By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Nana Fredua Ofori-Atta is not quite accurate when the notable New Patriotic Party (NPP) stalwart observes that “They [NDC leaders] are chanting and running riot over the ‘All-Die-Be-Die’ comment because they have misunderstood Nana Addo” (See “Nana Fredua: Nana Akufo-Addo Will Not Apologize” Modernghana.com 3/4/11).
Actually, the leaders of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) are desperately grasping for straws because they know by his “All-Die-Be-Die” clarion advisory, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has removed any fear that NPP activists, members, supporters and sympathizers hitherto harbored for NDC-sponsored physical assaults and other forms of political savagery aimed at perennially guaranteeing NDC stranglehold on Ghanaian politics.
And had Nana Fredua Ofori-Atta been studiously following events in the Maghreb and North Africa and the so-called Middle-East, in general, he would have happily realized that like the courageous and foresighted leaders of the popular revolution sweeping through the Arab world, what Nana Akufo-Addo has done is to simply take the morbid fear of the terror-mongering NDC out of the activists, members, supporters and sympathizers of the NPP. And it is simply this psychological sea change in NPP psyche that is driving the NDC apparatchiks crazy. In sum, their game up! Plain and simple!
For let none be mistaken over the fact that, indeed, the entire political strategy of the ruling NDC has been to instill fear into their political opponents, and thereby ride roughshod over the same at the polls. And for the most part, members of the NPP appeared to have studiously and docilely accepted this passive and second-class citizenship status apportioned them, first by Messrs. Rawlings and Mills, and now Messrs. Mills and Mahama, until Nana Akufo-Addo’s clarion call came through, loud and clear, the other day.
It is also a pity that almost nobody has, thus far, bothered to make a national issue out of the NDC motto of “Akatamanso,” a clearly provocative credo that is unmistakably suggestive of Asante/Akan political defeat, and deviously taken from the 1868 Danish-Asante War in which the supposedly triumphant Danish-supported Ga-Adangbes, by the way, handsomely sued for peace.
But that such a painful historical memory should be so cavalierly used to promote the interests of an Ewe-dominated National Democratic Congress, ought to alert the rest of us Ghanaian citizens and voters of precisely how wickedly the Dzelukope-Sogakope Mafia intends to maintain its stranglehold on Fourth-Republican Ghana via proxy.
On the preceding score, one cannot but unreservedly agree with Mr. Sam Okudzeto regarding the imperative need for the Indemnity Clause hobbling our Fourth-Republican Constitution to be scrapped (See “Sam Okudzeto: Indemnity Clause Must Go!” MyJoyOnline.com 3/2/11). And even while we may not exactly be on the same page with Mr. Okudzeto, in terms of reasons for scrapping the Indemnity Clause, suffice it to say that its continuous maintenance has foolishly emboldened the most criminally culpable members of the NDC into presuming themselves to comfortably stand above the laws of our land.
The unsavory result of such globally unprecedented blight on our most sacred political document, has been the tendency of those Indemnity Clause-protected NDC hacks to unconscionably project their own criminal culpability on their moral and legal superiors, thus their rather comical call for Nana Akufo-Addo to apologize, for simply and healthily advising members of the political opposition not to passively accept a second-class citizenship status in Ghana.
*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011) and “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###
