HIGHLIGHTS
Dzifa Attivor’s political ethnocentrism.
Mahamadu Bawumia’s (alias Dr. Pink Sheet) religiocentric ethnocentrism: Infamous rhetoric idiocy: “You and I were not there.”
Akufo-Addo’s “All-die-be-die” and “Yen Akanfuo.”
Yaw Osafo Marfo’s resource-rich Akan-ethnocracy and ethnic politics.
The Partisan Myth of Narcissus himself, talking-head Prof. Amoako Baah’s and his comic reliefs; his undying infatuation with his own rhetorical fantasy-village replete with the deadly virus of political ethnocentrism.
Kennedy Agyapong’s infamous singsong: “Akans (Asantes) should kill Ewes and Gas.”
These rhetorical idiosyncrasies represent some of the highpoints or defining moments in the Fourth Republic, an interesting period in the Orwellian jungle of politics in Ghana. Only Ken may stand out in this thick gridlock of Orwellian jungle of politics with his trademark primitive by-heart talk; his overly rehearsed and pretentious knack for feinting combustive language in the public arena; his bombastic rhetorical flourish on television and radio; and his assertive projection, though bogus, of violent streaks and deceptive persona. What is more, Ken’s primitive politics and behavior, his uncultured and unguarded outbursts, both could provoke civil unrest and possibly plunge the country into a civil war. This is the man to watch closely!
One watches and listens to Ken on television and radio and sees and hears a deeply troubled man consistently pouring out furious lava of rhetorical vindictiveness from his lavatory of a loud mouth. For what? We do not know! One wonders how Ghanaian Members of Parliament (MPs) are vetted for political office. This includes the medical evaluation of the mental health of career, aspiring, and entrenched legislators such as Ken, a questionable character amongst Ghana’s nouveau riche.
Assessing the mental health of any MP-designate is a serious question we have raised from time to time, and maintained as an important step towards weeding out politicians with questionable mental health. On the other hand, we are not too certain if political ambition or the drive for political office can somehow disturb the mental balance of otherwise healthy mental states.
We have, nevertheless, seen instantiated perturbations in the balance of healthy mental states in the case of Kennedy Agyapong, Dzifa Attivor, Yaw Osafo Marfo, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Victoria Hammah, Prof. Amoako Baah, Akufo-Addo, Chairman Wontumi…and more recently— Dr. Mahamudu Bawamia! These species of political animals inhabit an insane asylum called Ghana.
What is actually in the viral gene of politics that makes men and men tick off, that is makes men and women rile up at the least provocation, even to the extent of doing the unthinkable?
We are making a discursive beeline for instinctive criminality and violence in our politics.
Not too long ago, we all witnessed the acid-bathing assassination of Adams Mahama; we witnessed the clandestine importation of South African and Serbian mercenaries into Ghana under the pretense of “training” low-level apparatchiks of the NPP; and also witnessed the creation of partisan macho-men (Azorka Boys, Kandahar Boys, Invincible Forces, Bolga Boys)…for executing mob (jungle) justice and street fight in the arena of our duopolistic politics!
There is no question in our minds that it is politics and politicians—with their crooked village mentalities and underdeveloped and wicked faculties—who are destroying the society. Ken, the famous sharp-tongued Donald Trump of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and Chairman Wontumi, the Asante Region-based village champion of the NPP, are in fact what progressive politics is not.
Some web portals including Ghanaweb recently reported that Ken, the Assin Central Member of Parliament (MP), has (our emphasis):
“endorsed the alleged assault of the Member of Parliament for Manhyia North in Kumasi, Mr. Collins Owusu Amankwah by the Regional Chairman [Chairman Wontumi] of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)…According to him [Ken], Chairman Wontumi did well by assaulting the MP and insisted he deserved more beatings…‘W’abo no, w’abo no.’”
The Twi phrase “W’abo no, w’abo no” literally means for lack of a better expression “If one is beaten, then one is certainly beaten.” The tone of finality is what actually conveys the literal rendering of the Twi phrasing into that of English. And yet, this is coming from a legislator who may not even have been familiar with all the facts of the case. Here is what he also reportedly said (our emphasis):
“He [Chairman Wontumi] has done well. I don’t know what happened and they said he has assaulted the MP. That is the kind of Chairman we need.”
This is the same man who said not quite too long ago that “Otabil is the only true man of God.” No second-guessing of the intentions of Chairman Wontumi because his instincts had always been right. Hearsay as proven forensic evidence for this supposed legislator? Oh Ghana! What has this once-beautiful and promising country done wrong to merit these disgraceful attitudes and acts from some of its citizens?
Elsewhere, though, he made the following additional observation:
“It is good he [MP] has been beaten, he deserves it, he even deserves more slaps.”
Here, contrast Freddy Blay’s understanding of the controversy involving Chairman Wontumi with Ken’s (our emphasis):
“I don’t know the reasons for his [Chairman Wontumi’s] arrest. He is alleged to have slapped somebody I don’t know. I don’t have the full story. I can’t pass judgment, I can’t express an opinion.”
This is an intelligent lawyer speaking, even if we so much as disagree with his opportunistic and divisive politics. In fact Blay fully supports what he calls “solidarity mob,” perhaps a deactivated gang of men and women clandestinely trained for jungle justice in advancing the political ambition of Akufo-Addo.
What is more, Ken’s questionable reasons for supporting Chairman Wontumi’s alleged physical assault on Amankwah is that the latter, as he succinctly put, is to be blamed for:
“clandestinely working against Nana Akufo-Addo, refusing to contribute financially to the course of the NPP and therefore deserves more beatings.”
Where is the evidence?
Why is Ken refusing to take his watertight evidence to the NPP’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and National Council (NC)?
And what if these public disturbances are not being staged to undermine the Electoral Commission’s limited voters’ registration exercise?
Let us ignore this conspiracy theory and forge ahead: So, why were Paul Afoko, Kwabena Agyapong, and Sammy Crabbe suspended then? In other words, Ken is saying that the internal censuring structures of the NPP make it possible for certain persons who commit certain political “crimes” within the party hierarchy to be physically assaulted and even beaten to a pulp, while the same system of internal censuring structures allow for others to be suspended indefinitely?
Where is the moral justification for the double standards? And the leadership of this ethnocentric party says its political philosophy and ideology represents the soul and heart of Ghana’s democracy?
What a pity!
Yet in some “civilized” polities Ken would have lost his parliamentary seat, or come under enormous public pressure to retract his incendiary instigations, but certainly not in Ghana, a big village of insane asylums. In Ghana, such foolish and primitive talks are said to indicate positive growth of our democracy. This also is probably why Ghana’s democracy stinks to high heaven!
Ken and his likeminded supporters have made sure that no sense of Shakespearean gleek prevails or grows in the thickening soil of Ghanaian democracy, however sham. This is also why anytime he goes to his $80,000 bed to catch some sleep he only thinks of “money and fight.”
He has verbally fought and abused women in public—Afia Schwarzenegger comes to mind—by way of his obscene, primitive, insulting, sexist, and largely unprintable language, even threatening to drive her away from Ghana as though that insane asylum is his and his alone.
This attention-seeking and in-your-face village champion of an insane politician does not shy away from controversy!
He has even called his own party “bogus” and members of the party “fool” and “idiot.” It is regrettable, nonetheless, how his incendiary instigations may even worsen an already volatile situation, make police work difficult or possibly compromise the investigational forays of the police into the matter.
Ken has gone on record in favor of beating MPs who misbehave! Indeed, NPP is showing its true colors of mobocracy under the crushing weight of an unenlightened and undisciplined leadership.
On the other hand, all these staged public disturbances and the “solidarity mob” political phraseology of Blay are probably meant strike fear in or to demonstrate to President Mahama and the leadership of state security apparatuses that the NPP has an army of civilians who are ready to battle with the state.
Ken, on the other hand, has made an unsubstantiated claim that the National Democratic Party (NDC) was and is behind NPP apparatchiks, like the one Chairman Wontumi allegedly physically assaulted. The same charges had been leveled against Kwabena Agyapong, Paul Afoko, Nyaho Tamakloe, Sammy Crabbe, Arthur Kennedy, Kwame Mpiani…the list if endless!
This deadly viral strain of a political animal called Ken, who is more likely to respond to affirmatively to the rhetorical question “I asked for the news, not the weather?” when he throws his fits of anger and tantrums in public interviews, has since distanced himself from the “Akans (Asante) kill Ewes and Gas” fiasco claiming that the media quoted him out of context.
It is proper that the festival of slaps he wishes for the victims of Chairman Wontumi ends up in his crude face.
FINAL THOUTHTS 1
Thus far Edward Enning, an NPP MP for Obuasi East, has publicly excoriated Ken and accused him of “naked hypocrisy” and “double standards.”
Of course, hell would break loose and Ghana would turn into ashes if Ken were Chairman Wontumi’s victim. In this particular regard, Enning was more specific: “The whole world will break loose.”
Then also Osei Kyei, Minority leader in Parliament, has expressed his strong disapproval of Ken’s endorsement of Chairman Wontumi’s physical assault on Amankwah, describing it as “unfortunate.”
What has Akufo-Addo, the presidential candidate of the NPP, got to say about the party’s internal combustion and internecine warfare that seem to have no end in sight?
FINAL THOUGHTS 2
But why should street fights, acid-bathing, and use of dangerous weapons characterize our democracy?
Just look at the violence that has met the ongoing limited registration exercise undertaken by the EC!
Here we agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Franklin Oduro, of the Center for Democratic Development (CDD), and his sentiments:
“This is the period that we have to set those examples to serve as a deterrent going to November. If we don’t begin to punish now, then people will not be afraid of breaking the law on Election Day, and I think we should begin to do that at this stage. If people think that they can break the law and will not be sanctioned, then they can do worst things in the future.
“Because if we don’t begin to set precedent by punishing people to serve as a deterrent, then we don’t know what’s going to happen on polling day on November. Those who break the law, no matter what, they should be brought to justice. They should be arrested and prosecuted so people know that when they break any of the electoral laws, they will not go free…”
Yes, Dr. Oduro has command of the moral high ground when it comes to the political morality and political economy of impunity. However, and unfortunately, those at the top are not showing strong leadership in this area by applying our system of punitive laws to themselves and to their cronies who run afoul of national laws. This privileged class is the bane of our society and development.
Look at all the political stealing going on in the country and look at how most of those caught red-handed are practically let go. Until we treat all citizens equal before the law, the majestic presence of impunity will continue to remain untouchable and supreme in the land of the insane.
FINAL THOUGHTS 3
And there is the case of George Lahiri Maban, an MP from the Northern Region (Wulensi), who is alleged to have violently assaulted an NPP registration agent, Peche Nsando. The police are reported to be on his tail. Then also Allotey Jacobs, the Central Regional Chairman of the NDC, has served notice that his party will deal ruthlessly with some NPP youth who allegedly physically assaulted Dr. Ahadzi, an NDC Director of Research. Having said that, we shall end this piece with actor Mr. Beautiful’s precise yet informational insights on the right to freedom of association:
“Politics in Ghana, the village aspect is too much. I believe in NDC, others believe in NPP and others too believe in other parties, everyone is entitled to his/her freedom of association, let’s be mature and rise above this dirty politics.
“If someone belongs to NDC, and someone also belongs to NPP, people should know we are not enemies.
“It’s my right to support any party I think it’s good for me. I chose NDC, you can also decide which party to choose. I just don’t know why someone should be insulted because he has decided to support one political party or another.”
Kumawood has, unfortunately, blacklisted Mr. Beautiful for his open support for President Mahama and the NDC, and for this very reason, he is no longer or hardly featured in Kumawood movies. Kumasi, the ethnocentric base of the NPP where Kumawood movies are made, is also the ethnocentric base of the village champion Chairman Wontumi. It is as though Ken is also carrying this ethnocentric base on his erratic, short-fuse tongue and head. He knows this as well.
This ethnocentric base may as well be the theater for the upcoming duopolistic war, which will never come to pass because the enemies of the state will be crushed and crushed and crushed…
REFERENCES
Ghanaweb. “Ken Agyapong Endorses MP’s Beating.” May 3, 2016.
Katakyie K.O. Agyemang. “Are We Really ‘Fools and Idiots’ As NPP Members?” March 23, 2013.
Ghanaweb. “I Chose NDC, You Too Choose Your Party—Mr. Beautiful.” May 3, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “Nov. 7 Polls: Danger Looms.” May 3, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “Wontumi Should’ve Slapped Manhyia MP More—Ken Agyapong.” May 4, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “Wontumi Arrest: I Won’t Condemn Solidarity Mob—Blay.” May 4, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “We’ll Beat MPs Who Misbehave—Kennedy Agyapong.” May 4, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “Police ‘Chase’ NDC MP For Slapping Registration Agent.” May 3, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “We’ll Beat NPP Supporters—Allotey Jacobs Fumes.” May 2, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “Agyapong’s Endorsement Of Attack On MP Unfortunate—Minority Leader.” May 5, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “MP Slaps Ken Agyapong For Endorsing Wontumi’s Slaps.” May 5, 2016.
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