Shame On You, Mr. Kufuor!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 13, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

When he caused that jumbo and garish chain mail (or whatever they call it) to be made for him, I thought he would have been appreciative enough to have prevailed on the awards committee to have minted at least a modest necklace, or even a tiara, for his missus. But not my good, old Uncle Kofi Diawuo!

He even had Messrs. Kojo Tsikata, the infamous Butcher of Keta, and John Evans Atta-Mills and John Dramani Mahama on the maiden list of his National Merit Honors Awards. Chairman Rawlings, predictably, had indicated his inveterate disinterest in any such award, in case he was being considered for the same, which he most likely was. Interestingly but not surprisingly, the name of Nana Akufo-Addo would be nowhere to be found on the same list - what was shocking, though, was that Akufo-Addo, who had served creditably in two major cabinet portfolios under Uncle Diawuo, was running neck-and-neck against then-Candidate Atta-Mills on the ticket of the then-main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

In other words, the starkly unmistakable message was that even the worst political foes of Uncle Diawuo were far were a far better gubernatorial alternative to the lame-duck president than his own ideological clansman and kinsman. This unpardonable act of betrayal is a running sore in my heart that would probably never heal for the rest of my life. And this is also part of the reason why I may never, again, become a card-carrying member of the New Patriotic Party. As the saying goes: With fellow political truckers like these, is there any other sensible reason why I ought not to be my own best friend?

Well, according to the news report, Mr. Kufuor made known his regret in not having publicly honored his wife with a state merit order to former Nigerian strongman Gen. Abdul Salami Abubakar, during a courtesy call that the latter recently paid him at his residence near the Kotoka International Airport (KIA). He might just as well have noted the fact that had Chairman Jerry John Rawlings not beforehand rejected the certain possibility of such a shameful gesture, Togbui Avaklasu I may very well have topped the list of honorees.

As far as I have been able to studiously decipher, there is this pathological lame-brainness about a remarkable percentage of the leaders of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo School that I have yet to come to terms with. For instance, what jinxed Nana Akufo-Addo into throwing caution to the wind by paying that egregiously ill-conceived "courtesy call" on the Godfather of the Sogakope Mafia, with just a couple of weeks, or so, to go before Election 2012? A "Mandela Complex" or what? Well, right there and then, I had this premonition, or rather nightmarish reverie, in which Mr. Leprechaun (my profuse apologies to Chairman Rawlings), handed his diamond-studded crown to one of Togbui Avaklasu's former understudies, having curiously and apparently inexplicably decided that it was not yet his turn to wear the same.

And so why troop to the effectively traumatized and nullified Supreme Court trying to retrieve the very crown which you have yourself - perhaps in a drunken stupor - so facilely and voluntarily given away? Was this some sort of self-flagellating diffidence or plain... well, you can just figure out the rest.

At any rate, I happen to wholeheartedly agree with our sleepy-eyed Gentle Giant that 51 years of putting up with his notorious gallivanting ways ought to have garnered my dear Aunt Theresa the Mo Ibrahim Award for Faulty Tolerance. I must also quickly add, however, that being First Lady is none the least bit among the most tragic misfortunes to have befallen Mama Theresa. What staggers my imagination, though, is why Mr. Kufuor's brother-in-law, the urbane and indomitable Mr. Joseph Henry Mensah, a distinguished economist in his own right, was not awarded the "Supreme Order of Akonta Sekan," after five protracted decades of ruthlessly hammering his kid sister with... you know what Langa-Langa I'm talking about.

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