DR. AMOAKO TUFFOUR, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

I read with amusement, a report on Modernghana.com of May 29th, 2012, by one Yaw P.K. Manu on Dr. Amoako Tuffour's call on the youth of Ghana to see politics as “about Nationalism, not tribalism”. Dr. Amoako Tuffour was described by the writer as “a leading member of the New Patriotic Party”. Wow, this is interesting from a member of the NPP, a party others believe is most un-patriotic, tribalistic and reactionary in the history of mother Ghana.

My first reaction was to shed some tears of joy and thank God for the great news from this Doctor, and it has been found by psychologists that the first reactions are usually the right ones. My second reactions was to ask myself, where Dr. Amoako Tuffour has been all these time, when his party has subjected the vast majority of the people of Ghana, to insult, intimidation, robbery and outright degradation, just because they happened to be not Asantes and Akyems.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, DOCTOR?
You see, the NPP must be feeling regretful. After more than 60 years of using appeals to Akyem/Asante tribal resentment to show their exceptionalism or win elections and control the country, the party is realizing this might come back to bite them in the ass – Oh, I am so sorry - in the behind. As the tribal Akan-NPP party has become xenophobic, insulting and anti- Gas, Ntafo, Ayigbefo and Nfantsefo, the party has watched young Gas, Ntafo, Ayigbefo and Nfantsefo join young progressive and independent Akyems, Kwahus, Brongs and Asantes in being overwhelmingly NDC. The greater diversity of this younger generation has in turn meant that NDC, especially Jerry Rawlings and Atta Mills, have won handily among young voters in recent elections. In the 2008 election, the NPP lost all the regions except Ashanti, and even in the Eastern Region, the home region of Nana Akuffo Addo, he lost all the non-Akyem areas. All of a sudden, the NPP see being the party of angry Asante/Akyems as a potential liability, and they want to change their image.

My first question is when did NPP see party politics as nationalistic but not Asante and Akyem power? Is it only when the Gas, Nfantsefo, Ntafo, Brongfo and Ayigbefo are mobilized and coerced to support the control of power by Asantes and Akyems? Or only when the NPP is in power?

The modernghana.com report said that “he advised them (the youth) not to allowed themselves to be hood-winked by some mischievous political contractors who crowd in corners with cases of Cedis, offering mouth watering political appointments, who only crave to use them to cause ethnic political mischief”. Why wasn't this Doctor specific and bold enough to say he is talking about Kennedy Agyapong, Alan Cash, and Nana Akuffo Addo. What is this so-called nationalist afraid of? Ask any ordinary Ghanaian, who has been using politics to cause “ethnic political mischief” and they will all point you to Kennedy Agyapong's tribal tantrums and Nana Akuffo Addo's “all-die-be-die” advocacy. Is the “Honorably Doctor” aware that Alan Cash – the former NPP presidential candidate- holds the record for the most amount of money used to influence political campaign and election in Ghana? Jesus! Doctor, you are so over-intelligent, you are beginning to sound stupid and dishonest.

The report continued to say that “Dr Amoako Tuffuor also urged the youth to speak out against the arbitrary victimization of civil and public servants, for the sake of political expediency as this can in the long run, undermine the neutrality and efficiency of the Civil Service”. My question is which of the victimizations is he talking about? The bombing of school children who attended Kwame Nkrumah's functions by the Danquah/Busia group (a.k.a., the National Patriotic Party)? Or the attempt to disintegrate Ghana along tribal lines by the Matemeho process because Kwame Nkrumah, a non-Asante or Akyem won the elections to become the Prime Minister? Or the 1958 coup d'état led by R. R. Amponsah, the leading member of the Danquah/Busia group (a.k.a., the NPP), one year after independence. Or the mass dismissal of over 650 civil and public service employees by the Progress Party led by Busia? Or the outright banning of the CPP and disenfranchising of all members of the party and other persons who served with, supported or sympathized with Nkrumah and worked with the CPP to achieve independence for Ghana? Or the prosecution of most of the cadres, ministers and leading members of the NDC when the NPP came to power in 2000? Charges that became not criminal a day before Kuffour handed over power that made Kuffour pardon all of them. Do the prosecutions of Tsatsu Tsikata, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, the 31st December Movement, Kwame Peprah, Agbodapi etc. etc also constitute victimization in the eyes of the “Honorable Doctor”?

You see, Dr. Amoako Tuffour, nationalism was the fight for INDEPENDENCE NOW by Kwame Nkrumah that your party was opposed to all about. The construction of the Tema Harbour; the establishment of all the secondary schools in every district and the free education program; the industrialization program; the establishment of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology as the scientific research center for Africa; the construction of the Accra-Tema Motorway; the Black Star Line; the establishment of the Organization of African Unity; the mobilization of the youth of Ghana in the Young Pioneer Movement to inculcate in them the spirit of pan-Africanism - all by Nkrumah was all about “Nationalism”. The June Fourth uprising to probe and end military coups in Ghana; the district assembly concepts; the concept of probity and accountability; the rural electrification program; the immense road constructions and beautification of Kumasi; the establishment of the Universities of Development Studies at Tamale, and Education at Winneba, and the ones to be established in the Brong Ahafo and Volta regions were and are all about “Nationalism”.

I am sorry, I am not a good student of history so I will welcome any information on what the NPP and its tradition has done that qualifies as “Nationalistic”. We need to know this because all we know about them is Matemeho to disintegrate the new and then unstable independent Ghana; the throwing of bombs at Kwame Nkrumah to destabilized the country; Busia led Detente with the Apartheid Regime of South Africa at the time when the whole world was mobilized to support Africa to end the Apartheid regime of South Africa

Any curious observer knows that the NPP is desperate to come to power and after so many years and for some unknown reason, they are beginning to recognize that their way of doing things are not approved by the vast majority of Ghanaians in spite of the socio-economic hardship they are going through as citizens of an underdeveloped third world country. So the snake wants to shed its skin to become like the more accepted Nkrumah/Rawlings tradition. So all of a sudden, they are now more nationalistic and, as usual, than anybody else in Ghana. You can see this concern in Nana Akuffo Addo's recent campaign events touting his substantively thin but rhetorically compassionate education reform agenda that will give free education up to Senior High School to every child in Ghana. So Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry Rawlings were right all along. I see.

After denigrating Professor Atta Mills for touring every region in Ghana when the President Kuffour was touring other countries, Nana Akuffo Addo is, for the first time in more than 40 years of public political life, roaming all over the country-side of Ghana. After many years of using insult as a political tool by the Ashantis and Akims, all of a sudden, the Okyehene and Otumfuo are openly complaining about politics of insult. They owe Kwame Nkrumah, Jerry Rawlings and John Atta Mills an apology.

Dr. Amoako Tuffour, you see, nationalism does not arise all of a sudden and on its own, it starts with patriotism. It is impossible to be nationalistic without being patriotic. So if you want to let us know that the NPP is nationalistic, you don't have to just give a speech but start with the following:

1. Let the NPP apologize for all the victimization and insults heaped on your political opponent right from before independence

2. Let your party apologize for all the innocent children who died through your Matemeho wars and bomb throwing during Nkrumah's era.

3. Ask President Kuffour to pay back the ECOWAS money he gave to his son to buy the hotel.

4. Tell the Owusus to give back the Ghana off shore oil shares they were gifted by Kuffour.

5. Tell Jake and the other NPP functionaries to give back all the government properties they used their political position to acquire.

You see, it is un-patriotic and un-nationalistic to use the people to gain political power only for you to use it to appropriate national resources to yourself and party members. It is also not patriotic to use the state apparatus to deal in illegal undertakings such as the trading in and smuggling of cocaine that affects the good name of Ghana to the outside world.

Dr. Amoako Tuffour, you and your NPP have a long way to go before you start preaching about nationalism and patriotism to others, SO PLEASE STOP.

Kwame Yeboah
[email protected].