Indisputably True: NPP Did Not Set Boateng-Gyan Up to Mischief

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

Once again, the key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) have been caught with their pants down, as it were. And this is perfectly in character with the vigilante and faux Social-democratic party which Togbui Avaklasu cobbled out of the ashes of the Ghana Taliban Council (GTC), otherwise known as the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), a veritable terrorist organization that made the official liquidation of the best and brightest members of the Ghanaian judicial system its topmost priority, and incontestably dominated our national political landscape from December 31, 1981 to January 1992.

In the latest episode, an audiotape of a clandestine meeting organized by Mr. Yaw Boateng-Gyan, the angel-faced National Organizer of the NDC was intercepted by some opposition New Patriotic Party-leaning operatives. On the tape, the NDC National Organizer (some call him “Black Chinese”) and some prominent key players, including Finance Minister Dr. Kwabena Dufuor, are alleged to have conspired to deliberately cause mayhem and carnage during the December 7, 2012 general election, blame it on the supporters of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the presidential candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), so as to enable Transitional-President John “Paradigm-Shift” Dramani Mahama to be summarily declared de facto and de jure winner of Election 2012 (See “Asiedu-Nketia: NPP Doctored Boateng-Gyan’s Secret Tape” Vibeghana.com 9/7/12).

What is significant about the alleged secret audiotape is its impregnable and unimpeachable authenticity and credibility. Absolutely no key player among the conspiratorial party is denying the same; and almost each and every one of them, including Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the General-Secretary of the NDC, and Mr. Boateng-Gyan, the alleged mastermind and chief-conspirator of the violently intentioned secret meeting, has publicly confirmed the fact that, indeed, any such event took place. Mr. Boateng-Gyan has even gone further to publicly acknowledge that, indeed, one of the dominant voices captured on the magnetic tape belongs to him. They are also not, generally, denying the alleged theme and purpose of the afore-referenced rendezvous.

Predictably, what both Messrs. Asiedu-Nketia and Boateng-Gyan are claiming is that the tape had been slyly doctored by operatives of the NPP prior to making the same public. On the tape, Mr. Boateng-Gyan is, allegedly, clearly heard promising a posse of hardnosed young macho party loyalists some “soft loans and National Security Identification Cards to enable them do a yet-to-be-instructed job during the December polls.”

You see, what makes this alleged magnetic-tape of a smoking-gun worthy of global attention is that the NDC and its parent ideological juggernaut and former government of the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), have the bloodiest track-record in the history of postcolonial Ghana. Both governments were led by the former Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, the country’s longest-ruling dictator. And the bloody administrative record, of course, includes the brutal assassination of Ghanaian High Court judges, the execution by firing squad of political opponents and the massive disappearance of an unknown number of ordinary civilians.

It is, thus, in view of the foregoing that rather than have the Mahama-Arthur government pretend to investigate itself, the tape-recorded evidence ought to be promptly handed over to the Chief-Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for review and prompt action before an inordinately, and inexorably, ambitious Transitional-President John “Paradigm-Shift” Dramani Mahama, literally, runs the proverbial ship of the Ghanaian state the way of such former war-torn African countries as Rwanda, Congo DR, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Angola.

Ultimately, as Mr. Asiedu-Nketia intimated but, of course, for purely cynical and politically expedient reasons, the magnetic smoking-gun of the audiotape unreservedly justifies Nana Akufo-Addo’s clarion call for vigilant and commensurate self-defense, in what has widely become known as the New Patriotic Party presidential candidate’s “All-Die-Be-Die” mantra. It ought not to also be forgotten that not quite long ago, Mr. Asiedu-Nketia, himself, led a fundraising drive for NDC “foot-soldiers” who had either been incapacitated or fallen on hard economic times, as a direct result of laying down their lives for the militant defense of their party’s interest, largely involving the collaborative rigging of the polls and the intimidation of their political opponents and, where feasible, the prevention of the latter from conscientiously exercising their franchise.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of “Ghanaian Politics Today” (Lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.