By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
April 9, 2016
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
I didn’t expect that the so-called movers-and-shakers of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) would be able to challenge Nii Armah Ashitey on the strength of the law. Nii Armah Ashitey is, of course, the incumbent NDC-Member of Parliament for the Klottey-Korle Constituency, in Accra, who was soundly trounced in the party’s parliamentary primary late last year by Dr. Zanetor Rawlings, the European-educated eldest daughter of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings. The problem with Dr. Rawlings’ victory is that it was clinched by flagrantly flouting laid-down regulations governing parliamentary contests in the NDC. At the time that she was allowed to place her name on the ballot to run against Mr. Ashitey, Dr. Rawlings was not even a registered member of the party whose founding has been widely credited to her father.
The Klottey-Korle Constituency executives of the party ought to have been fully aware of this fundamental deficiency, because it is the first requirement for any prospective candidate. In sum, both Dr. Rawlings and the Klottey-Korle NDC Constituency executives knowingly flouted the standing rules of the party. This is scarcely surprising, because the NDC was founded by a brazen bunch of political scofflaws and downright outlaws, including Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings. In a functional democracy, both Dr. Rawlings and the Klottey-Korley party leaders who allowed her to so rudely flout the standing rules of the party would be facing disciplinary action. Instead, we find the more responsible, play-by-the-rules Nii Armah Ashitey being virulently accused by reprobate party executives and political freeloaders like Mr. Allotey Jacobs, the Central Regional Chairman of the NDC, of returning Mr. Rawlings’ favors with gross ingratitude.
By the latter characterization, of course, Mr. Jacobs is alluding to the fact that former President Rawlings had appointed Mr. Ashitey as a two-term District Chief Executive Officer, or Mayor, of the country’s main industrial township of Tema. Nii Armah Ashitey sharply retorts that as President of the Ghana Foreign Exchange Bureau Association, prior to him being named Tema Mayor, he was financially much better off than during his period of mayoralty service. In other words, financially speaking, Chairman Rawlings actually caused the impoverishment of Mr. Ashitey when he pressured the latter into becoming a politician. As a politician, the incumbent Klottey-Korle MP claims that the bulk of his fortunes have been spent in support of party activities. Consequently, if anybody deserves to show gratitude to another, it is definitely not Nii Ashitey, but rather Dr. Rawlings and her parents and key party operatives who owe him a humongous debt of gratitude.
So far, an initially sanguine, cavalier and exuberant Dr. Zanetor Rawlings appears to have been judicially deflated and blisteringly vanquished by the much older Mr. Ashitey, who also once served as Greater-Accra Regional Minister. After woefully failing to convince an Accra High Court judge that her parliamentary election victory was won fair and square, Dr. Rawlings has now decided to take her case to the Wood-presided Supreme Court. The Apex Court is highly unlikely to fritter its precious time in reprising an issue that has already been conclusively settled by a competent court of judicature. And so very likely, Dr. Rawlings may have to decide to either go independent or sit out of the NDC parliamentary contest, some November, for at least four more years. And here, also, it ought to be made crystal clear to the Rawlings Clan that we are in a New Ghana, where absolutely – and I mean, absolutely – nobody is above the law. And they had better get along with the new program.
*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
