Mahama Is the Epitome of National Embarrassment – Part 2

The absence of former President John Agyekum-Kufuor at last year’s Tamale-hosted 62^nd Independence Day Parade and other festivities was deliberately injected into this national conversation over the leadership dereliction of Candidate John Dramani Mahama by a diehard Trokosi Nationalist Goon Stanislav Dogbe because that is what Ghanaians like this Mahama point man do best, that is, deviously and mischievously inject tribalism or ethnocentrism into each and every national debate, irrespective of the discursive subject at hand. You see, the most intelligent and obvious thing for a well-meaning Mr. Dogbe to have done, that is, assuming that, indeed, the former Mahama Communications Director were really serious about his plaint or grievance, would have been for the plaintiff to have reached out to either the office or handlers of Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor to enquire about why the former President had been conspicuously AWOL from last year’s Tamale-held 62^nd Independence Day Parade. Instead, Mr. Dogbe ethnocentrically and virulently so assumed that the former President had, somehow, deliberately decided to skip Tamale’s parade and festivities because it was held in the Northern Region which, until very recently, also encompassed the Savannah home region of Candidate John Dramani Mahama.

We must also take into significant account, the glaring fact that at 80 years old, Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor is absolutely no classmate or playmate of Mr. Mahama’s, not by any measure, whatsoever, be it existentially or politically, or any which way “cally.” Actually, what I first and foremost wanted to draw attention to is the fact that the average daily temperature of Tamale is not exactly what the proverbial doctor ordered for a Kumasi-born and raised octogenarian “boy” like Mr. John Agyekum-Kufuor. At any rate, on the part of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, we all know that this bloody Generalissimo of the Trokosi Nationalist Goon Squad would any good day, given the choice, rather opt to celebrate and pontificate pointlessly over the so-called high-minded ideals and political principles of the 31^st December, 1981 faux revolution, namely, “Probity, Accountability, Transparency and Justice.” It is rather interesting to also point out that when it comes to the moral and political principle of accountability, the Rawlings-chaperoned leaders of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are the most morally, politically and legally bankrupt of all leaders in Ghana’s postcolonial history. Chairman Rawlings has even publicly asserted his regret for executing the leaders of the Supreme Military Council junta, in retrospect, when the crimes for which Gens. Acheampong, Afrifa, Utuka and Akufo are compared to the unconscionable thoroughgoing corruption of the Mahama Posse.

The preceding is a seismic observation to make because it is an open secret that it was the Rawlings-led operatives of the erstwhile Provisional national Defense Council (PNDC), and presently the National Democratic Congress, that originated the kleptocratic tradition of generously gifting themselves with state-owned real-estate and landed properties in the name of “Presidential and Executive Gratuities,” that has been obscenely expanded into the quadrennial orgiastic payouts to our parliamentarians irrespective of the duration or the number of terms served in our National Assembly, and how well such a term or terms have been served. Still, on any good day of the week, unlike his ineffably untrustworthy sometime minion and, on the latter count, we are only repeating the memorable characterization of Little Dramani by Ghana’s longest-reigning First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, you can still count on the infamous Sogakope Butcher to come up with a perfectly tangible pretext or excuse for not showing up at a place where his presence was routinely expected.

But wait for just a moment, Dear Reader, there is at least one more count on which Chairman Rawlings stands head-and-shoulders over and above his Bole-Bamboi former protégé. You see, at least the Sogakope Butcher had an adequate modicum of classy dignity to show up at the Parliament House with his wife on the day that President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo gave his usual inimitably spellbinding Fourth State of the Nation Address (or SONA-4), the last for his first term in office. On the other hand, rumor had it that Comrade Mahama who was conspicuously a no-show may very well have orchestrated the rather infantile and asinine boycott by the Iddrisu-Ablakwa Gang. Even the German Ambassador to Ghana was visibly disgusted and of the well-calibrated opinion that the National Democratic Congress’ Parliamentary Minority’s boycott of SONA-4 could not have been more politically misguided on the part of the leaders of a political party that had been fiercely fighting to be afforded the popular mandate as a viable alternative to the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party.

Then also, could any levelheaded Ghanaian citizen have begrudged the judges-killing Chairman John-Agbotui the prime opportunity to commiserate with the family members and relatives of Mr. Marcus Mawutor Adzahli, the young Sogakope District Assemblyman who was recently stabbed and shot to death in the sanctum of his own home by a gang of armed robbers? You see, Dear Reader, even cold-calculating clinically certified butchers like Chairman Rawlings have their own soft spots. And that is, of course, when the slain victim is a kinsman or a homeboy.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
March 14, 2020
E-mail: [email protected]