Kennedy Agyapong is partly to blame for greed galore among top NPP hierarchy

I watched the videoclip whatsapped to me from Ghana by a relative, in which media proprietor and New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for the Assin-Central Constituency, in the Central Region, Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, pontifically claimed that the apparently massive failure by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to stem the rising and destructive tide of Galamsey, or illegal small-scale mining, in the country has left the President effectively rootless with absolutely no moral legs to stand on. No such kneejerk assessment of the political track-record and standing of Nana Akufo-Addo could, at once, be more hollow and erroneous.

And yes, Mr. Agyapong is smack on target to observe that the President has been let down, big time, by some key operatives of his own party, to wit, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). But, of course, such an epic letdown was all to be expected from the get-go, as it were, even as ruling-party cynics and mavericks like Mr. Agyapong himself, as well as his protégé, Mr. Kwame Asare-Obeng – aka A-Plus – the Hiplife artist, made their ability to secure the most lucrative government contracts for themselves and their relatives the sole and most significant criterion for gauging and assessing the significance and development status of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party.

He may not readily recognize this or be willing to soberly and humbly accept this fact, but it was inescapably Mr. Agyapong’s flamboyant flaunting of his personal wealth, a considerable chunk of which, we learn, was amassed through the granting of government contracts, first, by former President John Agyekum-Kufuor, in the public arena, that inspired other quick-money-seeking members of the New Patriotic Party to up the ante, as it were. it matters little here, whether it took Mr. Agyapong 35 years or 40 years to acquire the personal wealth which he is so quick to flaunt before the Ghanaian public at the least opportunity or upon the slightest provocation.

You see, the most accurate and effective way of measuring the performance level of Nana Akufo-Addo’s Administration is to significantly take into account the general caliber of Ghanaian politicians in charge and in control of the country’s affairs presently. The fact of the matter is that naked greed is the order of the day, as readily exemplified by the obscene payments of scandalous gratuities of the sort quadrennially voted for themselves by our parliamentarians at the end of every term, without self-styled morally righteous lightning rods like the Assin-Dompem native raising even a split-second’s voice in protest.

When he is not smugly badmouthing other members of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Mr. Agyapong could be heard bragging about the number of houses the he owns in Ghana, and also how lavishly he has been living in the United States and schooling his children for quite sometime now. You see, in order to be able to create the sort of corruption-free society that he has been publicly screaming and clamoring for, Mr. Agyapong ought to be instructed by those of us professionally successful citizens who refuse to measure the value and worth of our lives solely and exclusively in dollars and cents, or cedis and pesewas, on the well-lived life of sacrifice and civic responsibility. In sum, people who woefully lack the sort of moral and cultural discipline necessary to significantly move the country ahead on the economic-development ladder or index, should stop pretending to be far better than their studious acolytes and followers in the vulgar realm of blind-wealth-grab.

It is also ironic that Mr. Agyapong would be blaming Fante-descended operatives of the ruling New Patriotic Party, especially in the Central region for bringing the good name and hard-earned reputation of Nana Akufo-Addo down the sewer. Not very long ago, the same Assin-Central NPP-Member of Parliament was telling his fellow party operatives and the Ghanaian public at large that President Akufo-Addo was woefully neglectful of the Fante-descended members of the New Patriotic Party when it came to his selection of cabinet appointees. Now, surprisingly, the same Mr. Agyapong would have Ghanaians understand that it is actually the Fante operatives of the New Patriotic Party who are bringing down the good name, reputation and the hitherto admirable performance track-record of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo into abject disrepute. So, did we go or did we come?

Indeed, he may think and actually believe that digging up humongous dirt on some of the key operatives of the ruling New Patriotic Party is his duty as a patriotic Ghanaian citizen. But, of course, the reality here is that Mr. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong may be inadvisably and nihilistically campaigning for the apocalyptic comeback of the worst elements on the Ghanaian political landscape. I am here, of course, talking about the thoroughgoing corruption-prone Mahama-led National Democratic Congress, at precisely the same time that Mr. Agyapong is decrying the fact that contrary to the NDC’s own traditional political playbook, Nana Akufo-Addo and his associates, minions and assigns have been unwisely ceding too many government contracts to undeserving operatives of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net