By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
March 1, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
I was irritably amused to read the news report in which the convenor of a group calling itself the Coalition for the Defense of Equal Citizenship (CODEC) challenged Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo to produce the "undoctored" version of the secretly audiotaped recording of a meeting in which the former Kufuor Sports and Finance Minister's voice was allegedly captured over some unflattering remarks that the Akyem-Oda native is purported to have made against the country's ethnic minorities (See "CODEC Challenges Dr. Osafo-Marfo [sic] To Produce Tape" Ghanaweb.com 3/1/15).
I was amused because the call by Mr. Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe farcically presumes that Mr. Osafo-Maafo had gone into the New Patriotic Party (NPP) meeting with the express purpose of having his part of conversations held at the meeting magnetically captured. Well, for Mr. Tamakloe's information and edification, the man says the voice on the audiotape belongs to him all right; but even more significantly, he also says that the contents thereon have been doctored to suit the aims and objectives of his detractors. And so what aspect of this terse statement of round rejection and denial is so difficult for the CODEC convenor to appreciate?
In other words, Mr. Osafo-Maafo ought not to be in possession of an undoctored version of a tape whose recording he had not authorized to be able to credibly determine that the alleged recording has been doctored. Indeed, if we accept the premise that the voice on the tape belongs to Mr. Osafo-Maafo, as the latter has himself reportedly claimed, then we must also accept the fact of Mr. Osafo-Maafo's being the most reliable authority on his own voice.
Then also, we need to promptly observe that the subject of the raging controversy did absolutely nothing wrong for which he ought to apologize. And I would rather have Mr. Tamakloe call on the likes of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings and the two notorious Tsikata cousins, namely, Kojo and Tsatsu, among a host of others, to render an unqualified apology to the Ghanaian citizenry for their prime role in the criminal abduction and summary execution of the three Akan-descended Accra High Court judges and the retired Ghana Army major.
Indeed, had Mr. Tamakloe paid sedulous attention, he would have heard Mr. Osafo-Maafo state categorically that he had not intentionally said anything prejudicial to the dignity and integrity of any of the country's ethnic minorities. We need to also point out that an audiotape cannot contextually tell the entire story of what happened at the New Juaben NPP membership meeting, especially when we also don't know precisely how much of the meeting time was secretly recorded. I also vehemently disagree with Mr. Tamakloe that Mr. Osafo-Maafo's "comments represent a major setback to the efforts made by our forebears, and the current generation of citizens in this country, towards the building of a country in which tolerance, unity, togetherness and respect for diversity" are the salient ingredients.
If anything at all, it is the murderously divisive political culture of Anlo-Ewe leaders like Messrs. Rawlings and the Tsikatas which continues to insistently remind Ghanaians more about our cultural diversity and humongous individual and ethnic differences than unifying us. And I resent this self-righteous grandstanding which makes it seem as if the wantonly oppressed and exploited Akan-Ghanaian majority owe the likes of Mr. Tamakloe an apology for so bizarrely allowing ourselves to be minoritized and shortshrifted.
The CODEC convenor also needs to explain to Ghanaians why the 1992 Constitution which Mr. Tamakloe claims to be so sacred, had to be sacrilegiously hobbled with Indemnity Clauses aimed almost exclusively at protecting his Anlo-Ewe kinsmen from being justifiably prosecuted for committing heinous crimes against Akan humanity, among others. Indeed, it would be far better for Mr. Tamakloe and his CODEC reprobates to leave Mr. Osafo-Maafo alone, than so imperiously presume to cavalierly rake over our "constitutionally idemnified" wounds."
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