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Kwasi Prempeh Was Selected on Merit for Mahama’s Constitution Review Committee

Feature Article Kwasi Prempeh Was Selected on Merit for Mahama’s Constitution Review Committee
WED, 22 JAN 2025 1

Strictly going by the pathological partisanship of Fourth Republican Ghanaian Political Culture, Prof. Henry Kwasi Prempeh is perfectly on point to promptly and unreservedly commend President John Dramani Mahama for appointing the Executive-Director of the neoliberal and New Patriotic Party-leaning Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) as Chairperson of the newly established Constitution Review Commission, whose terms of reference, as originally established and disparately composed or constituted by the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, Mr. Mahama’s former boss and immediate predecessor, comes more than a dozen years late.

It is also significant to highlight the fact that this is the third time that a Constitution Review Committee has been established in Ghana’s Fourth Republic, the second of which rather bizarrely and scandalously submitted its final report only a couple of days prior to the official exit of former President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo from Jubilee House. Now, nobody needs a college degree or certificate to arrive at the logical conclusion that a lame-duck President Akufo-Addo had absolutely no intention of implementing the findings and/or the recommendations of his Constitution Review Commission or Committee.

Like the virtual White-Elephant that has become known as The National Cathedral, a veritable dugout most of whose structural foundation remains a sketch on its architect’s drawing board, Nana Akufo-Addo’s Constitution Review Committee Report will go down the annals of Fourth Republican Ghanaian History and Political Culture as decidedly another flagrant frittering of the scarce fiscal resources of Ghanaian taxpayers, and could very well be legitimately reckoned or chalked up as being tantamount to causing Financial Loss to the State, a felony.

At any rate, what I really wanted to point out here is the fact that Prof. Kwasi Prempeh was selected to chair the Mahama-established Constitution Review Committee solely based on his practically proven breathtaking knowledge and skills in Constitutional Law, especially the Constitutional Law of Ghana, as almost flawlessly demonstrated by his own considerable scholarly publications and other governance-related publications sponsored and funded by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, whose morally and intellectually, as well as politically, refreshing all-year-round rafts of activities he has been managing and overseeing for quite sometime now, including the continentally famous governance benchmark called the “Afrobarometer Module,” or theoretical framework, used for objectively and scientifically assessing governance efficiency all over the African Continent and well beyond.

Equally significant to underscore is the fact that his appointment also smoothly and opportunely falls in line with the official promise by President Mahama, in his immediate post-election victory speech, to the effect that he intended to reach across all political party and ideological divides for the relevant and the appropriate pools and bodies of talents and skills to enable him and his government to speed up the long-delayed progress and the development of the country. Prof. Prempeh’s timely appointment therefore comes as a laudable step in the right direction. To be certain, the entire membership of the Mahama-established Constitution Review Committee positively reflects the thrust and the agenda of a fast-rising statesman who appears to be very different from the politically and the seemingly ideologically parochial and implacably divisive rabble-rousing and cynical career politician of yesterday and yesteryear.

We are also informed that the Kwasi Prempeh-headed Constitution Review Committee has 5 months to review or critically study Ghana’s Fourth-Republican Constitution and submit its findings and recommendations to the President. My most pressing suggestion here, and I am not a lone wolf on this matter or issue, of course, is that the CRC consider having Ghana’s General Election Day of December 7, quadrennially, promptly revised to read as “Either the First Tuesday or Thursday” of the Month of December, for example, rather than rigidly being stipulated as December 7, which, during the 2024 General Election fell on a Saturday, the Religious Holiday of Seventh-Day Adventist Adherents, most of whom, we are reliably informed, did not duly get to exercise their franchise as a result.

It is also the fervent hope here that Mr. Mahama and the key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress, especially our Parliamentarians, are paying sedulous attention to the foregoing suggestions and observations. We are, of course, keenly and studiously watching events play out on the ground back home, and will not hesitate to name and call the shots and offer any advice that we deem to be constructive and socioeconomically and civically progressive.

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]

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD, © 2025

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD, taught Print Journalism at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City, for more than 20 years. He is also a former Book Review Editor of The New York Amsterdam News.. More He holds Bachelor of Arts (Summa Cum Laude) in English, Communications and Africana Studies from The City College of New York of The City University of New York, where he was named a Ford Foundation Undergraduate Fellow and the first recipient of the John J. Reyne Artistic Achievement Award in English Poetry (Creative Writing) in 1988.

The author was part of the "socially revolutionary" team of undergraduate journalists at City College of New York (CCNY) of the City University of New York (CUNY), who won First-Prize certificates for Best Community Reporting from the Columbia University School of Journalism, for three consecutive years, from 1988 to 1990.

Born April 8, 1963, in Ghana; naturalized U.S. citizen; son of Kwame (an educator) and Dorothy (maiden name, Sintim) Okoampa-Ahoofe; children: Abena Aninwaa, Kwame III. Ethnicity: "African." Education: City College of the City University of New York, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1990; Temple University, M.A., 1993, Ph.D., 1998. Politics: Independent. Religion: "Christian—Ecumenist." Hobbies and other interests: Political philosophy.

CAREER: Ghana National Cultural Center, Kumasi, poet, 1979–84; Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, worked as instructor in English; Technical Career Institutes, New York, NY, instructor in English, 1991–94; Indiana State University, Terre Haute, instructor in history, 1994–95; Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY, member of English faculty. Participant in World Bank African "Brain-Gain" pilot project.

MEMBER: Modern Language Association of America, National Council of Teachers of English, African Studies Association, Community College Humanities Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Essay award, Nassau Review, 1999.
Column: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

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Comments

KH | 1/23/2025 10:13:16 AM

Eventually, time has finally caught up with you and your back is against the wall. You have no other alternative but to humbly allow yourself to be tamed from your wild and uncultured behavior that numbed your senses to be so arrogant to disrespect Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah. Ahoofe, recant and repent for your own salvation! Advise your friends like K. BADU and R. Adofo. Happy 2025 to all of you and don't forget to put on critical thinking caps.

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