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17.02.2019 Feature Article

Mahama Shoots Himself in the Foot

Mahama Shoots Himself in the Foot
17.02.2019 LISTEN

He has already categorically, publicly and emphatically stated that his own political party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has “revolutionary roots” of uncontestable violence; so it was rather pointless and downright farcical for former President John Dramani Mahama to facilely presume to insult the intelligence of the locally resident members of the global diplomatic corps, by inviting members of the latter group to Peduase, near Akuapem-Aburi, and showing them what the former Atta-Mills’ Vice-President claimed to be wanton acts of brutality unleashed by state-sponsored thugs against supporters and sympathizers of the National Democratic Congress during the January 31st Ayawaso-West Wuogon byelection, occasioned by the death of Mr. Emmanuel Kyeremateng Agyarko, of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) – (See “Sulemana Braimah Urges Mahama to Submit His Evidence to Emile Short Commission” Modernghana.com 2/16/19).

That the video clips may be tautological and actually vindicatory of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party, is clearly borne out by Mr. Mahama’s own claim that his party, namely, the main opposition National Democratic Congress, is the most violent political organization in the country. Put more limpidly and pointedly, by his own admission, what Mr. John Dramani Mahama is, implicitly, saying here is that the National Democratic Congress, a historically violence-prone political juggernaut, is far more likely than the New Patriotic Party to have provoked any acts and/or incidents of violence that occurred in connection with the January 31st Ayawaso-West Wuogon byelection. Indeed, both the Deputy Information Minister, Mr. Pius Enam Hadzide, and the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, have stated categorically that there was not a single gunshot discharged at any of the nearly 40 polling stations in the Ayawaso-West Wuogon Constituency, which includes parts of the vicinity of the country’s flagship academy, to wit, the University of Ghana.

Mr. Mahama claimed that the purported incidents of violence captured on the video clips that he, reportedly, showed to some locally resident members of the international diplomatic corps at Peduase, also indicated what the former President termed as “state-sponsored thugs” having provided cover or protection all day, during the Ayawaso-West Wuogon byelection, to the eventual winner of the election and widow of Mr. Kyeremateng Agyarko, namely, Mrs. Lydia Seyram Alhassan-Agyarko, while a detachment of the same purportedly state-sponsored goon squad intimidated and antagonized the candidate put up by the National Democratic Congress. On the latter count, the former President clearly demonstrates himself to be a reprobate personality who seriously lacks credibility, because Mr. Mahama has been poignantly and authoritatively contradicted by the Deputy Information Minister, who says that he had been in the company of Mrs. Alhassan-Agyarko throughout the day of the byelection and had not witnessed the involvement of Mrs. Alhassan-Agyarko in the dispatchment of any state-sponsored thugs to the residence of Mr. Delali Kwasi Brempong, the NDC’s parliamentary candidate.

Now, what is clear here is that the thoroughgoing sexist key operatives of the National Democratic Congress had deliberately targeted Mrs. Alhassan-Agyarko because they, apparently, thought that as a woman who had been recently widowed, she was supposed to be vulnerable and absolutely no match for the macho-male candidate put up by the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress. We know this for a fact because the so-called Montie Trio of Mahama-leaning NDC propagandists, who publicly threatened to rape retired Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, had been cavalierly and disgustingly sprung out of the Nsawam Medium-Security Prison by a shameless law-scoffing President Mahama after having served barely half of their Supreme Court-imposed four-month sentences. That was some three years ago. The wicked irony here is that you even had some Mahama-appointed female cabinet ministers, notably, Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu, the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, and Mrs. Nana Oye Lithur, then Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, rooting for the Montie Trio would-be rapists.

A selectively amnesiac Mr. Mahama ought to have been reminded to present video clips of the NDC-sponsored Azorka Boys vigilante thugs being savagely sicced on supporters and sympathizers of the then-opposition New Patriotic Party during the Talensi byelection in 2015, among a host of other NDC-sponsored byelection-related acts of violence such as occurred in full-frontal-view at Akwatia, Kwabeng (Atiwa) and Agbogbloshie, among a platoon of others. We must also significantly note that no commissions of inquiry had been established by any NDC leader in the wake of the aforementioned Azorka Boys-instigated incidents of byelection violence. Recently, the leader of the Azorka Boys was reported by the media to be bitterly regretful of the fact that the NDC leaders had cut their generous funding resources for the active operation of his veritable terrorist organization, once the NDC went back into opposition.

If, indeed, the former President is convinced that there had occurred state-sponsored acts of violence at the Ayawaso-West Wuogon byelection, by all means, let Mr. Mahama heed the call of Mr. Sulemana Braimah, the Executive-Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), by submitting his evidence to the Short Commission and stop playing his characteristically vacuous and childish games with locally resident members of the diplomatic corps.

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

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
February 17, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]

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