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22.02.2019 Feature Article

Stephen Agyeman’s Lawsuit May Be Perfectly Legitimate

Stephen Agyemans Lawsuit May Be Perfectly Legitimate
22.02.2019 LISTEN

Although his adamant decision to nonconsecutively run again for the Presidency may be very annoying to quite a slew of Ghanaians, to speak more politely about the downright insult to the intelligence of the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian citizens, nevertheless, I still wanted former President John Dramani Mahama to put his patently quixotic and vaulting ambition to the test by clinching his party’s presidential nomination for the 2020 Presidential Election and actually run against a superbly performing President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. I have already written a column explaining why the Bole-Bamboi native seems to possess the cranial capacity of an 8-year-old boy, who scandalously envisages his second nonconsecutive shot at the Presidency as a jolly return slugfest between himself and Ghana’s former Foreign Minister and, before the latter major cabinet appointment, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, rather than the far greater destiny of some 30 million Ghanaian citizens, and so do not intend to tiresomely reprise the same herein.

The fact of the matter is that but for his happenstance or purely accidental and, in retrospect, grossly misguided selection by then-Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills, late, as the latter’s presidential-election running-mate, in the runup to the 2008 Presidential Election, the former Gonja-West National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament had absolutely no traction against the now-President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, a man who handily stands head-and-shoulders above Mr. Mahama when it comes to a deep appreciation for the principles of the democratic tenets of Fourth-Republican Ghanaian political culture and the flair for and practice of the same.

Anyway, in his recently filed suit against the former President’s decision to gun, once more, for the Presidency, the plaintiff authoritatively notes that in soliciting electioneering campaign funds to run for a second nonconsecutive time for the Presidency, Mr. Mahama has flagrantly violated Article 68 Section 2 of Ghana’s 1992 Republican Constitution because as a former Head-of-State, Mr. Mahama is a veritable ward of the Ghanaian State whose financial and material needs were being legitimately taken care of by the Government and people of the Democratic Republic of Ghana (See “Mahama’s Election Bid Rocked with [sic] Legal Suit” Graphic.com.gh / Ghanaweb.com 2/15/19). Under the preceding circumstances, it is the contention of the plaintiff that Mr. Mahama’s categorical failure to have sought permission from the august house of Ghana’s Parliament prior to deciding to gun for the Presidency, is inescapably tantamount to engaging in an extortion scandal. Mr. Agyeman is not using these exact same words, as it were, but he is definitely implying the same.

As well, the plaintiff is praying for the High Court to promptly disqualify the pathologically and compulsively narcissistic and nauseatingly overambitious former President who once had the temerity of accusing his former boss and generous political benefactor, President John Evans Atta-Mills, posthumously, of having made Mr. Mahama a “Presidential Spare-Tire.” Of course, in virulently accusing the late President of having disdainfully selected the Gonja native as his “Presidential Spare-Tire,” the then-Candidate Mahama was also roping in the rather bizarre and scandalous failure of former President John Agyekum-Kufuor to heartily endorse the presidential candidacy of the latter’s two-time presidential running-mate and two-term substantive Vice-President of the Democratic Republic of Ghana, to wit, the late Mr. Aliu Mahama.

Indeed, it can scarcely be gainsaid that his decision to nonconsecutively re-gun for the Presidency has the political fortunes of a remarkable number of Mr. Mahama’s former double-salary drawing cabinet appointees depending on the same. However, equally antagonistic of Mr. Mahama’s decision to run again for the Presidency, after having been resoundingly defeated by the now-President Akufo-Addo at the polls, with more than one-million votes, is Mr. Alban SK Bagbin, the National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for Nadowli-Kaleo, in the Upper-West Region and the longest-serving parliamentarian in Ghana’s Fourth Republic. Mr. Bagbin, like Mr. Mahama, appears to envisage the Presidency as the proverbial icing on his political cake, or the jewel of his crown, although the Second-Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament clearly lacks the requisite traction and popularity among members and supporters of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress, a favor that Mr. Mahama appears to uniquely and comfortably enjoy.

The fact of the matter is that in going to the Accra High Court to attempt to fight off Mr. Agyeman’s suit vigorously challenging the legitimacy of Mr. Mahama’s decision to, once again, run for the Presidency, after having been resoundingly trounced by Nana Akufo-Addo at the polls, the former Rawlings’ Communication Minister does not seem to either possess a prayer and/or a wing, as it were. Mr. Mahama is also infamous for being a scofflaw and an inveterate enemy of the judiciary who once rode roughshod over a decision by the Wood Supreme Court to jail the members of the so-called Montie Trio of Mahama-leaning media shills or virulent propagandists who had publicly threatened to have then-Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood sexually violated, because the latter and some of her associates on the Supreme Court of Ghana had handed down a decision pertaining to the election laws of the country of which the Montie Trio and a remarkable number of Mahama cabinet appointees did not approve.

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

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
February 21, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]

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