Obviously, Koku Anyidoho Is Not the Least Bit Interested in Justice in Governance

I am now beginning to fully appreciate the fact that, by and large, the late President John Evans Atta-Mills was the worst speech-giver in Ghana’s Fourth Republic. The totally vanquished former Deputy General-Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Koku Anyidoho, tells us that aside from having been named Communications Director of the Atta-Mills Presidency, he was also the lead speechwriter for the former Vice-President to Chairman Jerry John Rawlings and retired tax-law professor of the country’s flagship academy, the University of Ghana (See “Koku Anyidoho Writes: Should Gov’t Continue Renewing Contracts of Public Servants Due for Retirement?” Modernghana.com 2/10/19). Which clearly explains why in his last State of the Nation Address (SONA) presentation before the august full-house of Parliament, the visibly ailing President Atta-Mills conspicuously failed to acknowledge the presence of then-Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood.

I mean, any President who has such an uncouth and insufferably arrogant person as Mr. Anyidoho as his/her speechwriter is, indeed, in big trouble. But what engendered this column, however, was the afore-referenced Anyidoho-authored article that desperately and pathetically sought to stultify and, indeed, thwart the progressive and nonesuch visionary leadership and government of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP), by having the National Democratic Congress-inserted Act 527 of the 1992 Constitution quashed in order to prevent Nana Akufo-Addo from meritoriously extending the tenures of civil and public servants who distinguish themselves and are past 60 years but have the energy, experience and talent to still serve the nation for many more years from doing so.

According to Mr. Anyidoho, who claims to be a staunch believer in Charles Darwin’s “Evolutionary Theory,” extending the service contracts of Ghanaian civil and public servants past the statutorily stipulated 60 years of age, prevents other equally talented and experienced but younger Ghanaian citizens from promptly stepping up to the proverbial plate and serving the nation to the maximum best of their talents. Undoubtedly, the man who was recently soundly trounced by the longtime General-Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, whom he had desperately and fiercely sought to unseat, had the 60-plus-year-old Mr. Asiedu-Nketia in the frontal/parietal lobe of his mind when he made the foregoing observation.

The good news here, though, is that this panjandrum and popinjay has absolutely no way of attempting to impose his dictatorial inanities on President Akufo-Addo, whose most successful Fourth-Republican Administration the self-proclaimed Atta-Mills’ lead speechwriter appears to be having a very difficult time in coming to terms with. As to why Mr. Anyidoho would have Nana Akufo-Addo summarily begrudged or denied the same privileges of being able to appoint people past 60 years of age but who have distinguished themselves to powerful executive positions is scarcely farfetched. It is purely bred of raw envy, hatred and the avid desire to see a massively or epically successful President Akufo-Addo dramatically and scandalously fail and thus be brought down to the lackluster level of the previous leaders of the present main opposition National Democratic Congress.

Of course, the name of the game here is sheer competence; and it is his great flair for selecting the best and brightest of Ghanaian society to work with that seems to be driving Mr. Anyidoho nuts. And from the look of things, if the infamous Awoonor nephew does not promptly sober up and start recognizing and applauding the phenomenal and nonesuch genius of Nana Akufo Addo, the Wheta, Volta Region, native would soon be running stark naked down the streets and alleyways of the Accra Metropolis. You see, the fact of the matter is that it is sheer competence, and not mere age, that has made governance under President Akufo-Addo seem so easy and smooth-sailing. And he is darn right to poignantly observe that the representatives of our National Assembly are so selfish and pathologically self-centered that they seem to be only capable of garnering two-thirds of House votes, when it comes to voting fat paychecks and other emolument packages for themselves.

By the very logic of his preceding observation, in the opinion of Mr. Anyidoho, Parliament will never attain the two-thirds of the votes needed to quash Nana Akufo-Addo’s power to appoint the most competent and professionally successful executive operatives to facilitate the auspicious and salutary implementation of such progressive policies as the fee-free Senior High School System.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
February 10, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]