The institutional primacy of the IEA is incontestable

Not very long ago, the rambunctious second-bananas to President Mahama’s Town-Crier, Mr. Felix Kwakye Ofosu, pooh-poohed the relevance of “technocrats” to the development of Ghana’s economy. And so I was incontinently amused to hear the Deputy Communications Minister impugn the character and personality of Mrs. Jean Mensa, the Executive Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the seminal and premier institutional organizer of presidential debates in the country (See “I’m Appalled by Jean Mensa’s ‘Arrogance’ – Kwakye Ofosu” Ghanapoliticsonline.com /Ghanaweb.com 5/15/16).

Mr. Kwakye Ofosu says that Mrs. Mensa is “insufferably arrogant,” and so one begins to have a good sense of the great impact that the IEA is having on the direction of Ghana’s political culture. What is interesting and significant, as well, to note here is the fact that this is not the very first time that National Democratic Congress’ apparatchiks have taken issue with the IEA over the conduct of one aspect of the seasonal presidential debates or another. The NDC apparatchiks would rather have the IEA director cede them control over how, when, where and who to include or exclude from these debates. You see, so perennially entrenched in their ways have they become with our national political culture, often backed by an AK-47-toting khaki boy for some twenty years, that these NDC machinists rant and rave when they are not having their way. Somebody, tell these mouth-running SOB’s that it is a new era and a new season, and that Ghanaians are now too sophisticated and politically enlightened to be taken for a ride.

I have said this before and hereby repeat the same for the benefit of those of our brothers and sisters who just came aboard this discursive forum, that fundamentally speaking, the name of the National Democratic Congress rings the same bells that a mention of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea evokes. It is patently and inescapably shambolic. In other words, the redoubtable existence of the IEA is in spite of the National Democratic Congress, not because of the latter corporate hive of brazen schoolyard bullies and certified human butchers. It is also absolutely no happenstance that it was an NDC government that converted Ghana into a five-star refugee camp for globally notorious jihadist butchers from the Al-Qaeda and Taliban killing fields of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

We went through the same circus act in the lead up to the 2008 general election, when then-Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills, late, flatly and rudely turned down a prime opportunity to debate Nana Akufo-Addo. He would shortly come to his senses, eat his own words and scurry back to the debating podium, tail tucked in-between his hind-legs and reluctantly and diffidently slug it out with Ghana’s former Attorney-General and Justice Minister.

You see, the NDC apparatchiks know how to huff and puff about absolutely nothing. By the close of today, you just mark down my words, they will be back at the podium desperately slugging their lungs out. The Mahama communications second-bananas claims that there are already available other media platforms that are no less beneficial to the various political parties than the IEA. We have heard such bunk, too, before. And it ultimately did not amount to the proverbial hill of beans. And, yes, it is only a jester who can convince himself that Jean Mensa has absolutely no standing to prompt her to cavalierly suppose that she could summon any political party to participate in any of the IEA-sponsored and time-tested debate forums.

Well, the fact of the matter is that Mrs. Jean Mensa has the sort of intellectual and sociopolitical heft in Ghana’s fourth-republican culture that the midget likes of Mr. Kwakye Ofosu can only faintly dream about. And for his enlightenment, “technocrats” are the people who oil the engine of Ghana’s economic growth, not shameless political bloodhounds and lickspittles like Mr. Kwakye Ofosu. I actually meant to say political bulldogs, until I realized that the man, after all, has only the weight of a Chihuahua.

Indeed, he obviously may have been referring to Mrs. Jean Mensa when Mr. Kwakye Ofosu snapped rudely as follows: “I am appalled by the insufferable arrogance displayed by Jean Mensa and her IEA,” but I can bet my proverbial bottom-dollar that it was Boss Dramani Mahama that this little man had in mind. Remember this crass spillage of poppycock the other day, dear reader: “Nobody has a right to criticize my job performance, because none of you have ever been elected president of Ghana”? Of course, even a toddler on the streets of Accra knows full well that the IEA is institutionally superior to the National Democratic Congress. Else, why are these NDC Abongo Boys so deathly afraid of being intellectually and politically tested by Jean Mensa? And not for the very first time, by the way. Trust me, Motor-Mouthed Kwakye Ofosu, it is not that time of the month for Jean. The woman is simply a class act. Pure and simple!

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