Nii Armah Ashitey blows a revolutionary chance

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

Garden City, New York

August 4, 2016

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

The decision by the incumbent National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for Klottey-Korle Constituency, Central Accra, to withdraw his protracted litigation suit against Dr. Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings constitutes the epic loss of a prime opportunity to facilitate the salutary democratic rule of law and order in the most lawless political party in the country (See “Withdrawal of Case Against Me Not Surprising – Zanetor” Kasapafmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/4/16). It may be recalled that the eldest daughter of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings contested last year’s parliamentary primary election, knowing fully well that she was not an officially registered dues-paying member of the party. Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia (aka General Mosquito) would later come public and unconscionably claim that the decision to allow Dr. Agyeman-Rawlings to ride roughshod over the standing rules of the party was singularly his.

We also need to promptly point out that it was the same Mr. Asiedu-Nketia who single-mindedly frustrated an attempt by a former Youth Organizer of the NDC to run against the party headquarters-decreed unopposed candidacy of President John Dramani Mahama. Mr. George Boateng, 46, would shortly be summarily expelled from the party. It well appears that Mr. Ashitey, a former Greater-Accra Regional Minister, had stepped on some giant toes in the party, thus the decision by some party leaders to shove him out of the limelight and his parliamentary seat. Throughout the judicial proceedings, several party apparatchiks did not hesitate to let it on to Mr. Ashitey that the former Chief Executive Officer of the Tema industrial township owed his political fortunes to Chairman Rawlings. In short, it was about time that the Klottey-Korle parliamentary incumbent returned some of the favors that his long-time benefactor had ceded him during the 20 years that Chairman Rawlings dominated Ghanaian politics like a Kremlin neo-monarch.

But the most curious aspect of the entire legal fisticuffs was the fact that it clearly appeared as if the Wood Supreme Court had either conspired or colluded with the Rawlingses and the latter’s assigns to throw the judicial dice in favor of the Rawlings daughter. A clean win in favor of Nii Ashitey in an Accra High Court would be rudely nullified on appeal by Dr. Agyeman-Rawlings’ lawyers to the Supreme Court. The sole dissenting jurist on the Apex Court’s bench, out of five for the hearing of this particular case, would bitterly lament that the rule of law and justice had been flagrantly skewed to favor the defendant. Still, another judicial aperture would vicariously open, once again, in the High Court for the emasculated Supreme Court to redeem its integrity and dignity. At least so it appeared on the face of it. Having egregiously stampeded unalloyed justice at the lower court, it appeared that, somehow, albeit in a strikingly lethargic manner, the erring Supreme Court judges were, at long last, willing to let natural justice take its course without having to bear the blame for rubbing the members of the powerful Rawlings Clan the wrong way.

For as most middle-aged Ghanaians may be well aware of, the Rawlingses have a longstanding track-record of liquidating jurists on the Apex Court whom they perceived to be standing in the way of their political influence and authority. Well, having been so capriciously and publicly embarrassed by the members of the highest court of the land, it was highly unlikely that the High Court judge to whom the case was referred back to was going to risk stepping on the “nuclear” toes of the Rawlingses without having to be constantly on the lookout for revenge of the costliest nature for the rest of his judicial career and life. Indeed, some avid watchers of the Ghanaian political scene were of the firm and quite credible opinion that in brazenly shortchanging Nii Armah Ashitey, party stalwarts like Messrs. Kofi Portuphy and Asiedu-Nketia were strategically pacifying a livid megalomaniacal Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the country’s longest-reigning first lady and self-appointed heir apparent to Chairman Rawlings.

In other words, in a classical “Banquoesque” situation, snatching the Klottey-Korle parliamentary crown from the head of Nii Ashitey and ravenously placing it on the head of Dr. Agyeman-Rawlings was a tactical way of eternally guaranteeing that the National Democratic Congress’ political machine would never be alienated from the imperial stewardship of the members of the Rawlings Clan. Consequently, the abrupt decision by Nii Armah Ashitey not to part ways with the party and go solo as an Independent Candidate is one that is certain to meet with euphoric gratitude on the part of part hawks like Mr. Asiedu-Nketia. In all likelihood, a generous retirement package or sinecure may already be in the works for the defeated plaintiff. You may not like the nose-bleeding shenanigans of the NDC thuggocrats, but at least you ought to be objective enough to concede these alleyway-brawling thugs of Bukom Square one thing – these Bukom Vagabonds know how to fight for power and win big by hook or crook.

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