Ransford Gyampo ought to be discussing 'The Atta-Mills doctrine'

It has taken me a while to get to the news report in which Prof. Ransford Gyampo, the Legon political scientist and Director of European Studies at the country’s flagship academy, publicly called on President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to demonstrate his evenhanded leadership caliber by expelling Ghana’s High Commissioner/Ambassador to South Africa, Mr. George Ayisi-Boateng, from his government for tendentiously vowing to accord priority in the provision of services and employment opportunities to Ghanaians with ideological and membership affiliation to the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) – (See “President Akufo-Addo Must Demonstrate Leadership – Ransford Gyampo” Ghanaweb.com 10/31/17).

I am forced to observe here that Prof. Gyampo woefully demonstrated his own abject lack of leadership skills, when he conspicuously failed or deliberately ignored the real policy agenda to which Mr. Ayisi-Boateng was directly and pointedly responding to, namely, the infamous “Atta-Mills Doctrine,” which dictates in reverse precisely what Mr. Ayisi-Boateng has been virulently accused of wrongfully advocating.

As one of the leading intellectuals and academics in Ghana, the first thing that Prof. Gyampo ought to have done, was to have verified the fact of whether, indeed, there existed any such phenomenon as the “Atta-Mills Doctrine.”

And then he would have had to communicate his findings to the Ghanaian public, especially regarding that aspect of the policy initiative allegedly promulgated by President John Evans Atta-Mills, late, in which the latter, himself a former professor of the law faculty at the University of Ghana, allegedly categorically instructed all his administrative appointees around the country to give priority in the distribution of employment opportunities and services to card-carrying members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC)

His flat, gaping and adamant refusal to discuss the Atta-Mills Doctrine clearly demonstrated that, indeed, Prof. Gyampo has absolutely no regard for the objective evaluation of the crimes for which he would have the noggins of Ghana’s High Commissioner to South Africa delivered on a diamond platter, literally speaking.

At any rate, equally significant but deliberately ignored by the Legon European Studies Director, is the fact that Mr. Ayisi-Boateng predicated his policy statement on a remarkable rhetorical conditionality as follows: “If I had my way.” What the foregoing conditional clause clearly means is that Ambassador Ayisi-Boateng fully appreciates the fact that his diplomatic rules of engagement prevent him from selectively attending to the needs of Ghanaian citizens on the basis of political party affiliation.

Further and even more significantly, Nana Akufo-Addo’s right-hand man in Pretoria categorically notes that an International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionality precludes him from using his position and influence to exclusively serve the needs and interests of card-carrying NPP members and supporters.

Of course, the livid Ambassador Ayisi-Boateng spoke in a language that left much to be desired, which was precisely why he was invited to the Flagstaff House to explain himself, shortly after which official invitation Mr. Ayisi-Boateng issued his public apology.

Now, whether the apology rendered to the Ghanaian public by the High Commissioner to South Africa was heartfelt on his part, or not, as suggested by a platoon of opposition party critics, is well beyond the purview of this column.

I am no cardiologist or scientist, for that matter, to presume to second-guess Mr. Ayisi-Boateng. But what I can objectively say about the man, purely and squarely based on the strength of the available evidence, as published in the public domain, is that Mr. Ayisi-Boateng is a man of integrity and conviction who fully appreciates the sort of political arm-twisting and divisiveness created by the operatives of the National Democratic Congress, which continue to injuriously blight our national political landscape.

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

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net