By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Nov. 26, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
The reported 95.2-percent of National Democratic Congress (NDC) votes received by President John Dramani Mahama does not authentically compare with the 94-plus-percentage of votes received by the 2016 Presidential Candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). And the reason is very simple – it is because last year, at the NPP’s Tamale Congressional Presidential Primary, the then-two-time Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, competed against three or four other relatively formidable candidates, every one of whom was more formidable than Mr. George Boateng, the 45-year-old Oyarifa NDC Youth Organizer and freight-forwarder, who was forcibly bumped off the ballot, even after Mr. Boateng had been legitimately sold his nomination forms by the NDC administrative operatives at party headquarters.
For daring to democratically challenge the presidential incumbent, Mr. Boateng would also be summarily expelled from the party. I have yet to hear Attorney-General and Justice Minister Marietta Appiah-Oppong poignantly and relevantly comment on this scabrous travesty of justice. Likewise, Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, who has been uninhibitedly talkative about judicial integrity and leadership probity and accountability, has been characteristically mum and hypocritical about the Boateng Affair. This is very dangerous for the health of our country, security-wise. Electoral Commissioner Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei also has yet to remarkably comment on this flagrant application of communist tactics by the NDC’s party-machine operatives. In a more functional and civilized democracy, President Mahama and his Abongo Boys would have been summarily disqualified by both the Supreme Court and the Electoral Commission. And it is almost certain that Parliament would have initiated impeachment proceedings geared towards the removal of our increasingly megalomaniacal and dictatorial President.
That all three of the powerful and electorally relevant figures mentioned above are women, gives the lie to the much-bandied-about idea that, somehow, putting more highly educated and professionally trained women in positions of public trust and authority would appreciably reduce the level of leadership irresponsibility in both the public/civil and political spheres of national governance. Quite the diametrically opposite is more likely to be the case. For one thing, none of the influential women listed above has shown any remarkable level of integrity on these critical issues of social justice, which leaves one wondering whether, indeed, it is even a good idea to strive for the otherwise theoretically sound objective of leveling up the percentage differential between Ghanaian men and women in public and political management positions. I am deeply embarrassed to say this, but it well appears that, by and large, Ghanaian women leaders are pathological toadies and brazen collaborators with their clinically corrupt male counterparts. And I am glad not to be suffering such morbid and scandalous existence on state side.
Not only did President Mahama flagrantly and spinelessly, to speak less of the downright criminal, consent to the dirty communist-style character assassination unleashed against Mr. George Boateng, the President also clearly appears to have actually instigated the entire dastardly and morally pathetic assault on the personality of Mr. Boateng, an apparently hardworking and humble but deservedly proud Ghanaian whose only mistake was to have naively assumed that the movers and shakers of the ruling National Democratic Congress believed in the rule and practice of democratic governance. Dear reader, mark this on your Facebook Wall, or wherever it is you record your most important reminders – there will be hell to pay one of these days! And the sort of hell I am talking about will make the June 4 bloody events pale into abject insignificance.
Then also, NDC General-Secretary Johnson Asiedu-Nketia would have the world believe that it is the detractors of President Mahama who are making it seem as if his 4-percent primary-election rejection by party delegates is of greater significance than Mr. Mahama’s clinching of 95.2-percent of the votes of registered NDC members (See “Detractors Want to Make Mahama’s 4% ‘No’ Look Bigger Than 95% ‘Yes’” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 11/24/15). But the fact of the matter, as already adumbrated, is that President Mahama is his own best detractor and/or worst enemy. Take, for instance, the very public admission by Ms. Rachel Appoh, the NDC-Member of Parliament for Gomoa-Central, that she had to personally shed a considerable amount of bribe money in order to prevent many of her constituents from roundly rejecting the unopposed candidacy of the President, and matters could not seem any more scandalous than they appear to be presently (See “I Paid Money to Reduce No Votes against Mahama – Appoh” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 11/24/15).
For those of our readers who may not remember her, Ms. Appoh is the former Deputy Minister for Gender and Social Protection who was bumped by President Mahama, because Ms. Appoh had constant run-ins with her immediate boss and Mahama pet cabinet appointee Nana Oye Lithur. What all this means, of course, is that in the event of the Shit-Bombing architect’s being retained at the Flagstaff House, Ms. Appoh would likely have some favors to call back. In Gomoa-Central, Ms. Appoh claims to have successfully reduced the rabidly anti-Mahama votes to some 350. It is quite obvious that at least some 1,000 delegates /electors sold their mandate, thereby helping to retain a pathologically incompetent president in office. I weep for Ghana.
