Suing Ayariga will not resolve parliamentary credibility problem

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

He says he is in a dilemma, that he is torn between slapping the former Environment, Science and Technology Minister with a humongous civil suit that could teach him and his Mahama Amen-Corner associates not to play fast-and-loose with truth and the hard-earned reputations and integrity of their intellectual, professional and moral superiors.

He also says that if Speaker Michael Aaron Oquaye permits him to legally smack the Bawku-Central National Democratic Congress’ Member of the House upside the head, it would have the significant secondary effect of thoroughly cleansing our august House of Parliament of any lingering credibility problems it may be having with the Ghanaian electorate and the general public at large. Perhaps even the proverbial international community as well (See “Allow Me to Sue Ayariga – Appointments Committee Chairman Begs Speaker” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/31/17).

From the tone and the diction of his earnest plea, Mr. Joseph Osei-’Wusu (aka Joe Wise) really sounds like the sterling breed of gentleman and cutting-edge intellectual a critical mass of whose kind has been sorely lacking among the ranks and teeming pool of our parliamentary representatives.

Still, I find myself wistfully scratching my head and wondering if the New Patriotic Party’s House Member from Asante-Bekwai could paradoxically wax so sagaciously and yet sound hopelessly naïve at the same time. I, however, sincerely doubt that Mr. Osei-’Wusu is not on the page as the likes of yours truly and the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian citizenry. And just what we know, which ought to be obvious to all and sundry, is the fact that the unsavory and pathological culture of bribery is a cross-societal and institutional blight that permeates all levels of Ghanaian society, from the chieftaincy level to the level of the newest baby.

Distance and time do not permit me to travel to Ground Zero and testify before the Ghartey Committee, and so my dear reader, let me boldly and frankly tell you what I really think and firmly believe are at stake here. It is the imperative and timeous necessity to radically reverse our cancerous culture of abject decadence that is at stake here.

Firstly, and I have said this before in a previous article, I sincerely believe that monies in envelopes did change hands between the NDC-Minority members of the Parliamentary Appointments Committee (PAC) and their NPP-Majority counterparts. Where we diverge and/or virulently disagree regards the fact of whether, indeed, such act of bribery as is being pontifically claimed by the Mahama party machinists, was effected unilaterally.

Put bluntly, the enveloped packages/packets that allegedly contained what was studiously “mistaken” for sitting allowances were actively solicited, otherwise the lead-complainant and notorious Mahama political pit-bull would not have sarcastically gushed on the pro-NDC propaganda Radio Gold news and current-affairs program that “We did not have any business with [Mr.] Boakye-Agarko.”

In this linguistic analysis, what is dialectically omitted is inescapably what is logically implied. And that which is implied is inextricably as semantically significant as what is plainly spoken.

What the preceding means is that it is highly likely that some cabinet appointees-designate of both major parties in the past and in recent times who have appeared before the PAC have had “envelope-enclosed” business dealings with the likes of Messrs. Haruna Iddrisu, Mahama Ayariga, Rashid Pelpuo and Okudzeto-Ablakwa, among a host of other “team players.” Pretty much the same observation can be aptly made for the now-NPP majority PAC members who not quite some three months ago, wore the shoes of the present-day NDC-PAC minority members.

What is almost definitively certain is that the Energy Minister had absolutely nothing to do with the alleged bribe money. At the worst, it was somebody fervidly eager to have Mr. Boakye-Agyarko’s nomination confirmed by consensus who threw these pieces of bones in contention to the Mahama attack dogs. I am no Owusu-Bempah, trust me. I simply know the terrain of Ghana’s thoroughgoing corrupt culture inside out.

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

February 19, 2017

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffaurs