Opinions of Friday, 5 August 2016

Columnist: Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame

Anyidoho may still be seeing President Mills in his dreams

Late John Evans Fiifi Atta MillsLate John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills

He has yet to explain exactly how President John Evans Atta-Mills met his death, somewhere between the Osu Castle and the 37th Military Hospital.

All he has been doing in the four years since the death of the former University of Ghana tax-law professor, has been to regale the shallow-minded and lily-livered with tales of his dreams in which the man whose communications director he served has been appearing and assuring the dreamer and all who care to know, that Prof. Mills is hale-and-hearty wherever he may be.

In short, if any prominent political operative in the country could be aptly described as a man who is totally bereft of the trust and confidence of the Ghanaian people, it is none other than Mr. Koku Anyidoho.

He says President Mills did not die at the Castle, but he can nether tell us precisely where the man died or the circumstances under which the late president arrived at the Maternity Ward of the 37th Military Hospital. To be born again, biblically speaking, maybe?

Some among the ranks of the Mills-Mahama presidency have intimated that the widely alleged ailing leader died of natural causes. Surprisingly, however, both the head of the Mills Clan at Ekumfi-Otuam and the decedent man’s closest kinsfolk and associates are not buying the party line.

It well appears that the Mahama government’s decision to have the mortal remains of President Mills interred in Accra, at a place called Geese Park, was laced with a cover-up. For, to-date, Dr. Mills’ successor has yet to officially inform Ghanaians about the precise cause of his predecessor’s death.

In recent weeks, the eternally touring President John Dramani Mahama has fulsomely praised President Mills as his “mentor, friend and benefactor,” but he has yet to tell Ghanaians and the rest of the world precisely what happened on that fateful day of July 24, 2012.

Reliable sources inside the Flagstaff House have hinted at the fact of a reluctant President Mills being strategically pushed off the scene in order to enable his heir apparent meet the deadline for having his name put on the ballot for the 2012 presidential election.

The preceding is what many a level-headed Ghanaian citizen and eligible voter has a right to know, not the red-herring or distractive question of whether Team Bawumia deceived the people or not vis-à-vis its widely alleged discovery of the fact of nearly 80,000 Togolese nationals having been reportedly scanned into Ghana’s National Voters’ Register

(See “I Will Sue Bawumia” Adomonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/30/16).

Having been rendered decidedly irrelevant to the Mahama cabinet, a desperate Mr. Anyidoho appears to be thrashing about and grabbing straws, literally speaking, in order to make himself germane and significant to the Mahama presidency.

He would do himself much better to explain the high incidence of over-voting in the Volta Region, an anomalous occurrence which was acknowledged by Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan before the Atuguba-presided Supreme Court panel that adjudicated the 2012 Presidential-Election Petition.

If, as he maintains, Mrs. Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei, Dr. Afari-Gyan’s successor as Ghana’s Electoral Commissioner, feels affronted by the purported deceit pulled on her by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, then, by all means, let the EC Chair, who is also a professionally trained lawyer, seek redress in a legitimately constituted court of the land.

In other words, even as New Patriotic Party (NPP) communications stalwart Mr. Anthony Abayefa Karbo had occasion to recently observe, on the question of Team Bawumia’s sleuthing, Mr. Anyidoho has absolutely no legal or judicial standing.

His vow to completely denude Dr. Bawumia of the latter’s hard-won reputation and confidence with the Ghanaian people, risibly recalls that tired Akan adage in which Mr. Naked promises Mr. Tattered Clothes a bolt of cotton print.