The Tony Aidoo We Know

IN EVERY home, we say in Akan, there is a Mensah. No, an elderly man once told me that it is not Mensah but Mennsem. 

Mennsem in Akan is someone who exhibits more manly traits even when simple humility would be the solution to the problem. They are the people in a family who will stand up to sometimes defend the family for good or for ill.

That is somehow the positive side of it. On the debit side of the balance sheet of mennsem, is the situation where that individual exhibits an outrageous character which is far from the socially and morally accepted practices.

Dr. Tony Aidoo, for those who do not know him, belongs to the second group of the mennsem not only in Ghana, but in his party.

One would have expected that Tony Aidoo, an educated person in the educated class of Ghana, would behave in a manner expected of any decent educated son or daughter of this country.

This does not mean that all educated people should think in the same manner. If they do, then they could be classified as robots and not educated ones.

Tony Aidoo used to teach at the University of Cape Coast over two decades ago. He had a problem with the University authorities, UTAG, then under the leadership of Dr. Vladimir Antwi Danso, he stepped in and dealt with the matter (a copy of the report I still have in my possession).

Subsequently, Tony had to leave the University. Unemployed, and almost homeless, Tony, who hitherto was an avowed critic of the then revolutionary government, quickly sought solace and succour under the regime.

 His first recognition was to be selected to represent the Committee for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs) at the Consultative Assembly which drew the 1992 Constitution.

That was the first known appointment of Tony Aidoo by the then PNDC government. Ask anybody who was at the Consultative Assembly, and you would be told who he was.

After the work of the Consultative Assembly, Tony Aidoo, who obviously was homeless, moved into one of the flats at Job 600, I think the 9th floor, and used that place as his abode for God knows how long.

From that time, Tony Aidoo became the hatchet man for the NDC, using invectives and epithets very unacceptable to decent and very well cultured people against his political opponents in particular, and those he disagrees with in general.

I remember in 1994 or there about, when the NDC government, under Jerry John Rawlings, prepared the memorandum on the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the document leaked and fell into the hands of Excellency Kabral Blay Amihere, who was then the Editor as well as the publisher of the Independent Newspaper.

Following the publication of the memorandum and the fear and panic it generated among the general public, the Institute of Economic Affaires, then based at Dzwowolu, a first class residential area in Accra, organised a round table conference to discuss the issue before it went to Parliament.

I think a former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Taylor, led the first discussion which was attended by many prominent people from the academia, politics, the world of business and civil society groupings.

You will also recall that Parliament was a one-sided institution without the opposition and the memorandum was going to go to Parliament as a Bill to be discussed and passed into a law.

The discussions gave a very useful insight into what Ghanaians were in for, should the Bill be allowed to pass as a law. The Parliamentarians who attended the round table discussion left the place very well educated.

For whatever reason, the government then wanted its side of the issue forcefully articulated, as a result of which, another round table discussion was scheduled to hear the government's side of the story.

And guess who came to make the representation? Tony Aidoo.  Again, very eminent and prominent people were there.

Those I can easily recollect were Prof. Kofi Kumado, Dr. Jones Ofori Atta, I think Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor, Dr. Nyaho Tamakloe, Mr. Yaw Boadu Ayeboafo, Ransford Tetteh, Lloyd Evans, my humble self from the Graphic Communications, and so many others I cannot easily recollect now.

Before Tony Aidoo delivered his speech, copies of his address were distributed to all of us gathered there, and my oh my, the language!

The text was so full of insults against those who had criticized or expressed views contrary to the government's position.

So abusive was the diction that he himself, in his prelude to the delivery, had apologized to the gathering that the paper was originally meant for another forum and not for the distinguished ladies and gentlemen gathered there.

However, because he had no alternative paper to present, he had no choice other than to present the insult-laden paper to the very cultured audience, with occasional attempts to change some of the words as he read along.

Prof. Kumado, I remember, had a word of advice for him to the effect that irrespective of his audience in any platform, he (Tony) should try as much as possible to be very decorous in his choice of words. So terrible was his presentation that during discussion time, a fisticuff nearly ensued between him and Dr. Nyaho Tamakloe.

Dr. Tamakloe was bent on beating the hell out of the nonentity whose only achievement is that of holding a Phd which is being misused, for what he and many gathered there saw as an insult.

Thanks to Mr. Kufuor, who used his giant, humble size to prevent Nyaho from drubbing the lanky Tony Aidoo.

Tony Aidoo, once on a trip with President Rawlings to the United States of America, had described the opposition and the intellectual class of Ghana as bigots. I thought he was making reference to himself.

When he was rewarded with the position of a Deputy Defence Minister of the country, reports indicated that on one of his official visits to the Middle East, where a contingent of Ghanaian military personnel were serving, Tony the Defence Minister was alleged to have spewed some of his pungent arsenals on the officers for complaining about reduced UN allowances paid them by the government.

If today he has extended his 'bushiatic' (do not worry yourself going through the dictionary to find the meaning of bushiatic, we coined them in our primary school days, it means a bush man) behaviour onto Christiandom, Ghanaians and Christians in particular should not be shocked, that is the stock in trade of those who claim to be humble and have the gut to refer to others are arrogant and elitist. Have you forgotten that Tony described President Kufuor as dumb, emmum? 

Yes, to them, anybody who is cultured and well trained at home and who speaks decently is dumb. When the confident ones who are capable of standing up to their lies, deceits, vilifications and dictatorship speak up, such people are branded arrogant.

 Ghanaians are better placed to judge who the arrogant ones are. It takes an extraordinarily arrogant and disrespectful individual, whose life is dependent on government and access to state facilities, to brand Christians as mad.

Tony Aidoo says those Christians who speak in tongues are mad, the next time around, he will refer to Muslims as crazy because their faith requires that they wake up early in the morning to worship.

Thank you Tony Aidoo for your insults, but time will tell.

Where is my mahogany bitters, let me 'cut' some before I get hypertension from that man who seems to be regurgitating every second.

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