I got home last Saturday late morning, tired and worn out after a tiring dawn function. I reached out for my wireless, (that was how my grandfather used to call what we call radio these days) immediately to listen to the social/political commentaries on air. My target was to get Joy Fm Newsfile programme but by some chance the dial flicked on to Radio Gold aka Radio Rwanda. I don’t usually listen to the station because of their aggression based on lies and pure ethnocentricism. And ‘Alhaji and Alhaji’ was on. The host had introduced matters about the Supreme Court Presidential petition for discussion and Hon. Fiifi Kwetey an MP and Minister of state was on the floor. I then went to my living room to watch the proceedings on TV Gold.
Surprisingly, Fiifi Kwete never dwelt on the subject matter of the happenings of the SC. He failed to speak on the issue. He diverted completely to engage in personal attacks. I was expecting expose and analysis on the acts, goings-on and decisive confuting, or refuting sustainable evidence of both the petitioners and respondents. Of course Fiifi is not a lawyer and I didn’t expect any legal stuff in his submission. But the unwarranted propaganda tangent he went was a baffle and a worry. He chose to dwell on the personality of Akufo Ado, the 1st Petitioner of the SC on-going election challenge and his family. The Dishonourable Fiifi’s submission was a big mistake and unjustifiable. I thought he had jettisoned his propaganda tomfoolery, having been appointed to such high executive positions, the last 5 years. As the saying goes, the leopard does not change his spots.
Here was the Executive High Office holder Fiifi Kwetey rather embarking on a crudely jaded tactic of character assassination of Nana Akufo Ado and his respected family, connecting it to the illustrious nationalists Mr. Edward Akufo Ado, Dr. JB Danquah and William Ofori Atta; all of blessed memory and all members of the revered Big Six of the 1950’s and who happen to be fathers and uncles of Nana Akufo Ado through no fault of the latter. Fiifi Kwete condemned the family and described them as bomb throwers, rabble rousers and therefore a dangerous family to the progress of Ghana. He singled out Nana Akufo Ado as causing confusion in Ghana and virtually that the family gene of Akufo Ado is not conducive to the good and stability of the country. So Fiifi Kwetey is the new NDC research specialist Doctor who has studied the consanguineous relationship in Akyem land of Eastern Region of Ghana and has identified a dangerous unit of heredity which is being transferred from parent to offspring, a distinct sequence of DNA forming part of a chromosome in Akufo Ado family. This vicious bitter pill of arrant nonsense is what Fiifi Kwete tried to force down the throats of Ghanaians to swallow without question and to accept as reality in our socio-political lives. And come and see Fiifi Kwete, looking stern and stone faced with his wide -opened nasal orifices like a convulsion patient and his eyes also widely opened as if he was seeing stars and monsters from Kwaebibirim forest, offering nothing in his submission but suchunprovoked abuse and personality attacks which unmistakably borders on ethno-centric and divisive implications.
To be frank I noticed the programme host Sunhini twisting uncomfortably in his seat. NDC operatives are quick to tell critics of Late President Mills to let his spirits rest in peace and that culturally it is an abhorrence to abuse the dead. Where are the NDC operatives to condemn Fiifi Kwete on his last Saturday submissions on the Big 3? What at all have JB Danquah, William Ofori Ata and Edward Akufo Ado done to deserve such dishonourable attacks? None of them were found or charged as bomb throwers. None of them were warmongers who set out to destabilize Ghana in their time. They lived peaceful lives and insisted on their democratic and human rights to death. How can Fiifi Kwete visit his frustrations and exasperations on these noble nationalists just because Nana Akufo Ado, their relative is legally challenging the 2012 Presidential contest?
What is Fiifi’s point? The cheek of it is that Fiifi is from the stock of vile political marauders who have executed atrocious acts of judicial killings, murders, suppression, culture of silence and general insecurity in Ghana. He turns round and accuses peace loving Akufo Ado of being a danger to society of Ghana. I think Fiifi Kwetey was not fair to the Akufo Ado family at all. Fiifi Kwete is assuming airs in this country. He is arrogantly disdainful. He was the same man who has pronounced that no Muslim will ever be President of Ghana. He seems to be getting away with divisive declarations and carrying himself openly as the new blow man in town. Now he thinks he has good reasons to pick on Akufo Ado family and freely tag them as being the MOST DANGEROUS family around.
Fiifi Kwete must know that someone will equally and rightly have good reasons to take on persons, families and regions. For instance, we can also have good reasons to pick on his tribesmen, Ewes (not a family) as the most dangerous in Ghana—just from the fact that Prof. Kofi Awoonor, an Ewe tribal jingoist, published his theses in the 1973 about suppressing an imagined Ashanti hegemony in Ghana, that efforts must be pursued to keep Ashantis out of central power at all costs --- Hon Kosi Kodem a Volta MP sounding ethnocentric, once said officially on the floor of Parliament in 1998 that , Ewes would always prefer the worst form of NDC government in Ghana to the best governance under NPP---that Rawlings addressed a durbar in Volta Region and told them all Voltarians who support NPP must go for psychiatric treatment---that Ashantis received the worst form of treatment from
Rawlings 19-year rule, having had their businessmen harassed and persecuted and being deliberately denied top positions in the central government, Civil service, military , police, immigration, parastatals , etc. So the conclusion is that Ewes, with this mindset, are the most dangerous in the country. Will Fiifi Kwete and his like-minded morons be happy with that portrayal? No, it won’t be fair to Ewes and Fiifi Kwete will not be happy with that portrayal.
So I encourage and advise Fiifi Kwete to show decency and humbleness and find a way to apologise to Nana Akufo Ado for his unkind vituperations on his person and his family last Saturday 3rd August 2013. Fiifi Kwete is a Christian and I believe he can still repent from his hate-filled, malicious and vindictive temperament and demeanour. Fiifi Kwete, the vindictive mind must repent.
