NDC Bribery Story Is True

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

It is squarely within the ambit of his portfolio as Propaganda Secretary for the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), for Mr. Richard Quashigah to cavalierly dismiss allegations of bribery of media operatives by Baba Jamal, the former Deputy Eastern Regional Minister and current Deputy Information Minister (See “NDC Does Not Bribe Journalists – Richard Quashigah” Peacefmonline.com 8/5/11).

The fact of the matter is that I was personally approached in the lead-up to Election 2008 by a Westchester, New York-resident in-law of a close friend, who categorically asked me to name what it would take to put me on the payroll of the National Democratic Congress. I riposted that my conscience and knowledge of the bloody history of the key NDC operatives, from their AFRC and PNDC eras, made it absolutely impossible for me to ever either become a sympathizer or a supporter of the pseudo-socialist agenda of the Rawlings posse.

In the main, the NDC hack who attempted to bribe me and who, by the way, is the young uncle of my friend’s wife, was of the opinion that I was wasting my invaluable creative energy resources on the operatives of a political machine that clearly appeared to take me for granted. Well, truth be said, the NDC hack may be quite accurate in his assessment, particularly in view of the fact that I was summarily fired from my specially invited membership of the Media Committee of NPP-USA after one Dr. Agyenim-Boateng, a Kentucky-based attorney, concocted a story, which he generously shared with the movers and shakers of NPP-USA, which group I have designated as “The Ejisu/Edweso Boys,” that I was poised to embezzling party funds, merely because a decision had been taken by the NPP-USA Media Committee to name me its Nominal Treasurer. I have put the latter designation in initial upper-case letters because during the seven-month period while I was a member of the NPP-USA Media Committee whose meetings, by the way, were conducted by conference calls, no membership dues, whatsoever, were collected for me to even remotely dream of embezzling any.

Besides, I had originally been invited by a former Media Attache to the Ghana Embassy in Washington to actually head the NPP-USA Media Committee. I would shortly discover to my amused contempt that the strategy of those who had invited me was simply to exploit my literary talents for purposes that were decidedly alien to me. For instance, I was to henceforth write all my articles in the name of the NPP-USA Media Committee, almost as if my auto-generated ideas were the work of the collective.

Naturally, I promptly rejected the preceding stipulation and categorically stated that I did not want to abandon my individual authorial identity anytime soon. But I also promptly indicated that I would be perfectly willing to aptly accord collective authorship to ideas generated by meetings and conferences held by the Media Committee of NPP-USA. I had observed right from the get-go that some NPP-USA operatives intended to use the activities of the Media Committee to boost their profiles and advantageously position themselves for cabinet appointments or parliamentary seats in the next New Patriotic Party government. I would also be phoned separately by Messrs. Adjei-Yeboah and Kofi Boateng and “diplomatically” given the heave-ho, on the patently untenable grounds that I had become an unsavory distraction and a liability to the momentous activities of the NPP-USA Media Committee.

In reality, I was expelled from the NPP-USA Media Committee – I voluntarily resigned my membership of NPP-USA proper – because I had dared to call former President John Agyekum-Kufuor to the carpet for, allegedly, reneging on his promise to stay neutral while rivals vying for his seat duked it out, as it were. In fact, prior to instigating Messrs. Kofi Boateng and Adjei Yeboah, then Chairman of NPP-USA Media Committee, Dr. Agyenim-Boateng had E-mailed me a rather patronizing and insuperably insolent note, asking me to forget about the alleged shenanigans of ex-President Kufuor and, instead, focus on the campaign of the then newly-elected NPP Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. I promptly returned fire by indicating to Dr. Agyenim-Boateng, a now-retired Kentucky State Deputy Attorney-General, that as far as my personal journalistic fare on Ghana was concerned, it was Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., who called his own shots!

I guess what I am trying to imply here is that rather than bitterly complain like an abused wife, Nana Akomea’s group may do well to study some of the hard-nosed electioneering campaign tactics of the relatively more politically seasoned operatives of the NDC and use them to their own advantage and the long-term good of those of us who direly itch to see the practice of true democracy revived on the Ghanaian political landscape.

Personally, I am comfortably well-employed to either desire or demand “Soli” from any quarter on the Ghanaian political landscape. Still, it would constitute the height of naivety for the Akomea Group to expect Ghanaian voters to hand power back to the NPP on a diamond platter. Even as I write, the floods are still doing mayhem to the residents of Abena Birem’s catchment area. Galamsey or no galamsey!

*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 Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and the author of 22 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.

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