Why Mahama coronavirus team is unwelcome

The decision to diplomatically and graciously welcome the patently seditious establishment of the 11-member anti-Coronavirus-fighting team by Candidate John Dramani Mahama and his rag-tag team of National Democratic Congress’ Abongo Boys, and Girls, too, pretty much reminded me of that most wrenchingly bleak period in the electioneering campaign of the now-President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, when the latter and his electioneering campaign team were rudely and constantly reminded by the operatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the extant ruling regime, that there was one and only one President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana; and, also, that that one and only substantive President was, first, Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills, late, and then another Ghanaian citizen by the name of Mr. John Dramani Mahama.

I also vividly remember then-President Atta-Mills gravely cautioning Ghana’s Attorney-General and Justice Minister and, later, Foreign Minister under the presidency of Mr. John Agyekum-Kufuor, that there was only one and only one constitutionally mandated President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana; and that, that singular personality was none other than the Tarkwa-born elder of the fraternal twins by the Anglo-Ghanaian surname of “Mills,” as in pills. But, of course, the one such incident that most devastatingly broke my heart was that which occurred at the funeral of Mr. Adams Mahama, the liquid-acid slain Upper-East Regional Chairman of the extant main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), when somebody draped the lectern or podium at which the then-Candidate Akufo-Addo was scheduled to deliver his eulogy in honor and memory of the hard-driving staunch Akufo-Addo backer.

Within a couple of hours of delivering his resplendent and comforting eulogy, a widespread wave of protests had swamped and flooded the national media; the protest salvo came from the Kokomlemle Headquarters of the then-ruling National Democratic Congress. It intemperately reminded the Akufo-Addo Presidential Campaign Operatives that there was one and only one President in the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana, and that that Leader or President was the Bole-Bamboi-born Mr. John Dramani Mahama. So, now, the logical question becomes: Why are the Abongo Boys and Girls of the National Democratic Congress so cavalierly and disdainfully disregarding the selfsame statutory and constitutionally mandated edict that recognizes only one and one democratically elected President of Ghana, presently named Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo?

Do the members of the Mahama Posse reckon themselves to stand well over and above the 1992 Republican Constitution of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana? It ought to have become inescapably limpid to Mr. Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, one of my favorite Akufo-Addo cabinet operatives, that in good naturedly or graciously and conciliatorily welcoming the Mahama-constituted 11-member anti-Coronavirus fighting team of health experts, that the otherwise media savvy and dynamic Information Minister was actually exposing the Akufo-Addo Administration to virtual political suicide? Under what constitutional act or mandate did Candidate Mahama acquire or draw the right or authority to constitute a parallel anti-Coronavirus fighting team of experts?

Both Messrs. Oppong-Nkrumah and Dramani Mahama owe Ghanaian citizens a prompt and an immediate answer or answers. It goes without saying that what was constitutionally valid under President John Dramani Mahama must be equally valid under the watch of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.,

PhD English Department,

SUNY-Nassau Garden City, New York

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net