By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Dec. 23, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
She has honorably resigned, it seems; but that is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. We are an equatorial country, so I guess perhaps a more apt description would be to say that the strategic pink-slipping of Mrs. Dzifa Aku Attivor’s is only the crest of the storm. The eye of the storm, maybe. Or perhaps even the spume of the trundling hurricane-propelled waves. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Transport Minister was suavely forced out in order to salvage whatever little hope may be left of the veritable shipwreck that is the 2016 Mahama Presidential-Reelection Campaign (See “Bus Rebranding Saga: Mahama Accepts Attivor’s Resignation” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 12/23/15).
The real rot is at the so-called Power Ministry, where Dr. Kwabena Donkor is hunkered down adamantly over the veritable pit-latrine that is the AMERI Group’s scamming of the Ghanaian taxpayer to the felonious tune of $ 510 million – this figure has recently been revised upward by nearly $ 100 million – involving the purchase of some 10 thermal power-generating turbines whose actual market-going price is pegged at about $ 290 million less than the neck-splitting bill with which the longsuffering citizens of Ghana are slavishly saddled by the Dubai-based company, whose primary role in this racket clearly appears to have been that of the parasitic middleman over products who make or manufacture they absolutely had no hand.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the 2016 Vice-Presidential Candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), has more expertly expatiated on the intricacies of the AMERI SCAM, and so I would not fritter any time confusing both the dear reader and yours truly himself. Maybe it was much easier to literally push Mrs. Attivor over the proverbial cliff, obviously because she did not belong to the old boys’ club. She may also have been forced out under “duress,” to use the favorite expression of Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the General-Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress, in view of the fact that Mrs. Attivor’s resignation comes barely one day after Attorney-General Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong submitted the findings of her probe into the matter to Mr. Julius Debrah, the President’s Chief-of-Staff, and the very Flagstaff House operative to whom Mrs. Attivor also tendered her resignation as Ghana’s substantive Minister of Transportation, and who knows or cares what else among these title-obsessed NDC operatives?
Very likely Mr. Debrah, acting with the express consent of Mr. Mahama, had demanded the prompt resignation of the Transportation Minister. I am, however, not the least bit worried about the future of Mrs. Attivor; like the rest of the NDC’s hoodlum pack, she has probably stashed up enough cash to last her over three lifetimes. Besides, the NDC operatives are well known to take care of their own, like a Sicilian Mafia organization, in a way that cannot be said of the rancorous operatives of the main opposition New Patriotic Party.
What also fascinates me about the strategic reshuffling of the so-called Presidency, in the lead-up to Election 2016, is how the hitherto northern-dominated presidential staff, with names like Dr. Raymond Atuguba, Monsieur Mahama Ayariga and Dr. Clement Apaak have so smoothly given way to that of Mr. Julius Debrah and other cast of characters of southern ethnicity. There are those with short memories who may be easily fooled by such cynical application of tribal politicking, a strategy almost uniquely associated with the Gonja chieftain.
For the rest of us, the critical question of whether President Mahama deserves a second term in office or the renewal of his mandate by the Ghanaian citizenry, will likely be decided on the basis of whether eligible voters have experienced any remarkable improvement in the quality of their lives, since the erstwhile Mills-Mahama and now Mahama/Amissah-Arthur regime received the popular mandate to occupy the Flagstaff House.
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