A Typical Ghanaian Prophet

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

They often have very funny names which they often spell in very funny ways and like the rest of their fellow citizens, they often drift where the stench of ill-gotten wealth and pelf drifts. And so I was not the least bit surprised when that straggly bearded bloke who looked to be barely out of his teens emerged out of the proverbial woodwork claiming to have been ordained by God to proclaim the second democratic dispensation of the bloody couple, this time led by the ever-wide receiving Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.

You knew such thoroughgoing stupidity could only come from someone claiming to be a latter-day Ghanaian prophet. Ever since my birth, nearly a half-century ago, the only Ghanaian prophets that I have known have invariably been primitive impersonators and masqueraders who have often been afraid of using their own weird names, such as Ali Masmadi Sasabonsam Jehu Shoaboni Appiah, who now presumptuously and conveniently goes by the name of Nana Akyea-Mensah, the name of a historic man the likes of whose dignity and ineffable cynosure that SOB would never encounter among the male members of his largely pathologically skirt-chasing and pedophiliac family.

In essence, dissemblance is the name of the game; and such infantile gimmickry often seems to work magic because, by and large, Ghanaians are a people whose kinship with truth and grim reality have been widely known to leave much to be desired. Which is why “Prophet” Segbene Xenodi can be generously forgiven for making the kind of vacuous prediction that even the Rawlingses clearly did not believe, based on reliable reports of how fast the bloody couple scurried out of the Sunyani Coronation Park, the venue of the National Democratic Congress’ presidential primary for Election 2012, some two Saturdays ago.

But, of course, considering the fact that a whopping 90 simpering fools, calling themselves defenders of the FONKAR legacy of revolutionary “Bitch-ism,” voted in a hopeless bid to crowning Mrs. Rawlings a path-paving “She-King” of the Ghanaian feminist revolution, there absolutely can be no gainsaying the fact that, indeed, “Prophet” Xenodi is still left with quite a few more monkey tricks in his haversack.

Really, what the staunchest backers of President Mills ought to be worried about is the fact that percentage-wise, the 90 face-saving votes that Mrs. Rawlings bagged is more than twice the shaving of victory that separated the then-Candidate Mills from the New Patriotic Party’s Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in Election 2008. Translated in terms of a national scale, what the preceding means is that President John Evans Atta-Mills has at least one-hundred-thousand diehard NDC supporters to convince between now and December 2012, before comfortably presuming to have gained any remarkable edge over his closest and most formidable challenger/opponent for the position that took him three presidential elections and two years shy of a decade to clinch.

What makes matters even more difficult is the fact that the Rawlingses, who singularly boosted Tarkwa-Atta’s otherwise lackluster electioneering skills, are not known to be very charitable and/or a readily forgiving couple, particularly after being meted the sort of apocalyptic trouncing that the former Legon tax-law professor dished Ghana’s longest-serving first lady.

Another sign of worse things to come is the fact that in the wake of her epic loss to her husband’s former staunchest lieutenant, the former first lady is reported to have thrown all proverbial caution to the wind, by either furiously or shamefully storming out of the Sunyani Coronation Park. Clearly, Nana Konadu Agyeman was not about the damn icky business of having anybody short of her own husband or her majestic self crowned King of NDC in Sunyani. What was even more striking was the decision by the former first lady to conspicuously skip that part of the congressional proceedings that called upon the defeated presidential candidate to concede and pledge her unstinted support to the victor.

In other words, while figures released by the Electoral Commission indicate a landslide victory in favor of Tarkwa-Atta, more than twenty-four hours after NDC congressional proceedings ended, Mrs. Rawlings had yet to politely and diplomatically concede defeat, let alone pledge her unstinted support for the reelection campaign of the man whose administration the former first lady had variously described as at once the most lethargic and corrupt in recent Ghanaian history.

To his credit, however, Mr. Rawlings is reported to have momentarily held up the left hand of his former lieutenant to signal, at least in principle, his acceptance of the smashing defeat of his bedmate and partner-in-crime by the visually impaired former University of Ghana law school professor. The latter gesture, of course, was just about the closest that Tarkwa-Atta came to being graced with a concession speech by the former first lady who, it seems, has yet to fully appreciate the sterling significance of being a graceful loser.

As for “Prophet” Segbene Xenodi, about all that can be wished is for the pathetic SOB to widely open his eyes, ears, mind and soul next time in order to better hear God speak truth to power, as it were. I am also wondering if this boyishly shaggy SOB was also one of those twerps who allowed themselves to be bribed with a chunky piece of rotten meat-pie by the bloody couple, heading into the Sunyani Coronation Park. Better luck next time.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Wriitng at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###