By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
I don't know how Messrs. Alban Kingsford Bagbin, Enoch Teye Mensah and Cletus Avoka came by their collective sobriquet of "The Three Wise Men," but I vividly recall decrying their redundant appointment, joint-appointments, that is, as overseers of some special nondescript development projects by the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). I also remember calling for their immediate termination from what I then clearly perceived to be the wasteful creation of a sinecure for the old boys. For this is clearly what these fast-graying men are.
As far as I have been able to ascertain, the trio have, each and every one of them, not demonstrated any sterling qualities to make them readily stand out among the largely incompetent pack of NDC-executive operatives. That is, other than the patently pedestrian fact of their unsavory longevity in government. And so I wasn't the least bit surprised by recently leaked information, allegedly from the Flagstaff House, indicating that the three men had been rudely and summarily relieved of their veritably "pork barrel" posts, in American congressional parlance (See "Mahama Dumps 3 Wise Men" Daily Guide / Ghanaweb.com 3/17/14).
It well appears that the faux-cabinet appointments of these men never really got off the ground, as it were. For their staffs, we are told, were never accounted for in the President's official budget. Still, what is fascinating is the fact that they were, reportedly, afforded generous office space in the old slave castle at Osu, the country's former seat of governance. I tend to suspect that the three men were appointed "Shadow Co-Vice Presidents" of Mr. Mahama's primarily as a result of the very tense and nervous circumstances and, some have even suggested, the mysterious circumstances, under which President John Dramani Mahama assumed the august reins of governance.
In brief, now that the epic storm in the proverbial tea cup has remarkably subsided, there is hardly any need for these kitchen-cabinet "shock absorbers." Then also, it well appears that time and plain-Jane common sense have deftly collaborated to starkly expose the trio for what they clearly are, to wit, an undesirable and rascally welfare recipients.
Then also, Mr. Bagbin's recent public rhetorical fisticuffs with Mr. Mahama may well have been what constructively imbued the President with his resolve to promptly rid himself and the Ghanaian taxpayer of these impudent political parasites. Longevity and, perhaps, seniority had apparently coalesced to make Mr. Bagbin begin to feel that, after all, he was clearly a far better presidential material than the hitherto judicially embattled incumbent.
And we fairly well know that "Little Dramani" understood and appreciated this much. I don't mean the fact of whether, indeed, Mr. Bagbin may be better qualified for the job than the man presently in charge of the same. Rather, it is the fact that it had become increasingly clear that the Nadowli Boy was bursting out of his proverbial breeches. And this was clearly not a lovely sight to behold. Which was why General Mosquito unceremoniously, albeit opportunely, left the blood-spattered walls of the party's headquarters to break up this early morning fisticuffs between the two Abongo Boys from the north.
Being from the real geographical central region made the Mosquito the right man for the job. We also know, by his rather visceral and anguished response, that it was just a matter of time, and a brief one at that, before "Little Dramani" scissor-kicked the snooty Nadowli brat to the curb. It is, of course, quite heartening to hear "Little Dramani" cut sod to commission some 50 community day senior high schools in the Eastern Region.
I only hope that my part of the "Sunrise Region" gets its fair share of the loot. For even when we did not have that many goodies to share with our neighbors and countryfolk in the past, we still generously shared with them all the same.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
March 19, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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