Why Not Settle Matters The Yaa-Naa Way, Haruna Iddrisu?

It was decidedly much ado about absolutely nothing, in vintage Shakespearean parlance. I am referring to the alleged commotion that occurred on the august floor of our National Assembly, last Thursday, February 15, in the eye of which calabash-full-of-pitoo storm was reportedly, deliberately and characteristically positioned the National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for Tamale-South, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, who also doubles as the Parliamentary Minority Leader (See “I Will Disrespect You If – Angry Haruna Dares Speaker” Citifmonline.com / Modernghana.com 2/15/18). Most of our media websites reported this incident, but it was only Classfmonline.com that cast the alleged to-do in the most objectively comprehensive tenor and/or perspective.

Under the caption of “I Don’t Want to Disrespect[,] But If You Invite Me[,] I will – Haruna to Speaker” Ghanaweb.com 2/15/18), we are informed that the parliamentary minority side, led by Minority Chief Whip Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, the NDC’s MP for Kumasi-Asawase, was predictably positioned at the forefront of a dastardly attempt to prevent a full-voting on the august floor of the House in the matter of the Akufo-Addo Administration’s very progressive and healthy decision to slash the prices of several petroleum products by between 1.5 and 3 percent. This obviously progressive policy initiative, which stands to make President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo look good and further significantly dim the chances of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for re-occupancy of the Flagstaff House, come Election 2020, did not sit well with the Mahama Posse.

Put in more simple terms, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu and his sworn associate detractors of theAkufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) were literally caught with their pants down, hung and all. This was what clearly irked the Parliamentary Minority Leader, and not the widely reported incident of Speaker Aaron Michael Oquaye’s having allegedly ignored the former Employment and Labor Minister, who claimed to have been standing on his feet for some 10 minutes, while the floor was tendentiously ceded Mr. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, the NPP’s Parliamentary Majority Leader and the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, who also serves as Member of Parliament for Kumasi-Suame.

In essence, what most of the media operatives who covered the event either deliberately or conveniently failed to report, for whatever motives or reasons, was the all-too-professional and heroic decision by Speaker Oquaye to prevent the Mahama Posse from “legally” disrupting and sabotaging the onward march of the Akufo-Addo Administration towards positioning Ghana, once more, at the forefront of continental African progress and development.

Amidst all this fracas, we are further told that the usual NDC Abongo Boy Suspects, namely, Messrs. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, the Member for Tongu-North; ABA Fuseini, the Member for Sagnarigu; and the Member for Adaklu, Kwame Agbodza, walked out on the proceedings.In other words, it was the Trokosi Nationalists and their lock-stepping Spare-Tire Social Democrats throwing tantrums when it became limpidly clear and obvious that they were not going to have their way in the manner in which they had had it during the notoriously inglorious days of Speaker Edward Doe Adjaho, another of the key operatives of the Trokosi Gang and unarguably the least qualified and competent of the nation’s parliamentary speakers since independence.

But perhaps the most poignant edge to this veritable storm in a calabash – or is it a cooking pot? – which was conspicuously ignored by nearly every media institution, was the striking resemblance that Mr. Iddrisu’s tantrum shared with the appearance of Independent Special Prosecutor-Designate Mr. Martin Amidu, before the Parliamentary Appointments Committee earlier in the week, during the course of which the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice was widely reported to have sharply taken exception to Mr. Iddrisu’s off-color ethnic joke that it was time to settle matters “The Builsa/Bulsa Way.”

Mr. Amidu, popularly known as “Citizen Vigilante,” caught a considerable wave of flack for not “humbly” tolerating such untenably primitive abuse of his ethnic and cultural identity by a fleering Dagomba ethnic chauvinist. We shall, in due course, revisit the foregoing episode. Suffice it, however, at least in passing, to cryptically observe that I kept wondering, in the wake of Mr. Iddrisu’s widely reported conniption against Speaker Oquaye, why the Tamale-South’s MP and Parliamentary Minority Leader had simply not decided to settle matters “The Dagbon Way” or “The Yaa-Naa Way,” if the dear reader would graciously and charitably indulge yours truly, your most humble and obedient servant.

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