Offensive To Whom?

If Vice-President MahamuduBawumia had been shown by the media with his wife, Samira, walking the streets of London with armed guards, the same Editor-Publisher of the Insight newspaper, who is now publicly decrying the apparent fact that Dr. Bawumia had not been provided with body guards, would have called for an immediate investigation into how it came about that AlhajiBawumia was allowed to take a whole battalion of the Ghana Armed Forces with him to the UK for a medical checkup (See “Communication on Bawumia’s Health ‘Sloppy, Offensive’ – Kwesi Pratt” AtinkaOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/29/18). (Note: As of this press preparation, we have been reliably given to understand that Vice-President Bawumia had, indeed, been accompanied on his brief medical leave to London, UK, by a security detail. The size of his security detail is, however, unknown).

To put it in plain and unvarnished language, Mr. Kwesi Pratt’s wistful demand for more information on the health status of the Vice-President is not being made purely out of sheer goodwill or concern for the well-being of the second most powerful politician in the country. Rather, it is being made because Mr. Pratt has been finding it extremely difficult to come up with any dirt on the man whom he most loves to revile and discredit. And for those who may not readily recall this, it was Mr. Pratt who said that he would be a congenital fool to use his Insight newspaper and his considerable influence in the media to advance the cause of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP); and that he would rather have the Mahama-led rag-tag National Democratic Congress regime occupy the Flagstaff House in perpetuity.

Mr. Pratt knew very well what he was talking about, because he was on the list of pro-NDC media operatives entitled to free gas and a “soli” or solidarity stipend from the Mills-Mahama governments. The fact of the matter is that the man is desperately looking for a way to use Dr. Bawumia’s ill-health to score some cheap political points for his paymasters, which is why he feels so immitigably and implacably offended that the New Patriotic Party’s communication operatives have not generously provided him with any. Of course, he is highly unlikely to be fed with his kind of anti-NPP propaganda grist anytime soon. But what is rather strange, albeit hardly surprising, is the fact that we never heard Mr. Pratt virulently demanding to be availed details of the health status of the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, or for the same to be made public. And so why is the nominal rump-Convention People’s Party (r-CPP) partisan demanding the immediate publication of the health status of the former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Ghana?

To be certain, what is insufferably offensive is the fact that nearly six years after the “mysterious” passing of Prof. Mills, Mr. Pratt and his associates and cronies have yet to publicly pressure former President Mahama to cause the release of the full-details of the causes and circumstances leading to the death of his former boss. At various points in time, we have had close relatives like Dr. Cadman Mills, the late President’s twin-brother, give different accounts or present disparate narratives about the cause of death of the former University of Ghana’s tax-law professor. For his part, the closes that former President Mahama came to disclosing the details of the death of President Mills, was to publicly and heartily celebrate the auspicious and opportune demise of the man who selected him as his running-mate, against the virulent protestations of the Rawlingses, the de facto proprietors of the main opposition National Democratic Congress.

In retrospect, it can clearly be seen that in publicly, firmly and flatly rejecting the advice of the Rawlingses not to let the former Communications Minister come anywhere near him, let alone the Flagstaff House, the three-time NDC Presidential candidate was digging his own political and existential grave.

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