Mahama Must Render Nothing Short of an Unqualified Apology to The Asantehene

Readers should make absolutely no mistake: former President John Dramani Mahama has an established track-record of maligning the citizens and inhabitants of the Asante Region, particularly ethnic Asantes. Indeed, in the leadup to the 2016 Presidential Election, Mr. Mahama went on record as having categorically stated that even if he paved all the roadways of the Asante Region with gold, still the Asante people would never cast their ballots in his favor. In what clearly appeared to be ethnocentric disdain, Mr. Mahama went on to imply that the manifest ingratitude of the Asante people was so pathologically ethnocentric that Asantes were only innately inclined to vote for politicians who shared their own ethnic background or ethnic descent.

This is rather absurd because the same Mr. Mahama, campaigning for the Presidency in the northern-half of the country, especially in the erstwhile so-called Three-Northern-Regions – now the Five-Northern-Regions, thanks to the visionary foresight of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo – was captured on both video and in print telling voters of northern ethnicity and descent never to vote for a “Kabonga,” or an uncircumcised barbarian from the South, by which, of course, this infamous ethnic chauvinist unmistakably meant any Ghanaian presidential candidate of Akan descent or ethnicity. To further “clarify” matters, Mr. Mahama went on to throw the rather mischievous, if also politically unenlightened challenge that if the leaders of the predominantly Akan New Patriotic Party (NPP) desired any critical mass of the Northern Vote, then it was imperative for then-Candidate Akufo-Addo to reverse positions on the party’s ticket by having the Vice-Presidential Candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, become the substantive Presidential Candidate, with Akufo-Addo becoming the running-mate of the former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG).

The former Gonja-West’s National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament would further mischievously, ungratefully and virulently accuse his late benefactor, to wit, President John Evans Atta-Mills, of having made northern-descended politicians like himself what Mr. Mahama then scornfully termed as “Presidential Spare Tires.” The foregoing reference was, of course, equally and perhaps even deservedly directed at former President John Agyekum-Kufuor who, truth be spoken or told had, indeed, accorded short-shrift treatment to his two-time running-mate and vice-president, to wit, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, late. The good news here, though, is that having been afforded the prime and rarefied opportunity to function as the “Main Tire” or the substantive President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana, Mr. John Dramani Mahama scandalously demonstrated that he may, indeed, not be even up to snuff with the job of a Regional Minister.

The Founding-Father of his own political party, namely, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) staunchly affirmed this fact, when former President Jerry John Rawlings described his former Communications Minister as at once the most thoroughgoing corrupt and incompetent president in postcolonial Ghanaian history. There is every reason for any avid follower of the cynical and opportunistic career of Mr. Mahama to believe without any iota or shadow of a doubt that the press release that the former President authorized his former Chief-of-Staff, Mr. Julius Debrah, to compose and publish was unreservedly intended to seriously undermine the global reputation, stature and, even much more significantly, to mordantly hurt the person of The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II (See “Mahama Breaks Silence on Asantehene’s UN Address” RainbowRadioOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 9/21/19).

If, indeed, the former Atta-Mills’ second-bananas really wanted to simply “clarify” matters without intending to globally impugn the reputation and dignity of the globally recognized status and stature of The Asantehene, Mr. Mahama could very well have noted that although The Asantehene worked diligently around the clock, as it were, to ensure a smooth transition of power to President Akufo-Addo who, according to Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the dynastic General-Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, was robbed raw and naked by then-Interim President John Dramani Mahama in the 2012 Presidential Election, with the criminal collusive assistance of Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan. We must here significantly and pointedly add that in 2012, the defeated President Mahama, as Mr. Asiedu-Nketia publicly told the host of a radio talk-show, had not intended not to hang on to power. He had actually been falsely declared the victor and been sworn in as the substantive President of Ghana.

Even a non-college educated nonnative speaker and writer of the English language would not have made the sort of rhetorical blunder for which a pathetically cornered Mr. Mahama would now have his election time Exhibition-Show Chief-of-Staff quixotically take the fall for and the flak as well.

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

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

September 25, 2019

E-mail: [email protected]