Professor Oquaye: The Genesis of NPP MPs’ ‘Ken Must Go Protest!” Ghanaweb.com 12/10/24).
The stark and the unvarnished fact of the matter is that it was the widely perceived proprietary arrogance of the son of the late Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia-appointed Non-Executive President of Ghana’s Second Republic (1969-1972), that decidedly ensured that the key architect of the Agyekum-Kufuor-supervised Repeal of the Criminal Libel Law would languish in the wilderness of political opposition leadership for nearly a decade before being resoundingly catapulted into Jubilee House by a nation that was in dire need of progressive and visionary leadership, that prioritized the needs and the aspirations of the abjectly poor and the destitute. And thus far, among all five Fourth-Republican Presidents, the Akyem-Abomosu and Kyebi native almost completely remains in a class all by himself, when it comes to assessing the number and the quality of social-intervention programs and projects initiated and/or implemented for the greater good and the benefit of all Ghanaians without regard to political party affiliation, ethnicity or regional origin.
Still, as the Akan-majority populace of Ghana are known to be fond of saying: “Beauty does not really pay; it is character that matters the most.” Another variation has it as follows: “Beauty is as beauty does.” With Nana Akufo-Addo, the one most damning character foible appears to have been the quality of his home-training skills and personal mannerisms or human relations flair, a moral blotch that clearly, conspicuously and unarguably may be envisaged to have significantly detracted from either the professional or the entrepreneurial successes of his parents or from both. And we make this most painful but, nonetheless, truthful observation because many of his relatives and acquaintances are also quick to point out the fact that Nana Akufo-Addo’s parents were quite well-to-do and may very well have bequeathed him a quite considerable fortune upon their exit from the here-and-now.
Nevertheless, even as one close associate of Yours Truly noted quite a while ago, maybe somebody ought to have alerted a morbidly self-befuddled Nana Akufo-Addo about the fact that no matter how well-heeled the members of his entire family might have been, it was also equally unarguable that the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian citizens and residents did not depend on their generosity or the fortunes of the Akufo-Addo Family, much less the Ofori-Atta Clan to survive or prosper. And on the latter count, we could actually delve into the sources of the wealth of the Akufo-Addo’s and the Ofori-Attas, except that such a discursively invasive subject lies well outside the logical purview of our present purposes.
At any rate, voting against the retention of then-Speaker Aaron Michael Oquaye for the 8th Parliament by some members of the then-ruling New Patriotic Party, was a patently inadvisable as well as an unpardonably obtuse strategic move that, in the long run, did not redound to the benefit or the resonant success of the very traitors of the party’s fortunes who would now have the rest of the nation and the Global Ghanaian Community (GGC) believe that, somehow, these party saboteurs had absolutely no hand in or responsibility for the crushing defeat of the New Patriotic Party in the 2024 General Election. No such cavalier presumption could be at once more preposterous and scandalous.
The fact of the matter is that even if they found the candidacy of Speaker Oquaye - this writer personally found the man to be too old and damn too tired for the job - they could have simply put forward a more vibrant and much younger candidate like Mr. Joseph Osei-’Wusu - aka Joe Wise - the New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Asante-Bekwai, in the Asante Region. In short, the former President was perfectly within his rights to have flatly refused to confer with party members who abjectly lacked team-playing skills and, rather, preferred to consort with members of a political party with views and an ideological mindset diametrically opposed to their own.
But perhaps the one most significant problem that is often conveniently ignored is the cultivated pretense to governance or administrative perfection of former President Agyekum-Kufuor, admittedly a quite inimitable, smooth-talking politically cunning diplomat who does not appear to have either undertaken or completed any more massive infrastructural development projects in the Asante Region than the man whose equally vaulting presidential ambition, the proverbial “Gentle Giant” and his sharp-shooting platoons of Akufo-Addo-obstructing lieutenants, foremost among them, Mr. Kwadwo Mpiani, effectively sabotaged for the better part of a decade, the apparent backlash to which may very well have found vengeful expression in Nana Akufo-Addo’s strategically suicidal remarks, such as the Subin NPP-MP, Mr. Eugene Boakye-Antwi, reports the former President to have made to the effect that the man who upgraded the Kumasi Airport to an international status, and renamed the latter after King Prempeh I, couldn't care less whether the Chiefs and the People of Asante-Kwabre voted for the New Patriotic Party or gave thumbs-up for the the electoral victory of the then-opposition National Democratic Congress in the 2024 General Election.
As for the “Ken Must Go!” parliamentary protest against former Finance Minister Kenneth Nana Yaw Ofori-Atta, it obviously came much too late and then downright too timidly to have made any significant heck of a difference to the already sunken or tanked fortunes of the New Patriotic Party and, to be certain, the sunken fortunes of the country at large.
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
January 20, 2025
E-mail: [email protected]
Comments
Best time to recall the sentence that the UP/matemehos wrote for treasonous E.K. Kotoka to pronounce on the 24th of February, 1966 this time as : " The myth surrounding the treasonous UP/NPP is broken. " Okoampa Ahoofe's matemeho will remain in historical dustbin for more than thousands of years. A true Nkrumaist Party is appearing on the new horizon. Have you finally found some of Mahama's numerous classmates? Wishing you 2025 of critical thinking! Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah i...