Election Petition Is Good

For Ghana's Political Growth And Maturity

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

I read Ms. Anna Esi Hanson's article titled "Election Petition; Negatives Outweighed" (See Modernghana.com 6/20/13) with thoughtful amusement. I generally do not know precisely what import the author intended to convey with a title/caption that clearly appears to imply the diametric opposite of what its rather shrill contents have to say.

At any rate, I read Ms. Hanson's article with "thoughtful amusement" because it rather pathetically imputes cynical motives to the prime movers of the New Patriotic Party's Election 2012 presidential petition when, in fact, it is the writer/critic who is being inescapably cynical here. Readers ought to also bear in mind that it is the inalienable right of the Ghanaian voter to determine who governs the country that is at stake here - in other words, it is the very soul of our nation, as a democratic polity, that is being fiercely fought for and defended by the primary petitioners.

Needless to say, the main target of Ms. Hanson's tirade is also not lost on the reader with good critical-thinking skills, particularly where the author rather bizarrely suggests that the Election 2012 petition may well have been launched to sate the cynical interests of "one person." Now, we know the sort of partisan and/or ideological mindset that is uniquely capable of sallying such mischievous salvo.

Still, what is equally significant to observe, here, is the rather quizzical fact that Ms. Hanson clearly appears to think and believe that the Election 2012 presidential petition process is, somehow, to blame for the massive and widespread labor or employment and industrial slowdown in the country, rather than the latter's squarely being the fault of the Mahama-led government of the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC).

For, needless to say, it was indisputably the nefarious and collusive shenanigans between the NDC and some key players of the Electoral Commission (EC), led by Chairman Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, that directly precipitated the current negative industrial growth, or avoidable socioeconomic regression, being experienced throughout the country that Ms. Hanson so stridently, and understandably, gripes about.

But what is even far more significant and a salient factor that Ms. Hanson predictably ignores, is the fact that Ghana's august Supreme Court has deemed the Akufo-Addo/New Patriotic Party petition to be meritorious enough to spend a remarkable temporal span in reviewing, deliberating upon and ultimately ruling on the same.

That the judicial process appears to be grinding too deliberately for the comfort and/or tolerance level of the critic, and also appears to be exacting a heavy toll on the country's economy, is patently not the fault of Messrs. Akufo-Addo, Bawumia and Obetsebi-Lamptey, but squarely that of Messrs. Dramani Mahama and Afari-Gyan and the diabolical pair's equally mischievous cohorts and hangers-on. And one hopes to the higher heavens that Ms. Anna Esi Hanson could fully appreciate this fundamental fact of the matter, rather than self-righteously putting the proverbial cart before the horse by brazenly seeing absolutely nothing wrong with such an inexcusable paralogic.

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

Department of English

Nassau Community College of SUNY

Garden City, New York

June 20, 2013

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

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