By Francis Kwarteng

“I ask you to be citizens: citizens, not spectators; citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens building your communities and our nation. Let us work until the work is done” (George Bush, 2001).

Akufo-Addo a spectator, not a citizen

“We are determined to get Ghana once again to lead our continent on two fronts: entrenching democracy and the rule of law…” (Akufo-Addo, “We Will Make Ghana Leader in Democracy, Rule of Law—President Akufo-Addo,” Ghanaweb, February 18, 2017).

Clearly the target of Akufo-Addo’s plagiarized inaugural speech was the Ghanaian, supposedly an audiential referent very much in tune with the swearing-in hoopla.

Sort of an expectant maiden speech nonetheless, but one deeply marinated in or tinged with the sweltering heat of international ignominy.

And thus, Akufo-Addo presented his speech as though he was totally outside the collective experience of the social contract he had had to go into under no ostentatious compulsion, a tacit and overt agreement with his audiential referent on that momentous occasion.

Like the political paedomorphosis which he has sometimes represented in the Ghanaian body politic, Akufo-Addo spoke not unlike an exceedingly spoilt potentate or doted-upon brat.

The rhetorical semblance of his outside experience stems from the simple fact that he was not— and arguably still not—the originator of the line attributable to George Bush.

A speech given as if he was in the grip of astral projection.

That detachment, that out-of-body experience, was, and still is, a telling indictment on the intellectual personality of Akufo-Addo, of the nation at large.

And it shall remain indelibly so on the emotional graveyard of his political epitaph—so long as the public memory stays alive no matter what.

Still, the philosophical profundity of this Bush-esque line and its intellectual appeal to the human mind are not in question.

What is rather in question is Akufo-Addo’s detached cemeterial silence over the politically motivated hooliganism, vigilantism, and vandalism of the Invisible Forces, a criminal organization, as well as of the so-called State Asset Retrieval Committee, or Assets Recovery Task Force.

In one moment Akufo-Addo is telling a Ghana-based Diplomatic Corps that he will make Ghana a hub of social, political and legal justice—the Mecca of the rule of law in Africa.

The next moment his elitist, detached silence signals tacit endorsement of the gate-crashing tendencies of the Invisible Forces, a “militia” attached to, or a military wing of, the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Thus he remains imprisoned in this paralyzing paradox of political inaction, from which it is also becoming abundantly clear that no tenable route exists for his escape, in this case lending credence to a popular opinion in some quarters that he is, after all, behind this blatant, articulate circumvention of due process by members of the Invisible Forces who have gone on a nation-wide rampage under the pretext of retrieving state properties.

Akufo-Addo has thus become a spectator, not a citizen. The man is in a full denial mode! This view however contradicts the moral and hopeful subtext of his inaugural speech, a speech made of stolen parts.

Akufo-Addo is playing the ostrich while his militant hyenas have gone on a rampage feeding on the blood-soaked carcasses of due process.

And this man is supposedly a human rights lawyer, supposedly one of the nation’s finest lawyers, supposedly one of the key architects of “Kumi Preko.”

On the one hand, Akufo-Addo’s detached silence constitutes a natural antithesis of citizenship.

On the other hand, he makes it look as though citizenship does not require active participation in the political process and nation-building.

There exists no workable synergy among citizenship, collective responsibility and active participation in the political process insofar far as his failure to rein in members of the Invisible Forces is concerned.

This lack of operational synergy in our political duopoly is bound to turn the Flagstaff House into a den of political criminals and subverters of the rule of law.

And, this, unfortunately, is the trend. Or rather the case.

Now, let’s refresh our memories with how Bush defined “citizen” for Akufo-Addo:

“Citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens building your communities and our nation.”

What we are therefore getting from Akufo-Addo’s behavior is that those whom the Invisible Forces are hounding tend to be the “subjects” in his political calculations, while members of the Invisible Forces and his sycophantic political playmates are “citizens.”

Akufo-Addo is therefore denying his “subjects” due process in a court of competent jurisdiction.

This is actually what is done to Black America in many a sad, regrettable situation.

In other words, these “subjects” are treated without the benefit of due process under what Akufo-Addo calls “the rule of law,” the same manner African Americans are subjected to racial profiling by some in White America who do not see their African-American brothers and sisters as “citizens” in the American experiment

Eugene Arhin, the man who reportedly took the heat for the plagiarized speech without knowing he will ever be caught and accordingly apologized for it, completely ignored the historical and contemporary context of race relations in America as far as the text of the Bush-esque speech goes.

The notoriety of Akufo-Addo’s plagiarized speech, either advertently or inadvertently transplanted this controversial context onto the Ghanaian political and moral landscape.

A rather direct or indirect corollary of this working hypothesis is that it somehow evokes a striking parallel context between Akufo-Addo’s Akan exceptionalism and his misguided take on the question of the presumed primacy of the Akan, who, again, in his warped opinion, is naturally endowed to fill the headship of political governance to the absolute exclusion of members of other ethnic groups, a dangerous political statement reflected in his Yen-Akanfuo nonsense as well as in those genocidal comments from Yaw Osafo-Marfo and Kennedy Agyapong.

Leaders like Akufo-Addo should not forget that our unitary nation-state, Ghana, was founded on the progressive principles of social inclusion, ethnic and racial equality, gender equity and equality, social justice, economic prosperity for all, and so on.

We cannot afford to underestimate the potential of these social-political variables to make and unmake the political character and integrity of the Ghanaian body politic.

It is, therefore, not strange that the social inclusion of all ethnic groups in the national enterprise constitutes the overwhelming motif of our philosophical world, our moral algorithm for a progressive national narrative.

Yet, while we may not have chalked or recorded sterling, inviolate achievements and successes in each of these categories, there is no excuse whatsoever for us not to be hopeful that asymptotic approximations of these measurable though burdensome categories of social indicators are far from practical realization.

Realizing these noble goals however boils down to citizenship, social justice, political morality, equity and fairness, and political action.

As a matter of fact any concept of citizenship devoid of patriotism is meaningless, absolutely meaningless.

Akufo-Addo’s plagiarized speech failed to establish this distinction. This uninspiring speech, in a way, disregards the social contract between the moral roles of citizenship and patriotic citizenship.

In our opinion, his speech takes after Maradona’s “Hand of God” in this regard.

And oh, yes, Dear Reader, we will also settle on the honorific titular address “cynical optimists” or “objective pessimists,” however we deem fit.

We shall return with Part 2, the concluding segment.