Why I Miss Lord Commey

I sincerely sympathize with Mr. Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie's apparent need to deliberately and publicly explain the civilized intentions of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the highly unlikely event of the Atuguba Court ruling against the latter (See "NPP Has No Intention To Make Human Blood Flow - Sir John" Peacefmonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 5/15/13).

Still, I find it a bit on the worrisome side that the General-Secretary of the NPP should feel the imperative necessity to respond to Mr. Sekou Nkrumah's patently vacuous allegation - the man has absolutely no credibility - that the NPP "has hatched plans to make blood flow if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the [blood-stained] National Democratic Congress" (NDC).

I find it worrisome because it unwisely preempts any possibility of the Atuguba Court handing down a decision that is wholly unencumbered by any such psychological trick-bag, or one that is clinically based on the substance of the forensic evidence presented by the players involved in the Akufo-Addo Revolution, rather than the direct political consequences of any one decision opposed to another.

Rather, it would have been more appropriate for Mr. Owusu-Afriyie to have called on Mr. Nkrumah who, as I reliably understand, does not even speak any major Ghanaian language, to publicly substantiate his allegation.

In brief, allowing this notorious political pimp and prostitute to force key operatives of the NPP to confessionally dissociate themselves from the trajectory of a bloody history that is far more of a familiar terrain to the Nkrumah- and Rawlings-minted Convention People's Party (CPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), respectively, is rather pathetic.

Logically, it also does not make political sense for Mr. Owusu-Afriyie to assert that "if, indeed, the NPP had any intention of creating mayhem in the country, we would have done so after the elections." It doesn't make sense for "Sir John" to take such a weak-kneed political tack because historically speaking, it is the Danquah-Dombo-Busia ideological camp that has staunchly pursued the rule of law, even as the respective architects of the Convention People's Party and the so-called National Democratic Congress have been invariably associated with the politics of terror-mongering and raw intimidation.

The preceding notwithstanding, it absolutely does not make sense for any major player or executive member of the most refined and law-abiding political organization in Ghana to be suggesting that, in fact, fair and impartial judicial ministration ought not to be the clinical or professional objective of the Atuguba-presided Supreme Court of Ghana; and that just about any verdict that Justice Atuguba and his NDC cronies on the panel deem to carry the barest minimum of negative repercussions is the surefire way to go.

The preceding rather lame and naive political tack is what I call ideological nihilism or unprovoked political suicide. It makes abject and absolute nonsense of the entire ongoing Akufo-Addo/NPP petition hearings before the Supreme Court; and the latter also clearly explains why patent nincompoops like Messrs. Kofi Adams and Bernard Mornah seem to be convinced that the legal challenge to the political legitimacy of President John Dramani Mahama may already be dead on arrival.

And this is essentially why I dearly miss Mr. Lord Commey, the no-nonsense firebrand former National Organizer of the New Patriotic Party.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]