By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Dec. 27, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
Vice-President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur conceded defeat for the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the lead-up to the 2016 general election, when he recently told some members of the Cape Coast University branch of the Tertiary Educational Institutions Network (TEIN) that “More than half of the Ghanaian people have not yet decided who they want to vote for” (See “Peace, Stability Not Guaranteed Under NPP – Veep” Adomonline.com / Modernghana.com 12/27/15).
And yet, ironically, the man who has come under torrents of attacks from the members of his own party, for what his most ardent critics term as his “gross administrative incompetence” had the chutzpah to also tell his audience that the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) cannot guarantee the peace and stability of the country if it is ceded power at the end of next year. Well, the first question that eligible and prospective Ghanaian voters ought to be asking here is whether, indeed, if the ruling National Democratic Congress has performed as creditably as Mr. Amissah-Arthur is claiming, more than half of Ghanaian citizens would be having such a hard time deciding whether to retain the National Democratic Congress and its patently bumbling leadership at the Flagstaff House beyond next year.
The fact of the matter is that the NDC has been a massive failure; and it would do them much better for Messrs. John Dramani Mahama and Amissah-Arthur to admit the same and honorably exit the scene with whatever little may be left of their badly dented images and reputations. Indeed, there is absolutely no need to repeat the fact that our beloved nation has not known any “peace” and “stability” since President Mahama ascended the presidency in the wake of the highly suspicious passing of President John Evans Atta-Mills on July 24, 2012. Not only has the late president’s only known adult child, Mr. Kofi Atta-Mills, spoken publicly about the likelihood of foul play in the death of his father, Dr. Cadman Mills, the twin-brother of the former University of Ghana tax-law professor, has also publicly hinted that, indeed, some foul means must have been employed to remove his elder sibling from the scene.
Then also, the Ekumfi-Otuam head of the Mills clan has been widely reported by the media to have seriously questioned the manner in which his distinguished kinsman met his death. Indeed, if more than 50-percent of Ghanaian voters, after three years of having offered their mandate, a la Justice Atuguba and his eight other associates on the Supreme Court, to Messrs. Mahama and Amissah-Arthur, cannot decide whether or not to retain these two men at the helm of our national affairs, very likely the rate of unemployment under the watch of this National Democratic Congress government may well have hit above the 50-percent mark. And it is only somebody who is seriously out of touch with the reality on the ground who would reckon such a criminally miserable economic situation to be synonymous with “peace” and “stability.”
Maybe somebody with guts and gumption ought to tell the former Governor of the Bank of Ghana that “peace” and “stability” are not merely the absence of war, but the creation of a conducive climate for the development of economic prosperity and a decent standard of living. And on both preceding counts, Messrs. Mahama and Amissah-Arthur have been decidedly AWOL. They have hopelessly shirked the noble responsibilities for which they were elected and have actually plunged our oil-rich country into utter chaos and misery. It goes without saying that the odious regime of “Dumsor” – or erratic energy supply threatens to become a permanent feature of our national existence.
Indeed, Vice-President Amissah-Arthur would do far better to address the brutal assassination of Mr. Kenyenso, the Nkwanta-South District Chief Executive, than cavalierly presume to offensively feel superior to the leadership of the New Patriotic Party who have a far better track-record of bringing peace and stability, as well as an economic bonanza and security, into the country. People who butcher high court judges on founds of them belonging to the wrong ethnicity, ought not to be smugly pontificating about political killings in the New Patriotic Party of which there is very strong evidence of their prime sponsorship.
