The Gentle Giant Has, Once Again, Exposed a Pathologically Lying and Scamming Kwame Gonja – Part 2

In 2008, the Presidential Election, hotly contested between then former Vice-President John Evans Atta-Mills, late, the Rawlings-coronated Serial and Dynastic Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), via the so-called Swedru Declaration, went into a runoff between Candidates Atta-Mills and Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, of the then-ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). The first round, which was conducted on December 7, or thereabouts, was handily won by the former Agyekum-Kufuor-appointed Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and, subsequently, Minister of Foreign Affairs and ECOWAS Regional Integration.

But, of course, going into the 2008 Presidential-Election runoff between Candidates Atta-Mills and Akufo-Addo, it was very obvious that it was highly unlikely to turn out to be a proverbial cakewalk or a proverbial the walk in the park, as New Yorkers are wont to say. There had already been too much rancor and bitterness and internecine infighting between the Albert Adu-Boahen Faction and the Agyekum-Kufuor Faction of the New Patriotic Party, to such a deleterious extent that many studious and avid observers of NPP political culture were fully convinced that it would only be a matter of sheer miracle for Candidate Akufo-Addo to clinch his badly craved victory.

The problem here was that a seemingly pathologically narcissistic and ego-crippled Nana Akufo-Addo did not seem to be helping himself in a way that a strategically savvy Presidential Candidate who really wanted to govern the country and create an enviable and a nonesuch and lasting legacy ought to have been conducting himself. The son of the late Chief Justice Edward Akufo-Addo, later the Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia-appointed Ceremonial President of Ghana’s Second Republic, so-called, deported himself curiously almost as if he was imperiously entitled to the Presidency in ways that nobody else in the country could lay claim to or presume to impeach or impugn.

And largely and merely by virtue of our protagonist’s familial background of having “accidentally” descended from a maternal grandfather, to wit, Osagyefo Sir Nana Ofori-Atta, I, who had been nicknamed “The Junior Partner of the British Colonial Imperialists,” because Nana Ofori-Atta, I, had suavely, albeit not necessarily altogether savvily, cultivated good socioeconomically and politically symbiotic relations with the extant British Monarch and the British Royal Family but, particularly, the latter’s Administrative Representatives on the ground, as it were.

This unarguably lopsided symbiotic Master-Sidekick proto-colonial relationship would not be altogether fruitless but it would cost Ghanaians, in particular the people of Akyem-Abuakwa, dearly during World War II – many Ghanaian citizens of the present time are not the least bit aware of this, but it is on readily accessible record that the citizens of Okyeman, in particular the citizens of Akyem-Abuakwa, were literally and slavocratically forced by Nana Ofori-Atta to “generously” contribute towards the so-called World War II Effort by “donating” at least 10-percent of the harvests of their cocoa farms to the Ofori-Atta Family and Clan, proceeds of which would be used to purchase a jet fighter for the Royal Airforce. No other ethnic or subethnic polity in Ghana has ever “achieved” this heavily criticized feat, in retrospect.

The foregoing may likely have significantly contributed to the much-ballyhooed and widely alleged and perceived sense of “kinship” between the Ofori-Panyin Clan and the Imperial British Monarchy, even as was clearly witnessed in the wake of the epochal passing of Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, II, not very long ago. As well, Nana Akufo-Addo has been widely alleged to be gravely suffering from a malignant and an incurable oversized sense of political entitlement because three of his blood relatives, including his own father, the late Mr. Edward Akufo-Addo, had been members of the Legendary Big Six – namely, Dr. J B Danquah, Mr. William “Paa Willie” Ofori-Atta and, of course, Mr. Edward Akufo-Addo – although, perhaps unbeknownst to the presently lame-duck President Akufo-Addo, the role and the significance of the late former Chief Justice Edward Akufo-Addo continues to be hotly and fiercely debated by some highly peeved J B Danquah scions, at least one of whom has personally intimated to this writer that the Boakye-Danquah Clan or Subclan feels extremely riled by the fact that Nana Akufo-Addo would so brazenly and inordinately hog the epically earned reputation and stature and status of their patriarch to make undue political hay.

Now, whatever the real case scenario on the ground, as it were, may be, the incontrovertible fact of the matter is that the fame and the fortune of the Akufo-Addo and the Ofori-Panyin Clan may very well have significantly contributed to the widely alleged arrogance, or overweening pride, and obduracy of the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice that may very well have significantly impeded his ambitious aspiration and accession to the Presidency. Still, what is most significant and relevant to both highlight and emphasize here is the near-unique contribution of His Royal Majesty, The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, towards the resonant success and the stability of Ghana’s Fourth Republican Democratic Protocol and Culture.

In 2012, for example, but for the timely intervention of Barima Kwaku Duah, as Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, is also known in private life, as it were, the stalemated and widely perceived rigging or flagrant extortion of the latter year’s fiercely contested Presidential Election by leaders of the then-ruling National Democratic Congress could very well have ended both major political parties and the country on the battlefield. Nana Opemusuo Osei-Tutu, II, had to travel to Ghana’s capital of Accra, on an extremely short notice, to literally “cool tempers down” between the two key political opponents and contestants in that year’s Presidential Election, namely, Messrs. Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and John “Ouagadougou-Nkonfem Flying” Dramani Mahama, and that auspiciously reset an amicable, albeit a decidedly edgy, truce for the next four years.

In 2016 as well, but for the timely and the evenhanded intervention of Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, an even more tense political crisis situation could very well have seriously undermined the survival and the integrity of Fourth Republican Ghanaian Democracy. But there was also the collaborative involvement of such international diplomatic heavyweights as the late Mr. Kofi Atta Annan – The Busumuru – the first indigenous Continental African-born Secretary-General of the United Nations. Which, to be certain, was what former President John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor recently sought to highlight in his widely reported and authoritative interview with the Kumasi-based Opemusuo Radio, as a timely means of underscoring the often ignored and/or forgotten relevance of our legitimately invested traditional rulers in the creation and the development of the governance and the political culture of the country (See “But for the Asantehene, the 2016 Election Could Have Been Messy – Former President Kufuor” Ghanaweb.com 4/17/24).

It is also equally significant to highlight the fact that the twice-defeated former one-term President and, presently, the Serial and the Dynastic Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress has continued to publicly and disdainfully disparaged the yeomanly influence and the significant contribution of Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, towards the creation and the salutary development of Fourth Republican Ghanaian Democracy. So much for the brazen attempt by the criminally minded and the kleptocratic leadership of the Mahama and the Asiedu-Nketia-chaperoned National Democratic Congress.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
April 18, 2024
E-mail: [email protected]