By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
March 24, 2016
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
Very soon, the country may have to be divided into the Socialist Republic of the National Democratic Congress (SRNDC) and the Federal Democratic Republic of the New Patriotic Party (FDRNPP), if we are to go by the opinion of Mr. Abdul Latif Abdullahi, chairman of the so-called NDC Media Monitors (See “Akufo-Addo and NPP Must Apologize to President Mahama” Modernghana.com 3/16/16). According to Mr. Abdullahi, President John Dramani Mahama got thunderously booed when he appeared at the funeral of the late Bantamahene to pay his respects recently. The NDC Media Monitors’ chairman claims that those who booed Mr. Mahama were members of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). He would therefore have the 2016 Presidential Candidate of Ghana’s largest political party apologize to President Mahama.
I don’t know the practical and/or objective basis upon which Mr. Abdullahi arrived at the curious conclusion that those who allegedly booed the President were card-carrying members of the New Patriotic Party. Were these alleged hecklers and cat-callers wearing the known colors and/or insignias of the NPP? And if they were, did Mr. Abdullahi ask to see their NPP-membership IDs? We ask the foregoing question because in the past National Democratic Congress’ agitators and propagandists (or agitprop agents) have been known to mischievously deck the colors and insignias of the New Patriotic Party and wantonly misbehave in public, hoping that they would be mistaken for members of the Akufo-Addo-led party.
What I clearly see here is a flagrant element of ethnic bigotry or tribalism on the part of the critic. In other words, Mr. Abdullahi, whose Islamic sounding name also marks him out to be either a northerner or a non-Akan/Asante – he could well be of Akan ethnicity, by the way – facilely assumed that just because Kumasi-Bantama is a stronghold of the New Patriotic Party, it automatically stands to reason that those alleged to have booed the President were NPP members and supporters. No such prejudicial presumption could be at once more scandalous and irresponsible. Does this decidedly capricious trend of reasoning imply that if tomorrow Nana Akufo-Addo traveled to any party of the country predominated by non-Akans and was also widely known to be the stronghold of the ruling National Democratic Congress and got booed, that it would be logical for anybody to automatically assume, without any scientific proof or objective evidence, that such hecklers and booers – my profuse apologies to the Boer-Afrikaners of South Africa – were card-carrying members and supporters of the NDC?
This trend of thinking is inexcusably retarded, and one hopes that the rascally likes of Mr. Abdullahi could be reprogrammed to think like civilized rational humans. Or better yet, people like the chairman of the NDC Media Monitors group ought to be given lessons in critical thinking and common sense. He should also inform his audience about his reaction when President Mahama stood in the royal capital of the Asante Region, and the heartland of Ghana, and rudely and churlishly described Asantes as a people who were pathologically incapable of appreciating the legion good deeds and projects undertaken in the region by governments of the National Democratic Congress.
Then also, where was Mr. Abdullahi when President Mahama stood on the sacred soils of Kyebi and smack in front of the Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori-Panyin, II, and indecorously called Akyem-Abuakwa the “Galamsey Capital of Ghana”? You see, Mr. Abdullahi, the exhibition of respect is a two-way street. President Mahama can simply not disrespect our traditional rulers and the Ghanaian people and not expect to be reacted to in kind. That would be rather curious and unpardonable. It would also defy common sense.
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