Otchere-Darko Is a Bastard but Not Incurably Stupid – Part 1

Otchere-Darko

The accusation by “Dr./Nana” Agyenim-Boateng, President of the so-called Concerned Youth of Ashanti [sic], that Akufo-Addo Presidential Staffers, namely, Mr. Gabriel Asare Otchere-Darko and Nana Asante-Bediatuo, the President’s Executive-Secretary, may have significantly contributed to the widely reported anger of His Majesty, The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, may be grossly mistaken and misguided, as well (See “Group Accuses Gabby, Bediatuo of Undermining Asantehene” Starrfmonline.com / Modernghana.com 5/3/18).

Somebody, for whatever convenient reasons, may be looking for a scapegoat for the all-too-well-known woes of the Asantehene. I can readily cite one striking example in which some passionate partisans of the Kumawu Chieftaincy Crisis/Dispute have taken to maligning Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, in the electronic media – both the radio and the Internet – and been calling the Asantehene all kinds of unprintable names. Among us Akan, there is a maxim that “The beast that would unleash the deadliest bite often lurks underneath the frills of one’s own cloth.”

In sum, if anybody is looking for a more palpable cause for the Asantehene’s alleged fury, it almost definitely is Asante-manufactured. Indeed, the source and/or cause of the Asantehene’s fury may have been suavely and deftly premeditated and orchestrated by some neurotic Asante Supremacists; and I am quite certain that Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, may be well aware of this historical fact, which putatively began shortly after he decided to secure the matrimonial hand of a woman of Akyem-Adadientem royal moorings, and a superbly brilliant and pretty one to boot.

I have personally been engaged in a heated verbal exchange with an “Asante Boy,” who had the temerity to rudely imply that in marrying an Akyem/Okyeni woman, Nana Kwaku Duah, as the Asantehene had been known in private life, had committed the most heinous of crimes against the Asante Nation that could very well precipitate an apocalyptic misfortune. Forget about the indisputable fact of there being a long-established tradition of Asante Ahemfo being fond of striking conjugal relationships with the Adansi-Akorokyere sisters and other female relatives of Osagyefo Appeanin-Kwaforoamoa, or the Mighty Ofori-Panyin Stool.

Indeed, it is absolutely no secret that the greatest woman of Asante history, at least in the Twentieth Century, to wit, Obaapanyin Nana Yaa Asantewaa, of Edweso/Ejisu, was a bona fide Akyem woman and blood relative of the Okyenhene. It is this blistering epistemic ignorance that often prompts some swashbuckling Asantes to gratuitously spoil for a fight with their Akyem kinsmen and clansmen on the least provocation. I have, personally, as a direct descendant of Otumfuo Opemusuo Osei-Tutu, I, via Akyem-Asiakwa and Nkoranza, staunchly defended the present Asantehene on countless occasions, against some of his own Asante detractors, and so only a pathological moral reprobate would call my credibility on this subject into question.

I have also purposely decided to give the title that appears at the top of this column to the same, because I know fully well that Mr. Gabriel Asare Otchere-Darko is capable of some of the sort of mischief for which he stands virulently accused by the members of the so-called Concerned Youth of Ashanti [sic]. Mr. Otchere-Darko amply demonstrated this capacity for meanness, when he foolishly camped out in the Kumasi-Suame Constituency, during the last general election, with the inescapably idiotic objective of getting Mr. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, the current Parliamentary Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, knocked off the ballot in his own political stronghold.

Now, dear reader, don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no fondness for the treacherous and party-line-crossing Mr. Mensah-Bonsu. Still, I strongly felt that Mr. Otchere-Darko, the notorious bosom friend of diehard Trokosi Nationalists like Messrs. Michael Dokosi and Kofi Adams, could have done far better and wiser to have vigorously campaigned for Cousin Akufo-Addo at Kyebi and in Akyem-Abuakwa, where then-Candidate Akufo-Addo had remarkably less groundswell of electoral heft and support than in Kumasi and the Asante Region, in general.

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

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
May 4, 2018
E-mail: [email protected]