What Is Clement Apaak Afraid Of?

We have not forgotten that Dr. Clement Apaak, presently the National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for Builsa-South, in the Upper-East Region, is the same so-called Presidential Staffer who once reported to the media that quite a humongous stash of liquid cash that ought to have been kept in the bank, had been stolen by some unidentified burglars who had broken into his Accra residence and manhandled him in the process. We also know that he is an impudent political opportunist, because Dr. Apaak has moved with lightning speed from being the convener of some bogus rights championing activist group and the head of some dubious think-tank to securing a fat paycheck with the Mahama Flagstaff House.

And then, cleverly espying the proverbial handwriting on the wall, this Canadian-schooled Presidential Freeloader quickly jumped out of his political fishbowl and grabbed a parliamentary seat, where he knows he is guaranteed an equally fat paycheck as the one formerly cut him by Little Dramani at the Flagstaff House; and an even fatter paycheck, a loot, to be certain, deliberately mislabeled as a “Gratuity” every four years, if he is able to hold on to his august House seat a multiplicity of times.

Anyway, I am writing this column because Dr. Apaak has shown himself to be exactly like that proverbial old woman in that old maid’s tale whose bones begin to rattle at the mere mention of death. Just the other day, President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s solemn pledge to fight corruption in government tooth-and-nail sent Dr. Apaak into a morbid funk, causing him to bitterly complain about the imperative need for Nana Akufo-Addo not to use his pledge as a pretext to inordinately witch-hunt appointees of the erstwhile Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress (See “Don’t Use Corruption to Witch-Hunt Ex-Government Officials” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 5/26/17). What the man clearly means is that President Akufo-Addo ought to go about the people’s business almost as if he had inherited a fiscally clean and sound economic balance sheet from former President John Dramani Mahama.

Of course, we all know that nothing could be further from the truth and reality. So far, the corruption cases of former Mahama operatives that have been brought to public attention, including the tax-evasion scam of Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, the younger half-brother of the former President, clearly indicate that real fish are being purposefully scoped and brought into the Akufo-Addo anti-corruption dragnet. The Builsa-South NDC-MP would be hard put to identify a single instance in which absolutely no justiciable or forensically sustainable evidence of wrongdoing has been targeted or is being targeted. And so what is the real problem here?

Indeed, even as I write, some former Mahama operatives at the National Communications Authority (NCA) have reportedly been caught by the BNI’s dragnet and charged with the embezzlement of at least $ 4 million in a contractual scam involving the purchase of some Israeli-made telecommunication listening and/or monitoring devices that either never got supplied or installed for the purposes for which they were contracted. The good news here is that some of the snagged officials have promised to pay back their stolen taxpayer loot, while a couple of these veritable kleptocrats have actually started paying back the moneys they stole with lightning speed. Now, this is what responsible leadership and good governance are incontrovertibly about. On Nana Akufo-Addo’s part, that is.

And yet, the cynical and pathologically opportunistic and clinically unconscionable likes of Dr. Apaak would have the rest of the nation and, indeed, the global community, believe that the Akufo-Addo Administration is wantonly about the ungodly business of witch-hunting. Indeed, if his were a witch-hunting governance agenda, President Akufo-Addo would have also called for the prompt and rigorous prosecution of such proven scam-artists and taxpayer-money stealers like Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, proprietor of the so-called Engineers and Planners galamsey firm. The younger Mr. Mahama’s case would not have ended with the mere repayment of his stolen taxpayer’s dough.

Could the air and water in the Builsa-South Constituency possibly be infected with germs and bugs that make natives like Dr. Apaak have such a difficult time coming to terms with basic issues verging on justice and fair play?

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
May 26, 2017
E-mail: [email protected]