Baba Go Slow’s Deafening Silence On Laurent Gbagbo

– The Whys and the Why-nots.

Ghanaians have been fortunate to have proud leaders who at various times looked the white man eyeball to eyeball and told him nothing but the bitter truth. The quixotic stance taken by the late Ignatius Kuti Acheampong on his “yentua” policy endeared him to the hearts of those living in the unreal world. Even though he made a public pronouncement of not paying Ghana’s debts to its creditors, he went secretly to pay up. Call it “bragado”, “akakabinsem” “ atuturasem” or a blind nationalist of the Idi Amin’s type, I think he was one of those quixotic bad actors Shakespeare refers to in Macbeth’ who come and leave the stage and then are heard no more.

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF: Konan Bedie became President of Cote d’Ivoire in an election which his main contestant, Alassane Ouattara had been banned from contesting on allegation that the latter was a Burkinabe citizen.

General Guei became President after staging a coup d’état to overthrow Konan Bedie. Guei organized an election and while the Electoral Commission was announcing the result which had Laurent Gbagbo in the lead, Guei, with the backing of the military ordered the E.C to suspend the declaration. There were massive protests and demonstrations against the Presidential Fiat and amidst the confusion which ensued, General Guei fled the country and Laurent Gbagbo declared himself President. It must be stated here that Alassane Ouattara had been appointed Prime Minister of Cote d’Ivoire by Houpheout Boigny. The situation is similar to Chiluba’s attempts to strip Kenneth Kaunda, (who obtained Independence for Zambia and became President after independence) of his Zambian citizenship

DID LAURENT GBAGBO HAVE THE MANDATE OF IVORIANS: People had expected that a credible election permitting Ouattara and others would have been conducted after the exit of General Guei, but no, it wasn’t! Laurent Gbagbo swore himself in as President and when his mandate of five years expired in 2005, he stayed on illegally for 5 more years. Who extended his mandate for him, one may ask?
GBAGBO IS BEING INCALCITRANT AND POWER HUNGRY: The International Community including The African Union, The ECOWAS, The United Nations, The European Union, The U.S, France and Britain, on account of the volatile situation in Cote d’ Ivoire all supported the extension of Gbagbo’s “unconstitutional mandate” as President. Why should they now turn their back on him? They are united in their joint crusade of asking Gbagbo to step aside because they believe that is the best thing to do. Wrong can never be right, Lai, lai! Gbagbo has lost the election and should go. No, two ways about it.

MILLS CLANDESTINE MOVE WILL SOON BACK FIRE! : I had some few weeks ago asked the question why our Baba should grant audience to the emissary of Laurent Gbagbo. Does that not amount to a tacit endorsement of Gbagbo’s illegal regime? Yes, it does and nobody is going to make me think otherwise.

Do you know that by granting audience to Ouattara’s representative at the UN, the world body has given recognition to his regime? Yes, that is the way international policy or diplomacy works. If a country expels the Ambassador of a country, that decision is a prelude to severing diplomatic relationship with the other country unless steps are taken early enough to resolve the issues amicably.

Earlier on, Taiwan had occupied the Chinese seat at the United Nations, but when the General Assembly reversed the decision, Taipei took her rightful position at the U.N and all it agencies.

In the late sixties when the late Prime Minister, Dr. K.A Busia advocated the use of dialogue with South Africa, many were those who condemned him for initiating that move. I learnt the Senior Baba, former President of Nigeria, General Chief Matthew Okikiade Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo had wanted to go and mediate in an effort to find an amicable settlement to the crisis, but his plane was turned back at the airport. That act was tantamount to the former President being declared persona non grata by the Ivorian ‘authorities’.

Now the question is, which side does Baba Go Slow support – Gbagbo or Ouattara’s faction? If the Ghanaian Baba wanted to play a reconciliatory role, he should have extended a similar invitation to the Ouattara’s faction as well!

Ghanaians now know those who stand for truth: The Ivorian elections were conducted under the watchful eyes of observers from the International Community and they all affirm to the fact that the elections were peaceful, credible, free and fair.

Now Gbagbo himself has stated emphatically that our own President, Professor Mills, alias Baba Go Slow, aka Professor Do Little was one of the three African Heads of State who supported his presidential bid. In what ways, one may ask? Through the use of “egunje”! What else? I am also reliably informed that it was Laurent Gbagbo who oiled the electioneering machinery of the NDC to prosecute the 2008. How can we expect anything different from the lame duck attitude of the Ghanaian Baba? I beg, don’t say I told you oo. I don’t want Rose Bio Atinga to arrest me on charges of causing fear and panic oo!

NO ONE CAN REWRITE HISTORY: People like Kwesi Pratt and almost all NDC appointees speak on the Ivorian issue as if the rest of us were strangers from outer space when a similar situation occurred in Liberia. Such apologists argue that because of the larger Ghanaians population in Cote d’ Ivoire, if Baba should say ‘aa’ ‘b’, ‘d’, ’mm’ or ‘pim’, our brothers and sisters in that country would suffer. Do they want to tell us that Ghanaians nationals are not living in areas controlled by the Ouattara’s faction? What about the larger Nigerian population in that country?

But we were all in this country when the Liberian crisis started and President Rawlings initiated the move with his Nigerian Counterpart to send ECOMOG (made up of mostly Nigerian and Ghanaian soldiers) to restore law and order and prop up the internationally recognized Interim National Government of the country. At a stage, we were told humorously that one of the fighter planes was piloted by our own President Rawlings. There was a cartoon in one Liberian newspaper which has Charles Taylor asking President Rawlings, “Na your papa land”? Now the question is: Did President Rawlings think about the safety of Ghanaian nationals before committing Ghanaian soldiers to ECOMOG? The answer, I strongly believe is ‘Yes’ for under the circumstances, he did the proper thing Former President Rawlings’ place in history is assured for that singular bold step he initiated at that material point in time. He did not prevaricate as our own Baba and his team of mediocrities are doing.

If the founder and then leader of the Nefarious Destructive Cancer, Former President Rawlings could use force to resolve an illegality, what prevents a fellow member of the same contraption, our own Baba Go Slow, alias Professor Do Little from exercising a little bit of his ‘presidential unreasonableness’ to admonish his fellow co-travellor to make a detour off the destructive path he has embarked upon?

So, you see, the arguments by the NDC Minister of Misinformation, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and most of his think-alikes are neither here nor there. ECOMOG’s tough stance taken under Former President Rawlings is a yardstick with which we can and will use to measure the effectiveness or otherwise of our present ineffective and clueless President and his moribund administration. Do Okudzeto Ablakwa, Koku Anyidoho and the m any Special Aides to the President and his Vice want to tell Ghanaians that if they know that a notorious criminal is hiding among people in a densely populated area, they will not even speak on the issue, not to talk of asking the security forces to bring the culprit to book for fear of reprisals against the larger civilian population? Yet, a few weeks ago, the Baba sent his security operatives to go and virtually lay siege on a peaceful village community by holding the citizenly hostage in the dead of the night. It was code named “operation search and destroy”, I should think. My heart begins to bleed when I shudder to think of the labyrinth our ineffective and visionless Baba is leading us into. What offence, what treasonable crime have Ghanaians committed to be saddled with such a weak, dis-oriented, misguided, unprincipled and visionless administration? Well, that is Baba Go Slow for you! He should speak up or forever remain dumb!

Kwesi Pratt and his warped analysis: According to our own Kwesi Pratt, the Iku who thinks he knows everything and that he is the repository of all knowledge or intelligence, when ECOMOG met in Abuja, it was the Liberian President, Ellen Shirleaf Johnson and the Ghanaian Baba, President Mills, who did not endorse ECOWAS decision to ask Gbagbo to step aside.

But isn’t it ironic that the beneficially of a similar gesture, the Liberian President who had lost out to George Oppong Weah during the first round of voting but was declared winner in the run off by the Electoral Commission is today denying his fellow compatriot the same courtesy that was extended to her? When the results of the Run off was declared, George, smelt a rat. He said the results sent in by his agents indicated that he had won. He refused to accept the official outcome which had been declared “free and fair” by the international community and asserted that he had a legitimate claim to the Presidency. Eventually, the African, European and World Footballer of the Year, George Oppong Weah saw reason and renounced his claim to the Liberian Presidency, thereby removing all obstacles towards the swearing in of Ellen Shirleaf Johnson as President.

Why is Ellen Shirleaf Johnson doing the exact opposite of what the international Community had done under similar circumstances some few years back? Wonders, they say shall never end.

What about our own Baba? The Ghanaian Baba is towing that line because he is afraid of his own shadow. It doesn’t need any crystal ball to predict the outcome of the 2012 General Elections. Baba and his team of mediocrities are aware that they have not kept faith with the masses and that come 2012, they will be booted out of office. What single policy has Baba’s moribund and comatose administration put forth since it came to power two years ago? None! Meanwhile the achievements of the out gone NPP Administration are staring them straight in their faces. What do they do?

The scenario is like this: Baba Go Slow, alias Professor Do Little knows that no force on this planet, not even Jupiter can change the discordant tunes emanating from the throats of the mal-nourished, abused, oppressed, overtaxed, overused and dumped Ghanaians to sing sweet melodious songs in favour of the Notorious Destructive Contraption. In other words, the NDC will lose and lose woefully both the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in December, 2012. If the Ghanaian Baba should add his voice to that of those calling for the swearing in of Ouattara as President, a convention would have been entrenched in the dictionary or vocabulary of the International Community, whereby genuine and acclaimed winners of subsequent elections in Africa could invoke the spirit and tenets of such a clause in support of their legitimacy to the presidency.
With defeat staring him straight in the face, what else could he do than to torpedo such arrangement?
Baba and Agbeko’s Glove: I would be doing a little bit of injustice to my audience if I fail to comment on the President’s statement when Agbeko went to the Castle to present his winning gloves to him. But did the President actually say he would use the gloves to knock down his political opponents and critics? Well, if he cares to listen, let me offer him free advice by referring him to the fight between the then World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, George Foreman and Mohammed Ali in Kinshasa. Foreman, filled with venom threw out many wild blows and punches so much so that he expended his energy, thereby enabling the well-focused Mohammed Ali to go in for the kill. Already, the President, the Ghanaian Baba looks too tired. I trust his team of trainers led by Ato Ahwoi and Koku Anyidoho will not take him through such excruciating exercises to make him fumble and wobble on the night of the fight. But, are the gloves not too heavy for the battle-wearied President? The trainers should tread carefully otherwise Baba’s opponent would be declared winner on TKO basis.
What happened to the Committee’s Report on the Osu Children’s Home? After spending the tax-payer’s money on the committee, the perpetrators of such heinous crimes are still at post doing what they enjoy most.
Conclusion: Ghanaians should not be deceived for as the Lord says, whatever a man soweth, that will he reap. What policy has the Nefarious Destructive Cancer, led by Baba Go Slow, put in place for the past two years to ensure a better future for you and your children? None, except to impose taxes on everything that has a name in this country to further impoverish you and the rest of us and make it impossible for us to navigate our way back from the deepest abyss that they have plunged us into.

It is therefore for you and I, boys and girls, men and women, young and old, Christians and Muslims, Jews and Gentiles to take our collective destiny into our own hands by embracing the ideals and tenets of Vision 2012 to ensure the election of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as President. Nana knows what is good for the country and how to attain those goals. He is the man we all (including even hard-core NDC members) have been yearning for. He will not disappoint you.
Thank God, Ghanaians have an Akufo-Addo for an ally. (TGGHAAAFAA)

Daniel Danquah Damptey (danieldanquah_damptey@yahoo.com)