Trust Me, Mr. Scofflaw, the Anchor Is Holding More Steadily Than Before

Dr. Edward Kofi Omane-Boamah

As usual, I read Dr. Edward Kofi Omane-Boamah’s false analysis of the recent incidence of violence that allegedly punctuated the Ayawaso-West Wuogon byelection on January 31^st, 2019 with all the contempt that it deserves (See “Omane Boamah Writes: Presidential Commission of Inquiry – Will the Anchor Hold?” Modernghana.com 2/12/19). In his tirade, the former Mahama-appointed Communications Minister alludes to a case of similar relevance or tenor that is pending before the Sophia Akuffo-headed Supreme Court of Ghana. I could not hold my laughter, because Dr. Omane-Boamah is one of a trio of National Democratic Congress’ bigwigs that flagrantly, if not downright criminally, defied an order issued by the Georgina Theodora Wood-led Supreme Court of Ghana in the Matter of Messrs. Okudzeto-Ablakwa and Omane-Boamah v. Obetsebi-Lamptey in 2012, or thereabouts.

The other members of the Supreme Court-defying trio were, of course, the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, and Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa. Messrs. Omane-Boamah and Okudzeto-Ablakwa were then wet-eared Deputy Ministers of State. So I don’t know whether these two scofflaws are even prepared to learn about what the Akuffo Supreme Court has to say about whatever judicial test case may be pending before the same. What is, however, clear from his screed is the glaring and unmistakable fact that front-row National Democratic Congress’ leaders like Dr. Omane-Boamah nauseatingly think and believe that they stand over and well above the tenets and dictates of the law; and that Ghanaian laws were actually crafted and enacted for the exclusive observation and obedience of veritable “Nobodies” like President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, and the rest of us “Wretched of the Earth” who, by the way, were also instructed to shut up and put up by then-President John Dramani Mahama in the leadup to the 2016 general election, because we had never been elected President and so had absolutely no inkling about what the hectic duties of a President entailed.

As well, Ghanaians were bluntly told to zip it up because we had absolutely no way of even half-appreciating how it felt to be the substantive President of the Democratic Republic of Ghana. And now, Dr. Omane-Boamah is also cavalierly presuming to instruct the rest of us “Kabonga” non-NDC bona fide Ghanaian citizens and residents that the preclusion of Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the longest-reigning but most demonstrably ignorant Electoral Commissioner in Ghana’s postcolonial history, somehow, makes the composition of the membership of the Short Commission, established by President Akufo-Addo to probe violent hostilities during the recent Ayawaso-West Wuogon Constituency’s byelection incomplete and, in effect, decidedly incompetent. Forget about the fact that in the person of Dr. Afari-Gyan, the most passionately partisan and pathologically Left-leaning former Electoral Commissioner, Ghanaians have a man who had absolutely no idea, whatsoever, of his professional terms of reference for most of the time that he served as Ghana’s Chief Returning Officer.

Have Ghanaians so soon forgotten about the fact that when he was summoned before the William Atuguba-presided panel of Supreme Court Judges that scandalously adjudicated the 2012 Akufo-Addo-led Presidential-Election Petition, the former Political Science Lecturer of the University of Ghana could not tell the difference between what constituted “Over-Voting” and “Under-Voting” in Ghana’s political culture? Such inexcusably asinine proposition ought to tell civilized and progressive Ghanaian citizens precisely what are the motives and objectives of NDC leaders like Dr. Omane-Boamah and Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, vis-à-vis the Akufo-Addo Administration’s all-too-savvy decision to thoroughly investigate the chaotic events that violently inflected the most recent Ayawaso-West Wuogon byelection. Dr. Omane-Boamah has vowed to turn up and keep the white-hot heat of deftly and strategically and deliberately manufactured public anger on the front-burner until his own peculiar concept of what constitutes the evenhanded ministration of justice has been realized in the wake of the Ayawaso-West Wuogon Disturbances.

He may also do well to acquit himself creditably by informing Ghanaians about the form and kind of justice brought to bear on the equally criminal unleashing of electoral violence at Akwatia, Atiwa, Agbogbloshie and Talensi, all of which occurred under the Mills-Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Maybe somebody more mature, astute and levelheaded ought to educate Dr. Omane-Boamah about the inescapable fact that this is what happens when the Founding-Father of your own political party megalomaniacally and populistically “Democratizes The Guns.” The pathologically self-absorbed critic also alludes to the alleged Flagstaff House’s revenge beating of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Nanka-Bruce, by a New Patriotic Party supporter or sympathizer who claimed to have been biding his time or waiting for his turn to return the earlier “favor” meted him by this NDC-leaning stalwart of the Ghana Police Service (GPS).

I mean, what is so fundamentally wrong with tit-for-tat? It is also unforgivably preposterous for the unconscionable killers of superior court judges to be pretending to be the prime and avid protectors of our judges by taking cheap and opportunistic shots at purely defensive NPP-affiliated vigilante groups like the “Invincible”? Forces and the Delta Forces when, in reality, it is the NDC- and Mahama-sponsored and funded Azorka Boys that have been causing most of the election-related mayhem and violence in the country. And, yes, the anchor is holding and will continue to hold steadily, contrary to what political goofballs and charlatans like Dr. Omane-Boamah would have Ghanaians and the rest of the world believe.

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

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

February 13, 2019

E-mail: [email protected]