Cowardly Death Threats Will Not Change Outcome of Run-Off 2008

I fully appreciate the life-threatening text messages received by Ms. Philippa Baafi, the quite popular Ghanaian gospel singer, because early Monday morning some of the same cowards sent me three messages (Myjoyonline.com 12/25/08). I only read the subject-titles of the messages and promptly deleted them from my personal computer (PC). I did not open up the messages because I refused to be incensed beyond the already boiling point of my rage.

Of course, nobody ought to remind these craven bastards that when you are directly descended from Otumfuo Osei-Tutu I, the last thing that any street urchin could spook you by is an empty threat of death. And when you are also the great-grandson of Asiakwahene Kwaku Agyeman-Okoampa, then, of course, nobody needs to tell those sneaky and boorish bastards that you are more than prepared to do a full-scale battle any moment on any day.

Need I also tell the dear reader that both of these indomitable forebears of mine did not naturally transition. They, each, valiantly expired doing what they did best, which was to provide honest and forthright leadership for their people.

On several levels, though, I was uncontrollably amused by these cowardly e-mails. The first of them mentioned something unpardonably stupid like the following: “We want you to know that we know where you live,” almost as if to cynically suggest that I have, somehow, hidden myself in a crevice somewhere in outer-space, or that I might actually be in a United States federal government's witness protection program, by which latter program I had been secreted away somewhere in the Rockies or the Appalachian mountains.

And had it yet to occur to these cowardly dunces that if, indeed, Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe were afraid of any human monster on earth, that he would so routinely indicate his professional affiliation or place of work on almost every article that he has ever composed and had published somewhere in cyberspace or on a newsstand, or in a library somewhere across the globe?

As to why knowing where I live made such a difference to these criminal cowards is nothing short of the outright intriguing. For, if these troglodytes care to know, I am one of the most publicly visible Ghanaians here in New York City and, perhaps, also in the United States. And, in fact, for some time while Mr. Kofi Annan served as Secretary-General of the United Nations, I used to joke with friends and students that I was, practically, the second most-renowned Ghanaian-born resident in the United States.

The second e-mail message crudely declared my photograph to be attached to whatever idiotic, and one also presumes gory, message that these scam-artists had in store for me. This also amused me to no end, because those of my readers who have followed my 21-year-old journalism career know fully well that my mini-portraits have accompanied a remarkable number, and percentage, of my literary fare or output. So what is really so significant or grave about having my picture? Besides, I can bet, hands down, that I am far handsomer than every one of these cowardly fools and their ideological heroes and apparent motivating objects for such dastardly acts. And to be certain, if any of these twerps wanted to know exactly how I look like, they could have gone to Broadcasting House and asked for reels containing the two or three television programs in which I participated, as a poet, with the sterling likes of the now-late gospel singer Mr. Ola Williams, out of the GBC Senior-Staff Club House. I was a high-school teen, then, and thus looked even prettier than a balding me appear now.

And if they liked what they saw of my portrait, that is, they might even volunteer to kidnap the notorious Ms. Ezanator Dzelukope, or even the unpalatably wiry Yaa Asantewaa, for my coital experimentation: not that I would actually relish exchanging sweet-nothings and bodily fluids with any daughter of the mordantly repugnant Dracula's. Most likely, it would just be a matter of punitive coital experimentation. Of course, I would have had to tightly shut my eyes in order to fully enjoy the entire orgy. Actually, I would merely have strained to endure it!

Anyway, I read Isaac Essel's rather brief article captioned “Death Message for Philippa Baafi” (Myjoyonline.com 12/22/08) and decided to let my dear sister and her husband, Mr. Kwame Karikari know that if, indeed, they are in the winsome corner of the Akufo-Addo presidential campaign, then, of course, they are in more than good company. About the only thing that struck me as a rhetorical no-no was Mr. Karikari's rather lame attempt at apologizing for the couple's inalienable human and civil right to throw their significant weight and lot behind the candidate who best answers to the noble and morally upright title of President of Ghana. And if, of course, Ms. Baafi and Mr. Karikari think that a shameless dead-beat dad like the perennial presidential candidate of the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC) has absolutely no business taking on the very adult responsibility of managing a major nation like Ghana, when he miserably failed to even raise the only son that he begot out of wedlock, then, by all means, let this couple vote their unfettered conscience come Presidential Run-Off 2008.

The stark fact is that it really doesn't matter whether Ms. Baafi originally composed her hit CD titled “Go High” to boost the presidential campaign of Nana Akufo-Addo or not; what matters is the right of Ms. Baafi to support whomever she chooses to support. (And, by the way, I own a Baafi CD myself!) You see, it is too dangerous to give in to these cowardly enemies of authentic democracy by seeming to rue, or even half-regret, having done the right thing. It, undeniably, gives these idiots the undeserved vim to continue with their criminal activities unfazed and even self-righteously.

Now get this: no unauthorized posse of clinically demented killers under the sun can alter your destiny! Merry Christmas; and may Nana Akufo-Addo win Run-Off 2008 and win big! Ghanaians deserve far, far better than Cash-and-Carry troglodytes.

*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 18 books, including “Ghanaian Politics Today” (Atumpan Publications/lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com.

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