By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

When he so glibly asserts that his government will not “spare people or a group of persons who attempt to interrupt the orderly progress of the forthcoming general election,” President John Dramani Mahama is obviously not referring to individuals and institutions widely known to be associated with his own government who have been vigorously and deviously attempting to rig the outcome of Election 2012 in favor of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Else, the Transitional-President would have since long called the invidious and reckless likes of Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the Electoral Commissioner, and his staff of brazen political poker players to order (See “Election Detractors Won’t Be Spared – Prez Mahama Warns” Ghana News Agency/Ghanaweb.com 10/21/12). Needless to say, the dogged and dastardly attempt by the NDC-appointed Dr. Afari-Gyan to seriously undermine Ghana’s hard-won democratic culture has been all-too-glaring for anybody, least of all our voluble Chief-of-Staff, to claim not to be cognizant of.

Then also, there have been a remarkable number of incidents of deliberate intimidation and physical violence by hired hands of the ruling National Democratic Congress, notably in the Central Region and elsewhere around the country, that have yet to be frontally and specifically addressed by the NDC leader in government. Of course, no serious student or observer of Ghanaian democracy is fooled, even the least bit, by Mr. Mahama’s self-congratulatory assertion that “Ghana over the years has enjoyed five peaceful elections” and that his administration “will do everything under our sleeves to ensure another peaceful election this year.”

Well, we definitely know what is under the “sleeves” of the key operatives of the NDC; and it has absolutely everything to do with shortchanging the smooth running of Ghanaian democracy. Needless to say, at least two of the five elections that Mr. Mahama so proudly gushes about have entailed unacceptable levels of violence and considerable mayhem, including Election ’96 and ’08.

In other words, if they have curiously come over to many onlookers and foreigners as “largely peaceful,” this is only because democracy-loving Ghanaians of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo camp, for the most part, have stoically weathered the sinister storms and criminal acts of provocation, intimidation and persecution inexorably visited on their heads and backs by the hired thugs of the “revolution-oriented” operatives of the so-called National Democratic Congress.

And so when he rather quizzically asserts that “Ghana has carved a niche for herself in the eyes of her counterparts in Africa and beyond,” and that he, Mr. Mahama, “will do everything possible to increase that respect,” it is simply not clear precisely what the former “Shit-Bomber” is talking about. The fact of the matter is that the NDC government has absolutely no enviable track-record of “ruthlessly dealing with [mischief makers] before, during and after” any general elections that either occurred under its watch or swept it into the august reins of governance.

Rather, as the Boateng-Gyan episode recently indicated, the NDC has made an epic art of generously rewarding party members and stalwarts who have ingeniously devised violent and brutally extra-legal means of facilitating its electoral triumphs. They have done this through the establishment of a HEROES’ FUND, meant to perpetually guarantee the economic comfort of the party’s most extreme and brutal terror mongers and terror-cell captains.

And you guessed right, the HEROES’ FUND is headed by no less a personality than Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the notoriously vitriol-mouthed NDC General Secretary (aka “General Mosquito”), with Mr. Gyan-Boateng, the NDC Organizing Secretary, heading the terror operations of their so-called heroes, largely a bunch of elementary school dropouts and hardened criminals.

And so, yes, Ghana has etched an enviable image abroad as a relatively functional constitutional democracy; but it is not clear whether the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress has remarkably contributed to the progressive and salutary development of Fourth Republican Ghanaian democracy for our accidental president to lay any pontifical claim to the same.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of English Nassau Community College of SUNY October 21, 2012 ###