...to be Permanently Ridden by Heat -Staggered NDC
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. The running-mate of the perennial flagbearer of the so-called National Democratic Congress (P/NDC) continues to insult the intelligence of Ghanaians through the nostalgic and wistfully unguarded use of empty promises. And in his latest assay at this tired political gimmickry, Mr. John Dramani Mahama is reported by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) to have told the Paramount King and people of the Gonja Traditional Area that the twenty protracted years that the P/NDC spent intimidating and begrudging northern Ghanaians of vital development projects and basic amenities, were tantamount to a mere political dress-rehearsal that has now best positioned the P/NDC to do better by the people this time around, that is, should the Ghanaian electorate err in returning the P/NDC to power.
Perhaps, it would have made far better sense for Mr. Mahama to have also highlighted the imperative need for the far more progressive ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to be accorded an equal number of years in power, for the latter to do as well as it has already been doing by not only northern Ghanaians but the entire citizenry of the country at large. Instead, and all-too-unforgivably and predictably, the Gonja people found themselves being luridly regaled with another cockamamie story regarding why the pseudo-socialist and populist dictatorship of the P/NDC ought to be given another chance at the polls, in order for the infamous Rawlings Corporation to permanently entrench its unsavory culture among the people. To the preceding effect, the Vice-Presidential Candidate of the P/NDC shamelessly ranted: “He who is on top of a horse does not feel the heat of the ground[,] but when he jumps down to feel it, he would not make a mistake to be brought down the second time. Experience is the best teacher” (Ghanaweb.com 6/2/08).
Of course, nobody really needs to apprise the Gonja people of the stark, if also unpardonably insolent, fact that in the warped imagination of Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills and Mr. John Mahama, Ghanaians are the longsuffering, beasts of burden of the proverbial movers and shakers of the so-called Provisional National Democratic Congress (P/NDC). And the damning implication that Ghanaians would gladly suffer another P/NDC dictatorship, with its attendant and routine breach of democratic rule of law and human rights, ought to give any forward-looking group of Ghanaians ample food-for-thought between now and Election 2008.
It was also quite amusing to hear Mr. Mahama appropriate the purported “human [sic] nature and conduct” of Prof. Atta-Mills to gain electoral points. “Let us adopt Professor Mills’ human nature and conduct our campaign peacefully[,] so that we will win [sic] the people’s support to push us easily into the Castle, come December 2008.”
Actually, whichever set of presidential candidates clinches Election 2008 does not get to enter the old Slave Castle at Osu in December 2008, but rather January 2009. Still, what needs highlighting is the fact that it was the same purported “humility” of Prof. Atta-Mills that enabled the latter’s former boss to both oppress and exploit Ghanaians for twenty years without let or hindrance. And here, particularly, we have in mind the countless number of talented Ghanaian entrepreneurs who had their businesses summarily expropriated or destroyed and, in many instances, had to flee the country in fear of their very lives and safety, merely for refusing to unreservedly endorse the regressive and pseudo-socialist policies of the P/NDC.
In sum, what Ghanaians need at this juncture of our political and cultural development are courageous leaders who are both willing and prepared – as evidenced by their track-record – to risk their lives and reputation in defense and preservation of the freedom and judicial protection of the people at large. Unfortunately, the track-record of Prof. Atta-Mills merely indicates the profile of a docile opportunist who has just been all-too-willing to go along in order to get along. And in the process, millions of Ghanaians have had their human rights and, even in some horrendous cases, their very lives and livelihood summarily denied them.
It is also rather insulting to hear Mr. Mahama flatly and shamelessly attempt to hoodwink the people by claiming the campaign credo of the P/NDC to be innocently and romantically predicated on “Peace and Love.” Needless to say, the last time that any of us heard Mr. Alban S. K. Bagbin, the NDC parliamentary opposition leader, allude to this “Peace and Love” campaign slogan, it was to vehemently promise the supporters and sympathizers of the P/NDC that the main, and singular, agenda of the Rawlings Corporation, should the Ghanaian electorate make the fatal error of returning the P/NDC to power, is to ensure the prompt and summary imprisonment of each and every one of the New Patriotic Party’s cabinet appointees.
Recently, for instance, Mr. Bagbin was quoted in a news headline with this threat: “Don’t Touch the Law on Causing Financial Loss to the State!” If, indeed, there exists any Ghanaian, by birth or citizenship, who really believes that Mr. Bagbin uttered the foregoing in the spirit of “Peace and Love,” that person had better promptly check her-/himself into a mental asylum.
*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 the author of 17 books, including “Ghanaian Politics Today” (Atumpan Publications/lulu.com, 2008).
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com.
