Is Akufo-Addo the Creator of Nepotism in Ghana?

This is not the first time that the author of the barely coherent tirade titled “2017 Under Review: Akufo-Addo And the Making Of Nepotocracy!” (Modernghana.com 12/30/17) has written and published an article whose sole purpose and main objective was to make an exceptional scapegoat of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, vis-à-vis the origins and/or ethnic affiliations of the members of his cabinet. This is also not the first time that yours truly has penned and published a column advising the much younger anti-Akufo-Addo crusading propagandist and Convention People’s Party (CPP) fanatic to draw an objective, comparative analyses of all the cabinets of postcolonial Ghanaian governments before cavalierly presuming to caustically carp Nana Akufo-Addo for having supposedly pioneered the baleful politics of nepotism in the country.

What this clearly means is that this ardent and virulent and sclerotic Akufo-Addo critic would have to draw up a comprehensive list of all cabinet appointees in the country beginning with Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP), the Kotoka-led junta of the National Liberation Council (NLC), subsequently led by Maj.-Gen. A. A. Afrifa, and shortly after Kotoka, Lt.-Gen. Joseph Arthur Ankrah (matters get a bit fuzzy here); and then the democratically elected government of the Dr. K. A. Busia-led Progress Party (PP), through the tandem Acheampong- and Akuffo-led National Redemption Council (NRC) and subsequently the Supreme Military Council (SMC) juntas I and II; and the J. J. Rawlings-led regimes of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

And then the pathologically obsessive-compulsive Akufo-Addo critic could also begin to draw up and dispassionately examine the ethnic and regional profiles of cabinet appointees of the Kufuor-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the tandem regimes of the John Evans Atta-Mills- and John Dramani Mahama-led regimes of the National Democratic Congress, and then the Akufo-Addo-led ruling New Patriotic Party. And then the critic can begin to seriously discuss the political culture of nepotism in Ghana. I also know the critic to be one of those also-run Ghanaian intellectuals who lay facile claims to being historians and scholars, and yet scarcely have the sort of diligence and critical-thinking erudition that it takes to call oneself a historian worthy of such designation or one of substance, the way that one would call Messrs. James Anquanda, Albert Adu-Boahen, F. K. Buah and Ade Adjayi authoritative historians of global renown and repute.

At any rate, one aspect of the critic’s tirade that fascinated me more than all else, was his oblique but clearly implicit argument that since the Fante were the first, among a host of other Ghanaian ethnic sub-nationalities to come into knowledge and experience of contemporary Western education, it stands to reason or it logically follows that Fantes ought to dominate the Akufo-Addo cabinet, or any postcolonial Ghanaian ministerial cabinet, for that matter. I suppose going by the scandalously warped logic of this critic, it is safe to assume that the Big Six Founding Fathers of Modern Ghana should, each and every single one of them, have been of Fante ethnic descent and/or affiliation. I mean, this critic is an Akyem-hating bastard through and through, and I make absolutely no apologies for making this assertion.

Well, he is a self-proclaimed “Brong/Bono Boy,” so I expect him to conduct a thorough research to find out about the yeomanly contributions of Akyemfuo – and here, of course, I am also including the people of Akuapem-Akrpong and the Saltpond-Anomabu littoral – to the intellectual, academic and cultural development of the Brong people and report back to us. And then we can seriously begin to talk about Tribal or Ethnic Politics in Ghana. The fact of the matter is that in politics, you work more closely with the people who helped you the most to get to the pyramidal apex, and not merely those who “joined the line” – my profuse apologies to former President John Agyekum-Kufuor – only when it became convincingly apparent their fairly consistent opportunistic gambles had finally positioned then on the losing end of the political game.

And, by the way, the oldest tertiary academy in Ghana, the Akuapem-Akropong-located Presbyterian Teachers’ Training College, is not based in Cape Coast; there is, however, one on the Elmina littoral that is nearly as old as Akropong-PTC. This SOB once called the intellectual integrity of my late and beloved father into question on a radio program. I hope the name of his father is Dr. K. A. Busia or Mr. J. H. Mensah. At any rate, the concept of “Regional Balance” in the selection of cabinet and other executive appointees ought to mean something more than mere numbers. It ought to mean the appointment of movers-and-shakers of any democratically elected government on the basis of merit and proven dedication and diligence towards the achievement of democratic governance and freedom.

Yes, Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo and Attorney-General Gloria Akufo may not be parliamentarians, but they were the ones, together with Speaker Mike Oquaye and Deputy Attorney-General Yeboah-Dame, among a platoon of others, who handled the Legal Affairs of the Akufo-Addo Presidential Campaign. Does this sound like they were appointed purely on the basis of kinship with President Akufo-Addo? Go figure!

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

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
January 1, 2018
E-mail: [email protected]