“More Shit-Bombing on the Way,” says John Mahama

On the stumps in Sunyani and some other selected townships in the Brong-Ahafo Region, the “Vice”-Presidential Candidate on the ticket of the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. John Dramani Mahama, observed that while it is true that the mother-party to the NDC, the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) was patently an unconstitutional regime, an out-and-out military junta, to be exact, nevertheless, “the PNDC bequeathed a legacy of freedom of the press as enshrined in the 1992 national constitution, to mark a new democratic dispensation” (Ghanaweb.com 7/17/08).

It is precisely this suave disingenuousness that makes the running-mate of Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills at once the most annoying and the most dangerous pretender to the Ghanaian vice-presidency today. Perhaps, rather than unconscionably seeking to justify the immutably untenable, Mr. Mahama ought to be going around, on his two knees, profusely apologizing and explaining exactly why he cozily presided over a barbaric culture of media proscription and persecution otherwise known as “Shit-Bombing,” during which period the Ghanaian media was, literally, reduced to the lurid status of an outlaw organization.

Instead, and predictably, on Thursday, July 17, 2008, Mr. Mahama mounted the podium in Sunyani pretending as if he was addressing some elementary school pupils. For instance, how did a junta that rendered journalists as mere quarry, or prey, to be brutalized at whim, simultaneously become a regime that so loved and appreciated press freedom that it benevolently, like Santa Claus, out of its own freewill, bequeathed “a legacy of freedom of the press”?

Needless to say, it would have been far more accurate for the NDC Member of Parliament for Bole-Bamboi to have frankly and honestly acknowledged that, indeed, while the PNDC firmly held the dictatorial reins of governance at the time that the Constituent Assembly prepared Ghana for a Fourth-Republican democratic dispensation, the Rawlings-led junta itself did not actively encourage Ghana's transition into the current era. And to be certain, Flt.-Lt. Jeremiah John Rawlings even proudly went on record as insisting that the kind of Western-type democracy that the bulk of the Ghanaian electorate craved was inimical to the temperament of the proverbial African Personality. What, to be certain, needs highlighting is the fact that it was the abrupt and massive demise of international socialism all over the world, particularly in most of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, as well as Ghana's own collapsed economy, that ensured that the PNDC junta would have no alternative but to cave in to the irresistible global forces of democratic governance. In sum, it is unforgivably insulting for Mr. Mahama to be pretending that the PNDC unilaterally presented a generous package of constitutional democracy to Ghanaians, in 1992, and on a silver platter, as it were, rather on the bloody scaffold of the type at the Bundase Military Range on which the Supreme Court judges and the retired Army officer were summarily executed.

Likewise, it ought not to, under any circumstances, be forgotten that Fourth-Republican Ghanaian democracy was built on the blood of PNDC-sponsored murdering of the likes of Osofo Asare. Indeed, going by Mr. Mahama's cynical claim, Apartheid South Africa's last President, Mr. F. W. de Klerk, could also legitimately claim to have altruistically midwifed the advent of African majority rule in that country.

But, perhaps, what was even more annoying was Prof. Atta-Mills' presidential campaign lieutenant's presumptuous attempt to lecture Ghanaian journalists on how best to perform their duties. “The responsibility of the media is to serve as watchdogs of society,” the Bole-Bamboi NDC-MP pontifically declared and added, “But some media houses have turned themselves into guard dogs of the government. It is not correct for the media to defend the government[,] since they have no business supporting them” (Ghanaweb.com 7/17/08).

Needless to say, the gubernatorial reference in the foregoing Mahama quote is to the government of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). And here, Mr. Mahama ought to be boldly told in plain and simple words that media practitioners are human beings like all other Ghanaians, and would comfortably gravitate where their professional interests and needs are better served. Thus, it would be very stupid for journalists to pretend to “objective reportage” in the barbaric face of arbitrary arrests and mandatory detention without trial, as was the norm throughout the tenures of both the so-called Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) and the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC). After all, what is so “objective” to report about rampant NDC boycotting of parliamentary proceedings over purely judicial matters, such as the rightful conviction of the NDC-MP for Keta, Mr. Dan Abodakpi? Of course, matters have not been helped when President Kufuor has resorted to flagrantly undermining the judiciary in an ill-advised bid to appeasing the sophomoric and criminally unconstitutional behavior of the NDC MPs.

On Thursday, July 17, 2008, Mr. Mahama also made the following nonsensical promise to citizens resident in the areas of new oil discoveries: “When the NDC wins back power, it will establish an oil revenue fund that would be channeled for the development of the oil community in [the] areas of education, employment and scholarships.” Perhaps somebody ought to have asked the Bole-Bamboi MP why a similar fund had not been specially set up for the cocoa-producing areas of the country, and particularly why northerners whose lands produce neither high-end cash crops nor oil have continued to enjoy free education at the expense of southern Ghanaians.

Of course, having apparently realized the disingenuousness of his promise, as an afterthought, Mr. Mahama added, “We shall forward to Parliament, a formula for 'evenly' spreading out oil revenue for the benefit of all.” Somebody should tell Mr. Mahama to zip his oil revenue-sharing formula and go back to school, as he had promised himself before the vice-presidential bug bit him, and obtain his much-craved doctorate in whatever discipline it is that appeals to him.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is the author of 17 books, including “Ghanaian Politics Today” (Atumpan Publications/lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: [email protected].