Blame Mills for Kennedy Agyapong’s Outburst

Calls for Nana Akufo-Addo to publicly and vehemently condemn Mr. Kennedy Agyepong for allegedly calling for the massacre of Ewes resident in the Asante Region are grossly misplaced. And on the latter score must be promptly recalled the fact that Mr. Agyepong's rather intemperate conniption came in the wake of coordinated acts of violence against members of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) by key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), including President John Evans Atta-Mills, who has been widely quoted as smugly claiming not to be a police man.

These well-orchestrated acts of mayhem appear to be primarily geared towards the prevention of NPP supporters and sympathizers from registering to vote in electoral districts and constituencies regarded as NDC strongholds. The latest call for the NPP presidential candidate to come out and publicly condemn the Member of Parliament for Assin-North, came from Mr. Bright Akwetey, a presidential aspirant of the rump-Convention People's Party (CPP). Mr. Akwetey's call is grossly misplaced because the caller's sole objective is for Nana Akufo-Addo, a globally renowned civil and human rights activist and former General-Secretary of the defunct anti-Acheampong Movement for Freedom and Justice (MFJ), to, somehow, “prove his commitment to the peace and stability of the country”(See “Nana Akufo-Addo Asked to Condemn Agyapong's Statement” Ghana News Agency/Modernghana.com 4/21/12).

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind, whatsoever, that the NPP flagbearer, who has been touring the United States, would soon issue a public statement at his own convenience and on his own terms on the Agyepong episode. In the meantime, suffice it to poignantly note that the widespread commotion allegedly sparked by Mr. Agyepong's outburst is the direct and incontrovertible result of the capricious and cynical refusal of evenhanded leadership by Ghana's self-proclaimed “Father of the Nation.” And so for any politician or presidential aspirant to gratuitously attempt to fault Nana Akufo-Addo for Mr. Agyepong's quite understandable spleen-venting, constitutes the very height of leadership irresponsibility and downright dishonesty on the part of people like Mr. Akwetey, the rump-CPP presidential aspirant.

Indeed, Mr. Akwetey himself obliquely hints at the fact that the public excitement created by Mr. Agyepong's retributive rhetoric stems directly from the apparent flat refusal of members of the Ghana Police Service to exhibit professional poise and decency in the conduct of the duties for which they are contractually salaried by the Ghanaian taxpayer. In almost every one of the widely reported cases of wanton violence by hired thugs of the ruling National Democratic Congress, against operatives of the main opposition New Patriotic Party, we are reliably informed that police on the scene either deliberately looked away or demonstrated total disinterest.

That Mr. Akwetey actually believes that such deliberately cultivated acts of professional apathy, on the part of the Ghana police personnel, is far less dangerous than the all-too-logical, albeit intemperate, outburst of the Assin-North Member of Parliament, is clearly what is wrong with the state of our national security apparatus and climate.

*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 Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of “Danquah v. Nkrumah: In the Words of Mahoney.” E-mail: [email protected].