Did the Mahama Posse Deliberately Attempt to Set Akufo-Addo Government Against the Americans?

The Anlo-Ewe Trokosi Nationalist hireling kept quoting “interrect” and “interrectuals,” as if he was himself capable of pronouncing the word “pepper,” which they almost invariably, to a person, pronounce “paper,” or “payper,” and “her” as “hey.” But, of course, we Akan creators of Modern Ghanaian Civilization – let him keep grating and roasting cassava for sale, that is his and his people’s quite fair and most significant contribution to our dietary culture; after all, somebody has to do the light-lifting work for the rest of us to do the noble and heavy-lifting work of real, productive governance – have far more important things to think and talk about than how to hijack Ghanaian democracy the next time around and slaughter the morally, culturally and intellectually superior Asantes/Akans for their wealth in the spurious name of “Probity, Accountability, Transparency and Justice.” And then drink their royal-blue blood and hope to be civilized and human like them. Talk of Ali Baba Rawlings, their Robber-Baron Godfather and the Five-Million-Dollar Abacha Payola Question. W’ Allah-hihi….

Anyway, it is curious but not altogether surprising that it is beginning to emerge that the democratically ousted Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), actually signed a Military and Security Cooperation Compact with the Obama Administration that was never disclosed to the leaders of the incoming New Patriotic Party (NPP) Administration of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, including the latter himself. This appears in a news report just published by the ruling party-leaning Daily Guide newspaper, which is widely known to be owned and operated by Mr. Freddie Blay, the Acting National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (See “Ghana-US Military Deal: Ghana Never Had a Copy of 2015 Agreement” 3/24/18). What sort of Ghanaian leader would sign a landmark military and security cooperation agreement with a global nuclear superpower nation like the United States and be bereft of both a hard or even an electronic copy of the same? Well, that is the anatomical MRI picture of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress for you.

Mr. Dominic Nitiwul, the New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Bimbilla, in the Northern Region, who allegedly described this bizarre twist in the wake of the widespread controversy surrounding the parliamentary ratification of the “Enhanced” Military and Security Cooperation Agreement struck between Ghana and the United States, notes that when the issue came up, recently, with the Americans who wanted to upgrade the deal, evidently because they felt more comfortable dealing with the leaders of the neoliberal and unabashedly pro-Western New Patriotic Party, Mr. Nitiwul was caught flatfooted, or off-guard, because the issue of the 2015 pact signed between the Mahama government and that of then-President Barack Obama had never been recorded in the handing-over notes that the Mahama executive appointees who were directly involved in the deal had composed for the Akufo-Addo Transitional Team.

At the moment, some capricious attempts are being apparently made by some New Patriotic Party cabinet appointees to scapegoat Ms. Hanna Tetteh, the last Mahama-appointed Foreign Minister, although it is very clear that it would have been the last Mahama-appointed Defense Minister who should have noted this critical and landmark event in his handing-over notes. As well, the Minister of the Interior, the key operatives of the High Military Command of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), the Ghana Police Service (GPS) and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) ought to have been in the know. But even more crucially, the lame-duck President John Dramani Mahama had a bounden obligation to have alerted his incoming successor. In informal mainstream American parlance, Mr. Mahama was duty-bound to have given President-Elect Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo a “heads up” on the matter.

At any rate, we are not the least bit surprised that the operatives of the Mahama regime had either failed or flatly and adamantly refused to notify their incoming successors because Ghanaians had witnessed the same strategically devious, dangerous and underhanded manner in which President Mahama and his cabinet appointees had dealt with the equally volatile matter of the GITMO-2, the Saudi-born and Yemeni-fathered terror suspects whose resettlement in Ghana, after they had been released by the United States’ Government from the Guantanamo Bay Maximum-Security Detention Center, in Cuba, had been unwarrantably kept from the relevant representatives of the Ghanaian people, to wit, our Members of Parliament.

But what makes the dastardly, hypocritical and criminally self-righteous attempt by the National Democratic Congress’ Parliamentary Minority Leaders to effectively stall or even scuttle the “Enhanced” Military and Security Cooperation Agreement between Ghana and the United States even more dangerous, is the fact that it would have ironically and wickedly made the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party appear to be dead-set against the sub-regional security interests, and other non-security interests, of the United States. This could very well be one of the desperate strategic schemes engineered by the Mahama Posse to have their megalomaniacal Spare-Tire Social Democrat scheme and/or steal his way back into the Flagstaff House come January 2021.

Mr. Nitiwul also tells us that the 2015 Military Pact signed between the Mahama regime and the Obama Administration was far, far worse than the re-negotiated version initialed by the Akufo-Addo government. Now, we need to have both two documents published side-by-side, so that critically thinking Ghanaian voters and citizens can intelligently and independently make up our own minds about the same. If what Defense Minister Nitiwul is telling us has historical validity, and we have absolutely no reason to believe otherwise, then it may very well become imperative for President Akufo-Addo to initiate a parliamentary enquiry into this matter and let Ghanaians know the truth. The reputation, image and credibility of the ruling New Patriotic Party depend on this matter, trust me.

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

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
March 24, 2018
E-mail: [email protected]