NDC Funeral Contractors And Vultures Should Steer Clear Of Annan Family

I knew that in the wake of the historically seismic passing of Mr. Kofi Atta Annan, the legendary first indigenous African former Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization (UN), cynical and opportunistic National Democratic Congress’ operatives like Mr. Ade Coker would be frantically scheming and jockeying for the media limelight in order to pretend as if they were the most caring Ghanaian partisans of the man who admirably, heroically and indefatigably spent most of his life working for global peace, prosperity and security. And, yes, against the philosophically and ideologically primitive Rawlings dictatorship! And, true to expectation, these NDC carrions have not disappointed us with their trademark shameless positioning of themselves at the center of an event in which they have absolutely no right to attempt to hijack.

Which is why we have the shameless and hypocritical likes of Mr. Joseph Nii Ade Coker, the Greater-Accra Regional Chairman of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), grandstanding and hypocritically pontificating about the imperative need for the Government and people of Ghana to ensure that the memory and dignity of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate are preserved, in perpetuity, by having the mortal remains of the Akwamufie, Eastern Region, native returned from Berne, Switzerland, and afforded a fitting burial (See “ ‘Don’t Bury Kofi Annan Abroad’ – Ade Coker” CitiNewsRoom.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/20/18).

Maybe some straight-arrow shooter like yours truly ought to tell the key operatives of the NDC that left to them alone, with their morally and ideologically regressive Cash-And-Carry policy agenda, and their Social Darwinian upper-class-oriented education policy, no Ghanaian leader of the global stature and renown, as well as distinction, of the late Mr. Kofi Atta Annan’s caliber would have been produced in Ghana. Come on, folks, you simply cannot reap where you have not sown. Even more significant must be emphasized, for the benefit and edification of those among us who may have so soon forgotten the same, that other than cheaply and indecently capitalizing on the “mysterious” death of then-President John Evans Atta-Mills, there is a diddly little that political pretenders and impudent scam-artists like Mr. Coker can show for the preservation of the dignity and memory of the former University of Ghana’s Faculty of Law Professor.

Even as I write, the so-called John Evans Atta-Mills Mausoleum, or Asomdwoe Park, near the Osu Castle, which was supposed to honor, dignify and preserve the memory of the country’s first Fourth-Republican President to die in office, is a veritable and unspeakable eyesore. Goose Park, as the site is more popularly known, is today effectively in ruins, thanks to the cultural preservation genius of NDC stalwarts like Mr. Ade Coker; it has even become a strip for prostitutes at night, as we recently learned from a news report, almost like Fort Amsterdam, the long-abandoned 17^th-Century Dutch-built slave dungeon at Abandzi, near Saltpond, that this writer

had a mixture of privilege and misfortune to espy just last month. You see, Mr. Annan stood at the exact opposite ideological spectrum of the things that the NDC leaders believe in, namely, economic elitism, kleptocracy and the massive production of youthful illiteracy. Besides, were he to be buried in Switzerland, at the express wishes of his family, in particular his wife, Nane Maria Lagergren, this would not be the first time that a distinguished Ghanaian is being buried abroad; former Vice-President DeGraft Johnson and Prof. L. H. Ofosu-Appiah are both buried in London, UK. He could be more fittingly and nobly buried on the landed property of his Kofi Annan Foundation in Berne, Switzerland.

Which is why I am in perfect agreement with the statement issued by the Annan Family and the Administrators of the Kofi Annan Foundation, in the wake of the glorious passing of their globally renowned and distinguished Patriarch, of theirdire need to be respectfully afforded some temporal and spatial privacy to mourn their kin. This is also all the more reason why vulturous funeral contractors like the Greater-Accra Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress ought to be condemned in toto for impudently attempting to preempt the inalienable right and especial prerogative of the Annan Family and the latter’s associates to determine where their kinsman gets buried and/or memorialized. Mr. Coker may also want to ask himself precisely why the late President Kwame Nkrumah willed his papers and other significant documents pertaining to his life and political career to the Boston and Howard University Archives, rather than any other reputable institution of the preceding kind in Ghana.

The fact of the matter is that we, Ghanaians, are generally not known for being a people with any remarkable modicum of respect for institutional maintenance and cultural preservation. Indeed, had it not been for the Chinese, for example, who tutored Chairman Jerry John Rawlings and his minions about the civilized and imperative need for the relocation and preservation of the Efua Sutherland-built Ghana Drama Studio, the site of the present Chinese-built and donated National Theater, this great historical monument and symbolic representation of Ghana’s contribution to the foundation and development of modern theater would have been totally destroyed and permanently erased from our national cultural memory. Now, Nii Ade Coker, don’t you start me!

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