Kwesi Pratt Is Not A Foreign Agent!

Feature Article, by Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.

A rejoinder to: Kwesi Pratt is a Foreign

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

Maybe someone who knows better ought to tell Okoampa that "Wikileaks [are]

not the handiwork of ... a bona fide European citizen fed up with the

hypocritical political culture of Western government", but an Australian who

goes by the name of Julian Assange. It is also interesting that it is

Okoampa who is giving "a wake-up call to all those naïve Ghanaians who think

that flagitiously maligning our prominent leaders before foreign security

agents is the hallmark of patriotism"! I am grateful for the opportunity

that this presents to help expose him further to Ghanaians.

Notice how the "political officer" of the US Embassy has become "foreign

security agents". I am happy I have dealt already with the key word

"PROTECT" that was used as an excuse to confront the revelation that, "Nana

used to smoke a lot of marijuana, and I'm telling you, a lot. Even in the

morning, there used to be a cloud around him and you could see that he was

high". So I can now deal with the politics surrounding this.

WHAT IS THE MATTER?

I was so amused to read Jeremiah

Vandermeerof Cannabis

Culture's take on this:

"Of course, just because it's written in a Wikileak, doesn't mean it's true.

That hasn't stopped members of other political parities in Ghana from demanding

Akufo-Addo's take a drug test or

resign.

I don't have a heck of a lot of sympathy for Akufo-Addo, who was the

Attorney-General and Minister of Justice from 2001 to 2003 under former

President John Kufuor. Marijuana is illegal in Ghana, as is

homosexuality.

Laws like that could drive a man to smoke first thing in the morning."

As I write this, I am mindful of the fact that this is not something Kwesi

has confirmed or denied. He is insisting on sound journalistic principles

and right not to give a comment. He does not do a job Akufo-Addo is supposed

to do for himself, that is, to clear his name from all these drug

allegations and bring it to a closure.

"'In the interest of Nana Akufo-Addo himself, I think he has to bring this

speculation and all to a formal closure by using formal processes if he has

the confidence to bring this matter to an end. Because this will continue to

linger for a very long time. I am not the one to clear him.'

According to Pratt, he is guided by the journalistic ethic that information

obtained per privileged circumstances is not meant for public disclosure and

would therefore not answer questions of whether he said what has been

attributed to him of Nana Addo or not." See: "Pratt: Let Nana Addo clear his

'drugs' charge himself, not me", Myjoyonline, General News, Friday 9th

September, 2011.

What I find most fascinating is whether really there are that many people

who have not heard of Akufo-Addo's wee-smoking habit. And what exactly is

the secret we are talking about here. I have been wanting to say more on the

entire issue in WikiLeaks: Is Kwesi Pratt "Spying" On The

NPP?

(...A

Rejoinder to: Kwesi Pratt is A Double Agent -Wikileaks By Akwasi A. Afrifa

Akoto, Modern Ghana.com, Feature Article of Satuarday, 10 Sept, 2011.) but

it would have made it too long and a bit irrelevant to the technical issues

at stake. Okoampa gives me the exact opportunity I need to opine publicly on

the matter. And for this, I am sincerely grateful to Dr. Kwame

Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., of the Danquah Institute and wish to thank him.

Okoampa-watchers have also noticed his vulture attitude towards exposed fake

stories such as the witch-hunting of Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata in the Kufuor

Administration. On the issue of the "Rawlings Hit-List", I remember saying

to myself that if Okoampa does not write about this, it will be difficult

for the story to die. And lo, and behold, Okoampa wrote: And the story

died. And I was proved to be right. Thus reading from Okoampa's special

talent to gravitate towards dead political slimes in much the same way as

the vulture is to a carcass, I can safely predict that, with his take on it,

we have seen the end of this silly story.

This is why I was very pleased to see this particular article by Okoampa. It

came quicker than expected. I was not expecting Okoampa to sound the requiem

article on this ridiculous circus any time soon! I can already anticipate

with total contentment, the kind of comments Okoampa is going to elucidate

with this article. And as a street-wise citizen, I am certain that those

behind the plot to paint no other person but Comrade Kwesi Pratt, Jnr. as a

"foreign agent" must be feeling very frustrated by the way Kwame Okoampa

treated the subject, because it gives their game away!

I would be happy to see Okoampa humiliated to a point where, he would have

to be told to write sense or shut it, because more and more people in the

elephant family will begin to precipitate towards Alan Kyeremanteng and John

Kufour "Agenda 2016" and abandon the Akufo Addo "Victory 2012" team simply

because of Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.! I know there is brisk movement and

under-currents going on, and a lot of public relations cinema and

make-beliefs to maintain the façade of party unity that both sides need.

Funny thing is that Okoampa behaves like a bull in a china shop and keep

destroying every single constructive job being done for his "uncle" by

thousands of dedicated supporters across the country. His insults of Ewes at

the slightest pretext, make him sound more of someone who is thinking more

of taking power by the force of arms rather than by the ballot box, and

showing people where power lies, and in particular, the significance of his

Akyem royal blood.

OKOAMPA'S LECTURE ON PATRIOTISM

For someone who knows what Kwame Okoampa is about in his prodigious

writings, the kind of desires and wishes he has expressed publicly, such as

his happiness about the claim to Ghana's territorial waters by Laurent

Gbagbo's government. The reason why he was happy was because Ivory Coast

will have our Jubilee Field! This is how much Okoampa loves Ghana.

In a feature article we even read Okoampa openly jubilating over the

prospect of war with the Ivory Coast, this time, on account of some bogus

claims by Laurent Gbagbo to our territorial integrity:

"I am glad that, finally, the Ivorians are beginning to assert their right

of access and enjoyment of Ghana's purportedly new-found oil wealth.

Perusing President John Mills' second and latest “State of the Nation

Address” the other day, I couldn't help but wonder aloud why Ghanaians seem

to be so morbidly afflicted with this kind of hysteria whereby the mere

announcement of a potential windfall is deafeningly celebrated even while

such “natural” largesse squarely remains on the prospector's drawing board.

It also didn't quite make a lot of sense to me that an oil find that lay so

dangerously close to Ghana's border with Côte d'Ivoire would also have been

so godlessly uncharitable as to neatly parcel itself out for the exclusive

benefit and enjoyment of Ghanaians while the war-seasoned Ivorians continued

to languish in penury." See: 'Who Are These “Parliamentarian

Drivers”?',

by* *Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.,* *Feature Article, Mon, 15 Mar 2010.

So if such a person comes to tell Ghanaians that Kwesi Pratt is a threat to

the security of Ghana, shall we say he is saying this out of love for our

country? A very dangerous lunatic who sits in his ghetto in Bronx and writes

articles upon articles fanning inter-ethnic conflicts, and literally calling

for war in Ghana! (See: "The NPP Must Prepare for

War!",

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., Feature Article | Thu, 07 Jun 2007).

And he is not a security risk! Okoampa is not a foreign agent! Even though

when it comes to issues such as the establishment of US Africa Command

Headquarters in Accra, and US military bases in Ghana, Okoampa is more

Catholic than the Pope! In "A

rejoinder:

Okoampa

Requires Immediate Psychiatric

Examination!"Feature

Article by Nana Akyea Mensah, Thu, 05, Aug 2010, I stated:

"Even the planners of US Africom have since acknowledged that the initial

approach was a mistake!Okoampa did not mind whatever the Americans were

willing to ram down our throats! There he goes:

"In the lead-up to President George W. Bush's five-nation African

tour-of-duty," Okoampa laments, "the Director of Public Affairs at the

United States' Embassy in Accra was prompted to vehemently deny widespread

rumors and allegations regarding Mr. Bush's official visit to Ghana, from

February 19-21, climaxing with the bilateral ratification of an agreement

between the American leader and Ghana's President John Agyekum-Kufuor

allowing the establishment of an American military base in the country."

(See: U. S. Embassy has Absolutely Nothing to Deny!!!, by Kwame

Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., Feature Article | Mon, 18 Feb 2008)

It must carefully be noted that even though Okoampa himself accepts and

welcomes "Mr. Bush's official visit to Ghana, from February 19-21", as

"climaxing with the bilateral ratification of an agreement between the

American leader and Ghana's President John Agyekum-Kufuor allowing the

establishment of an American military base in the country," for some very

strange reasons he still manages to refer to the opposition to these bases

as being based upon "vicious rumors and allegations"! "Allegations" that are

more or less his own!

"Indeed, one does not have to look far to conclude that such political

mischief is the incontrovertible brainchild of the so-called National

Democratic Congress (NDC), the pseudo-political party that militarily

occupied Ghana for nearly twenty years. Then also, this is not the first

time that the bugbear, or specter, of the establishment of a U. S. military

base is being bandied about. It is also significant to observe that the

NDC's ideological twin-sister, the so-called Convention People's Party

(CPP), has been in the thick of such vicious rumors and allegations." (See: U.

S. Embassy has Absolutely Nothing to

Deny!!!,

by Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., Feature Article | Mon, 18 Feb 2008)

Indeed when Kwesi Pratt blew the alarm about the US Africom and its

intentions to base its headquarters possibly in Ghana, the US Embassy came

out to deny the allegations. Kwame Okoampa is the only Ghanaian I know who

wrote a whole feature article supporting the Africom project at that time

and criticising the US Embassy for not owning up to the facts and going

ahead to publicly establish the bases!

Here is the guy who want to lecture Kwesi Pratt, Jnr., on "Patriotism" No

sane person can match such Chutzpah! It is more than obvious that the only

reason for which Kwame Okoampa would like to paint Kwesi black is because of

what Kwesi is reported to have said about his "uncle". And here, I think it

is pertinent to clarify what Kwesi actually said and not what people say he

said, both in the WikiLeaks and its aftermath. For the lack of space, I

shall limit this discussion on what was said in the document itself, and

hope for another opportunity to jump upon to discuss the rest.

THE REVELATIONS IN PERSPECTIVE

Perhaps, a little context will do. I have personally been around on a few

occasions in the early 1990s, where diplomats from various missions came to

see Mr. Pratt. It should be clearly understood that this is politics. I

fully endorsed and supported every single word Mr. Pratt uttered in my

presence to each of these diplomats. So the first thing to do is to see

things in context, because often, when you miss the underlying politics, you

miss everything.

So me as soon as I read the cable, I could not help myself from imagining a

scenario based upon my experience of working with Kwesi, several

possibilities behind those words. My favourite one was that Kwesi must have

known that the US was more inclined towards Akufo-Addo than his own

preferred candidate, Professor Mills. The individual who came to see Kwesi

is a political officer. That was his official title. So this was strictly

politics. It was a game of wits.

What the report may not tell or Kwesi might not have noticed are sometimes

the facial expressions of these well-trained diplomats, when they are being

openly told in a most dissuasive language possible, that they are betting on

the wrong horse. For, I think the political objective of Kwesi in such an

encounter is certainly not to give Akufo-Addo, a clean bill of health, even

though he did his best to tell the truth and to praise Akufo-Addo where

praise was due.

Rumours about Akufo Addo's use of drugs were already well-known to the

Americans. That is why they asked the question in the first place!

Everything Kwesi said was already an open secret. So what is important is

not even what he told the Americans but why said what he is reported to have

said. Notice that it was not Kwesi who brought this up. It was the political

officer who brought it up, because the Americans probably care not to be

associated with him, or measure their support, if the guy is openly known as

a junkie.

In circumstances like this, knowing very well the support of US

multinationals, and by that, the support of the US government for the

Akufo-Addo candidacy, as demonstrated at the Hyatt Hotel on the 4th of June

2008 in a secret luncheon at the Hyatt Hotel, Washington. organized by the

Whitaker Group, which was generally seen as an illegal fund-raising effort

against the laws of the United States and also against the laws in Ghana.

Mr. Pratt was probably dissuading through teasing the diplomat with

embarrassing facts, which must have been targeted to ridicule the US for

supporting a junkie! It could also influence US policy on the NPP candidate,

which was already favourable and mitigate their meddling.

And of course, "it is needless to say" to borrow from Okoampa, that, if I

had been present I would have laughed in a way that he would have known that

I was laughing at him diplomatically. Which means a full-hearted laugh with

a full-throated ease and contentment with the style Kwesi uses to tease the

imperialists with their junkie puppets! This is why I find Okoampa funny

when he is forced to project his own personality on someone he certainly

knows nothing about! Okoampa ridiculously writes:

"In the Akufo-Addo case, while some may well be tempted to invest Mr.

Pratt's allegation with some modicum of credibility, for the Insight's

managing-editor has, reportedly, had a long and intimate association with

Ghana's former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in the Kufuor

government going back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, nonetheless, what

ought to be equally considered is the fact that a staggeringly naïve Mr.

Pratt appears to have been overly eager to ingratiate himself with the

anonymous American diplomat to whom the staunch Convention People's Party

operative let on supposedly confidential information on Akufo-Addo."

Here is someone who clearly has no idea what the Kwesi Pratt phenomenon is.

I am not too sure of exactly what happened, but I will make an intelligent

guess from several possibilities, and I think I can smell in the nose, a

distinct possibility. It is not like he is revealing state secrets. Indeed,

if Kwesi succeeded in convincing the Political Officer of the US Embassy

that Akufo-Addo is not a cocaine addict but a wee-smoker, is it not better

than the original accusation? Has he not moved Ghana forward? Cocaine and

wee, which one is more serious?

One thing I like about Kwesi is his personal honesty, decency, and ability

to speak the say his mind in a clear and responsible manner. The "evil" that

men say, live after them, "the good is oft interred with their bones", so

let it be with Kwesi! I have read this over and over again, and I think

Kwesi conducted himself very brilliantly and gentlemanly in the interview.

The reason why I am making this claim is because, like Kwesi, I also thought

of Akufo-Addo as being less corrupt than those figures around him. Kwesi

made a point of that, which I think was fair and honest on his part. As a

senior journalist and Managing Editor of a newspaper from an important

constituency of Ghana's democratic left, and a seasoned political activist

in his own right, he knows very well what to say and what not to say. It is

a combination of these, coupled with amazing flashes of insight, such as his

prediction of the fall of Rawlings in an Atta-Mills Administration that

attract all sorts of people to him like a powerful magnet.

Read carefully and come back and tell me whether or not Kwesi Pratt, Jnr.,

was really putting Nana Akufo-Addo down, apart from being honest and scoring

a diplomatic goal by teasing the Americans with their junkie albatross on

their necks, who can never convince a majority of Ghanaians to vote for him

as their President, simply because of his use of drugs! The secret Kwesi is

supposed to be saying happens to be something majority of Ghanaians who will

be voting against Akufo-Addo might be having on their minds as they vote!

I am sure Kwesi would not have volunteered the information if he had not

been asked about Akufo-Addo and the cocaine allegations in the press. Kwesi

clearly defended Akufo-Addo that he did not believe he had anything to do

with cocaine. You see, sometimes, when you are defending someone from a very

grave offence, you have to admit the minor ones. Kwesi said he did not

believe in the cocaine stories, but he knows that the guy loves the weed.

Which in a way exonerates Akufo-Addo from the very serious charges of

cocaine abuse!

The beauty of it is how Kwesi honestly assembles the facts, if the WikiLeaks

story is true, and triumphs in a brilliant coup diplomatique full of

political sarcasm.

GHANA ELECTION: POLITICAL PUNDIT PREDICTS NDC WIN

Begin quote:

¶3. (C)

Pratt said that he has a long-standing personal relationship with both

Akufo-Addo and John Atta-Mills that goes back at least two decades. He felt

that Akufo-Addo had been unfairly tarnished by the assumption of corruption

because of the high-level positions he has held within the Kufuor

administration, but that he was in fact much cleaner than most of those

around him. Pratt has been a virulent critic of corruption in the Kufuor

government, which he labeled as 'astronomical" and "an affront to all

Ghanaians." The amounts of money being pocketed by public officials had

grown exponentially, he said, because of the discovery of oil and the

ever-increasing narcotics trade, but he posited that Akufo-Addo, in his role

as Foreign Minister in the second Kufuor administration, did not share in

the spoils. When questioned about persistent rumors of Akufo-Addo's own

cocaine habit, Pratt admitted that he had personal knowledge of the

candidate's drug use, but that it was not cocaine. "Nana used to smoke a lot

of marijuana," Pratt said, "and I'm telling you, a lot. Even in the morning,

there used to be a cloud around him and you could see that he was high. But

I never saw him do cocaine, and I think that is just an assumption people

made." WikiLeaks, Reference id 08ACCRA1509, Subject: Ghana Elections:

Political Pundit Predicts Ndc

Win,Source:

http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/11/08ACCRA1509.htm

End quote.

"IF YOU CAN NOT DEAL WITH THE TESTIMONY, DESTROY THE WITNESS" - a Danquah

tradition.

Okoampa uses the word "credibility" twice in his article:

Here he is worried that because of Mr. Pratt's credibility, people will tend

to believe his side of the story more than Akufo-Addo's:

"In the Akufo-Addo case, while some may well be tempted to invest Mr.

Pratt's allegation with some modicum of credibility, for the Insight's

managing-editor has, reportedly, had a long and intimate association with

Ghana's former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in the Kufuor

government going back to the late 1970s and early 1980s..."

Here he sets out to destroy such credibility:

"The latter, of course, directly implies that Mr. Pratt's credibility is not

airtight or foolproof. One, we actually are in the dark vis-à-vis the exact

circumstances under which Mr. Pratt snitched on Nana Akufo-Addo, since the

former has clearly admitted to the act. In other words, did any gifts or

bribe money change hands?"

I happen to know that in the Danquah tradition, a trait which seems to have

survived the old man is "character assassination". Danquah perfected it into

a state of art during the trial of eight of his very close relatives who

were found guilty of the ritual murder of Nana Akyea Mensah, the Odikro of

Apedwa. His principal defence strategy was to discredit any decent, law

abiding citizen who happened to see or know anything concerning the crime.

He attempted, at the great cost of the Akyem state, to systematically

assassinate the character of all the witnesses in the case. Of course, the

fact that he failed and it continues to fail does not seem to convince these

Danquah adherent that it is a foolish strategy. Okoampa is being tragically

foolish as Danquah was in his time. That is why as soon as Okoampa appears,

everything begins to calm down. It takes a stupid public to peddle this type

of character assassination. And you fail, simply because, fortunately, the

public is not as stupid as Dr. Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., really is!

Instead of dealing with the marijuana blues of his "uncle", Okoampa resorts

to invectives, name-calling, and character assassination, just as his

mentor, Dr. J. B. Danquah, had done before him. It is a tactic Okoampa is

very familiar with. He has even written about it concerning how Danquah used

it to destroy the witnesses to the case in which Nana Akyea Mensah was

believed to have been ritually murdered by eight of his own relatives. This

is Okoampa's own account of the silly tactic:

"Consequently, it appears that the first major, modern Ghanaian playwright

was forced by circumstances other than purely legal to proceed with his

Herculean role as a Defense Maestro or Conductor, for Danquah does not

appear to have personally mounted a spirited challenge against the

prosecution. And, indeed, as Rathbone wanly recalls: Danquah, who watched

the inquest proceedings which usefully rehearsed the prosecution evidence

for the defence as they were also implicitly commital proceedings, wrote to

the Okyenhene [- Nana Ofori-Atta II -] on 27 September 1944: The evidence

against the accused is very strong particularly the evidence of Botwe, Fosu,

Gyekye and Mireku. But I feel certain that very conclusive evidence is

available both at Kibi and in Ashanti against all these witnesses (Murder

And Politics 98; Ellipses appear in the original)." See: "The

EnduringLegacy Of Dr. J. B. Danquah PART 9",

Feature Article of Sunday, 8 May 2005, by **Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame.

If you cannot deal with the message, destroy the messenger. It did not work,

even though Danquah tried very hard to destroy the reputation of many decent

Ghanaians in order to save his brothers from the gallows! And it is not

going to work today, simply because it is Okoampa and not J. B. Danquah

doing a mischievous character assassination! I wish someone would be kind

enough to help this tormented soul wake up from his self-inflicted

nightmare, and smell the coffee!

It's Game Over!

*Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!*

*Cheers!*

*Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro*

http://www.panafricanistinternational.org/

Pan-Africanist International - a grammar of Pan-Africanism and its manners

of articulation!*

*

**

*Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheOdikro*

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