Why Is Kofi Adams Backing Off?

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

He claims that he did not say that New Patriotic Party (NPP) pundits and talking-head commentators dope themselves up with "weed," not "wee," by the way, before hitting the airwaves to debate their main political opponents of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). But, of course, Mr. Kofi Adams knows fully well that his rhetorical trademark is fabricating whole cloths of lies and outrageous accusations against his political and ideological opponents (See "NPP Communicators Feed on Wee and Cocaine...?" Peacefmonline.com 5/6/14).

Several Saturdays ago, for instance, I had a predictable shock of my life when my immediate senior sister and her husband, the Banings, called me on my cellphone to say that the rambunctious former Rawlings pit-bull was doing the talk-show rounds in Accra, and accusing me of having called some prominent members of the New Patriotic Party "baboons" and "monkeys."

I was "predictably shocked" because this dumb accusation sounded strikingly characteristic of the Deputy General-Secretary of the so-called National Democratic Congress alright. I just hadn't expected that Mr. Adams was so despicably and contemptibly dumb. The baboon and monkey epithets in question, a quite common Ghanaian idiomatic and/or figurative sally, had merely been appropriated to sum up the patently and flagrantly and putatively dodgy and opportunistic attitude of Mr. Alan John Kwadwo "Quitman" Kyerematen, the arch-rival - and some even claim, the inveterate nemesis - of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

In the past, the Rawlings lackey had also been widely reported to have made other equally unflattering and largely unprovoked remarks about the credibility of some key operatives of the NPP. If, indeed, it is true that before they hit the airwaves, on the various talking-heads across the country, NPP pundits and commentators are fed heavy doses of marijuana and cocaine, then the dear reader can be cocksure that the NDC attack dogs are also fed gallons of human blood. For, after all, wasn't Dracula the very personality who reportedly signed the maiden copy of the party's constitution with his own blood? Now, let's talk about unspeakable crimes and savagery!

What irritated me most about Mr. Adams' gross and deliberate misrepresentation of my writings and my views, was the fact that some of the guest commentators who had reportedly appeared on the program with the notorious NDC agent provocateur, had been readily taken in by such vicious and scandalous, and libelous, mendacity without bothering to acquaint themselves with the contents of the article in dispute. But for the timely, intelligent and forceful parrying off of such mendacity by Mr. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, the former Kumasi mayor, I am told, Mr. Adams and his unconscionable posse of character assassins would have carried the day. Mr. Jumah had to walk out on the program to restrain himself from possibly getting physical with the "night-soil-mouthed" Mr. Adams.

As a matter of policy, I have stopped responding to invitations to participate in talk-shows on many a Ghanaian radio station. I find the general quality of such programs to be scandalously and inexcusably poor in taste and shallow in depth and meaningfulness. But, incidentally, I am also fascinated by the fact that the use of illegal drugs has become a jolly subject of insult-trading in the public domain. This, of course, is disturbingly indicative of the fact that Ghanaian society has tragically lost its hitherto prided sense of dignity and shame.

Mr. Adams claims to have profusely and repeatedly apologized for his inexcusable badmouthing of his most formidable political opponents. I wish I could take him at his word, as it were, but I simply cannot. For knowing the man for what he immutably is and represents, I can only predict that the worst is yet to come.

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

Department of English

Nassau Community College of SUNY

Garden City, New York

Board Member, The Nassau Review

May 6, 2014

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

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