Kufuor Simply Demonstrated That He Is Classier Than Mills

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.



People like Richard Quashigah, the ill-starred Propaganda Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), give their ethnicity a very bad. In the wake of former President John Agyekum-Kufuor’s acceptance of an invitation from President John Evans Atta-Mills, barely five days after the latter had flagrantly slighted the former during the reading of his third State-of-the-Nation Address, Mr. Quashigah, reportedly, told Ms. Shamima Muslim of Citi-fm’s Eyewitness News that the former President accepted the invitation because Mr. Kufuor wanted to dissociate himself from Nana Akufo-Addo’s clarion call of measured self-defense, or “All-Die-Be-Die,” issued to members and supporters of the New Patriotic Party who happen to be subjected to physical acts of brutality by the NDC-sanctioned human-attack dogs (See “Kufuor Didn’t Want To Soil His Reputation And Be Associated With ‘All-Die-Be-Die’ Comment – Richard Quashigah” Peacefmonline.com 2/22/11).

A more thoughtful propaganda secretary would have noticed humility in the clear possibility of an apologetic and sobered President Mills inviting his immediate predecessor to the Castle in order to repair both his damaged reputation and an unsettled conscience. Indeed, nobody should be surprised to wake up one of these days to learn about several members of the foreign diplomatic corps having prevailed upon a protocol-challenged President Mills to promptly apologize and make up with the former president.

Then also, if he had been well brought up by his parents, Mr. Quashigah would also have wondered why President Mills had not extended a similar invitation to the equally and deliberately slighted Chief Justice Georgina Wood.

It is also rather curiously ironic to hear the NDC propaganda spin -meister gush rapturously about Mr. Kufuor’s need to jealously guard his “hard-earned reputation.” I suppose the NDC operatives’ appreciation of such sterling reputation was on eloquent display when some party thugs threw the personal belongings of the former Chief-of-State out of an office in a publicly-owned building that Mr. Kufuor had wanted to use as his post-presidential working space?!

Then again, what kind of respecter of Mr. Kufuor’s “hard-earned reputation” would cavalierly presume to tarnish the same by having NDC security guru Brig.-Gen. Joseph Nunoo-Mensah doggedly attempt to tarnish the same reputation by running a perennial circus act with an Arabian slut by the name of Madam Yaji/Yadzi? Just think about the foregoing, Mr. Quashigah, if, indeed, you are possessed of any remarkable thinking cap.

Of course, what these depraved and cowardly NDC hacks would not tell their audiences and followers is that they are morbidly afraid of the straight-shooting Nana Akufo-Addo, who recently signaled to these Indemnity-Clause protected thugs that he is not the least bit about the timid business of taking prisoners, come Election 2012.



And, boy, wasn’t it the very height of chutzpah for these brazen and unconscionable killers of Akan Supreme Court judges to have craved the opinion of President Kufuor on Nana Akufo-Addo’s “All-Die-Be-Die” credo?!



You see, in polite society and company, one does not ask stupid questions of a prominent public figure whose “hard-earned reputation” one also claims to so religiously adore. Neither do morally upright leaders resort to the jungle politics of “Red Alerts” when vigorously challenged to put their money where their mouths are.



*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). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.

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