By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph. D.
As had been expected all along, in the wake of the shock-and-awe victory of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP), the leaders of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), still reeling from the Galamsey Capital native’s Wednesday Massacre, resorted to the characteristic blame games of the hopelessly routed.
They had intended to, once again, drive the proverbial elephant into whatever may be left of the country’s pristine forest and permanently keep him there. And as I vividly recall, they had even commissioned one of the NPP’s “Internal Enemy Combatants” to pen and publish what Americans call “a kiss-and-tell” book that aimed to thorough trash Ghana’s former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. The book, for want of a better word, was titled “Chasing the Elephant into the Bush.”
Well, now it turns out that it was the Giant Umbrella, after all, that was destined to be soon effectively banished from the palace – call it The Flagstaff House. But amidst all the trundling waves of desperation and explosive jubilation, two quite witty and significant players in the polar opposite ideological camps of the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party appear to have been ignored, either wittingly or unwittingly.
And these men, of course, are Monsieur Johnson Asiedu-Nketia (aka General Mosquito), the Methuselah-like General-Secretary of the outgoing National Democratic Congress, and Mr. Sammy Awuku, the rhetorically bellicose albeit genius logic-spewing National Youth Organizer of the soon-to-be-ruling New Patriotic Party.
The latter political lightning rod is young enough to be readily mistaken for the son of General Mosquito, but I very much doubt whether any critic or commentator could hope to escape unscathed for daring to make such an abominable analogical comparison.
If the movers and shakers of the National Democratic Congress genuinely needed a scapegoat upon whom to squarely place the blame for the party’s epic loss to the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party, they would not be vacuously and sheepishly picking on the founding patriarch of the party, namely, Chairman Jerry John Rawlings.
Rather, they would have contracted for the immediate arrest, the stark denudation and massive stampeding of the Brong-Seikwa native out of town. A couple, or so, years ago, somebody savagely snuffed the light out of the chief of Seikwa. As I vivdly recall, one or two criminal suspects were apprehended and charged with regicide. But I don’t remember what else became of the matter.
Now that his party has been induced into a coma for at least the next four years, General Mosquito would have ample time to deal with the grim realities of the affairs of his home village before presuming to be capable of ruling Ghana with an NDC parliamentary minority.
In the past, Mr. Asiedu-Nketia had analogically counseled those “sharp-toothed” urchins in his party who fell out of line to observe how monkeys systematically and felicitously played by sizes. Now, it is my turn to tersely admonish The Mosquito to let charity begin at home.
But what I really wanted to take up and comment on at length on this subject is the fact that it was Mr. Asiedu-Nketia who pointedly informed the nation and the world that, in fact, Mr. John Dramani Mahama had not clinched the presidency in 2012, but that it was the abject lack of vigilance on the part of Nana Akufo-Addo and his aides, assigns and minions who had handed over the Flagstaff House on a diamond platter, as it were, to the former National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for the Gonja-West constituency.
Who really doubted the dead-on-target prophecy of The Mosquito that once Nana Akufo-Addo and his team of hitherto happy-go-lucky enthusiasts got their act together, the DOOM of the NDC would be splendidly spelt in vermillion?
For the NPP’s Mr. Sammy Awuku, it is nearly always rhetorical jujitsu time.
For example, when the soon-to-be former President Mahama on the stumps in
the Volta Region sneeringly asked of the New Patriotic Party operatives the following question: “Where is your Chairman?” the obvious implication here was that a party with an indefinitely suspended national chairman was the metaphorical equivalent of a rudderless ship. And then the rather smug and imperious incumbent squirted the following in-between his gapless front teeth: “A man who cannot unite his own party cannot presume to be capable of uniting our much bigger and greater nation.”
Well, guess what? Nana Akufo-Addo has been able to score an enviable one-touch electoral victory by playing with only half of the players on his team.
What would this imply if the now-President-Elect Akufo-Addo decided to play with a full-team and a full-court press, as it were? As usual, Sammy Awuku appears to have the best answer: “A One-Party-State, of course!” (See “Ghana Will Soon Become a One-Party State – Sammy Awuku” Adomonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 12/16/16).
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