Show Us the Votes, Togbe!

Togbe Afede

We have read the Asogli Agbogbomefia’s rejoinder to the plaint publicly registered by Ogyeahoho Nana Yaw Gyebi, II, Governance Committee Chairman of the National House of Chiefs (NHC), and do not find the testimonial evidence of the President of the NHC to soundly square up with the grim reality on the ground. We shall explain our contention shortly (See “NO Vote: Togbe Afede Hits Back at ‘Dishonest’ Colleagues” 3News.com / Ghanaweb.com 11/17/19). To be certain, the indisputable conclusion here is that it well appears that Nana Krobea Asante (aka Prof. SKB Asante), the globally renowned legal luminary, did most of the thinking and the drafting of the stated position of “NO” to the December 17 Referendum on local government democratization on behalf of the entire membership of the National House of Chiefs. This is clearly where the problem seems to be coming from.

You see, while, indeed, Ogyeahoho Nana Yaw Gyebi is noted down in several parts of Togbe Afede’s rejoinder as having been present during deliberations hosted by the NHC’s Legal Affairs Committee, which is headed by Nana Krobea Asante, we have absolutely no evidence of the NHC’s Governance Committee’s Chairman, that is, Ogyeahoho Yaw Gyebi, having had any specific input in the aforesaid deliberations entered into the record books of the National House of Chiefs vis-à-vis the December 17 Referendum. At least Togbe Afede does not offer his audience any clue or suggestion to this effect. All that the Paramount Chief of the Asogli Traditional State, so-called, has to tell the Ghanaian public is that the plaintiff – Togbe Afede actually disdainfully prefers the more ideologically loaded and “revolutionarily” partisan term of “Dissidents” – was present during all or most of the aforesaid deliberations.

We need to also underscore the fact that The Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori-Panyin, II, unofficially regarded as the third most powerful traditional Ghanaian ruler, has equally bitterly complained that he and some of his peers of the NHC had not been duly consulted about what both Togbe Afede and his Vice-President, that is, Daasebre Kwebu Ewusi, VII, eventually packaged and presented to both the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the general Ghanaian public, as the unanimous position of the members of the National House of Chiefs, which was that the exclusive election of District Assembly Representatives, as well as other Lower Local Government Representatives, along political party lines, was totally objectionable and unacceptable by the members of the National House of Chiefs.

Now, one would hope that democratic protocol and/or praxis has procedural relevance in the conduct of the inhouse activities of the NHC. If the preceding observation has validity, then, of course, it goes without saying that the Ghanaian people, whom these traditional rulers have been legitimately invested to represent, need to be told and/or informed about the breakdown of the results of the voting process that culminated in the decision by President Afede and Vice-President Ewusi to convey to the Ghanaian electorate that the full-membership of their House of Chiefs have voted to either roundly or unanimously reject the December 17 Referendum, aimed at healthily expanding the democratic process at the grassroots level with a resounding “NO!” vote.

What is risibly obvious from the rejoinder, signed by both Togbe Afede and Nana Ewusi, is the scandalously inescapable cynicism and the luridly self-serving tenor of the same. Dear Reader, the crux of the entire decision by the Afede Gang to vehemently oppose the December 17 Referendum inheres in the following paragraph culled from the rather morally and politically pathetic rejoinder from Agbogbomefia Afede and Daasebre Ewusi: “Currently, the appointment of 30% Government nominees to local assemblies has been totally vitiated by partisan politics[,] with the result that appointments are determined by party membership to the virtual exclusion of traditional authorities[,] which[sic] are usually allocated a minimal representation by the executives of the ruling party – a total travesty of the principles of good governance.”

Here, it is not clear what “good governance” these self-infatuated and self-glorifying chieftains are talking about, other than their morbid determination to stall the inexorable process and progress of democracy by perpetuating the systemically inbuilt Ahwoi Brothers-engineered corruption of our local governance process. You see, I am a passionate monarchist by temperament; but I am even more fiercely a democrat by design or nature. The vote on December 17 must be and can simply not be other than a seismic “YES!” Else, we may very well risk the perennial stalling of Ghanaian democracy and industrial and cultural modernization by these payola-prone and fattened chiefs. I am also just wondering aloud, whether Candidate Mahama has greased the palms of these oddball chiefs with some V8 SUVs and a couple of cows, a dozen sheep and a case of Bramsco or Schnapps. Burp….

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

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