A Failed Akufo-Addo Is Still Ages Ahead of a Successful Mahama – Part 2

It is rather asinine to hear Supt. Peter L. Toobu, author of the article titled “Mr. President, You Have Failed” (Modernghana.com 12/27/19), wax silly about what the Upper-West Region’s native terms as President Akufo-Addo’s vainglorious attempt to use the Presidency to “engrave your family’s name in gold.” Maybe somebody with a much better sense of the history of the making and development of Modern Ghana had better inform Supt. Toobu and those who think and share his morally untenable beliefs that had Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo not acceded to the Presidency, the names of the Akufo-Addo and Ofori-Atta and allied families like Okoampa-Agyeman(-Ahoofe) and Atta-Akyea and Amoako-Atta, to name an obvious few, would still be etched not only in gold but in Akyem-Akwatia-mined diamond as well.

The Mahama shill may also not know this, but it is an open secret that even the Kwame Nkrumah-led government of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) had more cabinet and executive appointees from the Ofori-Atta Clan and its allied clans than the Danquah-Busia-Dombo-inspired John Agyekum-Kufuor-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). The arrivant critic may probably need not to be told, as well, that when 50-percent of the membership of the legendary Big Six Founding-Fathers of Modern Ghana – namely, Messrs. JB Danquah, William “Paa Willie” Ofori-Atta and Edward Akufo-Addo – are your nuclear or close relatives, your family name is already engraved in gold and may have absolutely no need to be further either etched or embossed in gold.

That was the reason why even as far back as 2008, in the wake of him losing the Presidential Election of that year, largely through sabotage by some of his own party’s internal detractors, names deliberately withheld, this writer personally wrote an article in which I admonished Nana Akufo-Addo not to waste his precious time trying to gun for the presidency for a second time. We have Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie, aka Sir John, and the equally politically adamant Hopeson Adorye, to thank for Nana Akufo-Addo’s accession to the Presidency; forget about any fundraisers for now. These indomitable and passionately pro-Akufo-Addo NPP operatives would have none of my dissuasive arguments about Nana Akufo-Addo’s abandoning his, in retrospect, very progressive presidential ambitions.

You see, as yours truly has been saying times without number, anybody who answers to the sacred and dignified name of a Ghanaian or a bona fide Ghanaian citizen, owes far more of his/her national identity to the Boakye-Danquah and the latter’s allied Ofori-Atta Clan than to any other individual Ghanaian ethnic or subethnic polity. The same can be said about the origins and the development of Ghana’s cocoa industry. The fact of the matter, even as our ancient Akan sages were fond of saying, is that inasmuch as “One may virulently hate the duiker/antelope,” the honest and objective mind will never fail to “take exceptional notice of the fact of the duiker/antelope’s graceful gait.” You simply cannot make up this rarefied sort of enviable pedigree for the pathologically and grossly incompetent and hopelessly kleptocratic political scam-artist that Supt. Toobu clearly appears to worship and has been blindly campaigning for, for quite a little while now, namely, former President John Dramani Mahama whose father also, by the way, served in a non-cabinet ministerial portfolio in the Nkrumah-led government of the Convention People’s Party.

In short, rather than inadvisably impugn the integrity of Nana Akufo-Addo’s Senior Minister, that is, the politically and professionally distinguished Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Supt. Toobu would be better off gravely and soberly explaining to Ghanaians why we need to return the man who allegedly embezzled, or rather stole, some GHȻ 200 Million of Ghanaian taxpayer money meant as part of the purchasing money for several of the Brazilian-made Embraer aircraft, while Mr. Mahama was second-in-command to the late President John Evans Atta-Mills. It is also widely known that then-Vice-President John Dramani Mahama was under an Atta-Mills-ordered criminal investigation into the Brazil Aircraft-Purchasing Scam or Racket at the time of the “mysterious” death of President Mills.

Indeed, were Supt. Toobu really interested in the well-being of Ghanaian citizenry and the healthy development of the country at large, the National Democratic Congress’ 2020 parliamentary candidate from the Upper-West Region would have since long called for a thorough investigation into the Brazilian Embraer Aircraft Affair. It well appears that when it comes to the qualifications and the performance track-record of the SADA pocketbook and bank-account-accelerating Candidate John Dramani Mahama, all that matters to Mr. Toobu is that the two-time presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress is a northerner or northern-descended Ghanaian citizen. That Candidate Mahama was one of the key coconspirators of the Woyome Heist is actually envisaged in the political playbook of Supt. Toobu to be a sterling stamp and/or seal of irreproachable approval.

We should also be talking about the professional qualifications and academic credentials of the two sons of Mr. Osafo-Maafo vis-à-vis the Deputy Directors-General positions to which these two gentlemen have allegedly been named, and not the mere fact of them having been named to the aforesaid positions. Is Mr. Osafo-Maafo the only politician in Ghana whose relatives have been appointed to serve in the same government as our contextual protagonist? I mean, do names like Joyce Bawa Mogtari, Alex and Betty Mould, in the latter case “Mould-Iddrisu,” Cadmun Mills, Addo-Kufuor, the Ahwois, Tsikatas, Gadzekpos, Anyidohos and Quarshigahs not ring any bells in the mind’s ears of Supt. Toobu? Come on, let’s get real and serious here!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
December 27, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]
*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs