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

I read and listened to the Peacefmonline.com audiotape in which the Eastern Regional Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) intemperately and vehemently lit into Mr. Rawlings and his presidentially ambitious wife and could not stop myself from laughing (See “If Konadu Can Give Identification Haircuts, Then As Prez She Can Cut Off My Testicles – NDC Chairman” 4/15/11).

At first, I was overjoyed because, for some curious reason, the caption of the article accompanying the audiotape misled me into believing that, indeed, the NDC chairman being alluded to was none other than the self-proclaimed “Cat-Strangling” Dr. Kwabena Adjei. And then as I began to read the article, bylined Beatrice Adepa Frempong, it became clear to me that the judge-threatening Dr. Kwabena Adjei was too damn savvy to break ranks with the husband and wife team that made him the quite formidable political force that he has become in both the institutional affairs of the so-called National Democratic Congress and, indeed, the nation at large.

In this particular instance, it was a rather belatedly furious Mr. Julius Kwasi Debrah, the Eastern Regional Chairman of the NDC who was, literally, up in arms over the earth-quaking, albeit all-too-predictable, decision of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings to contest substantive President John Evans Atta-Mills for the 2012 flagbearership of the National Democratic Congress.

Technically speaking, or in principle, there is absolutely nothing wrong with any member of the National Democratic Congress, or any other legitimately registered and duly recognized political party, for that matter, in good standing deciding to contest a sitting President John Evans Atta-Mills. In fact, in the salutary spirit of democracy, that is what the political concept of “Republicanism” is about, the all-too-plausible – to speak much less of the purely commonsensical – fact that no individual has an especial preserve, or monopoly, over the legitimate assumption of the Ghanaian presidency.

The exception on the latter score, of course, is that Mrs. Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings has not amply dignified and distinguished herself adequately enough to qualify for the presidency. If anything at all, this insuperably arrogant woman, like her husband and former strongman, has a blood-dripping criminal record that has been conveniently and expediently papered over by the morally untenable Indemnity Clause inserted into the 1992 Constitution. And on the latter score must be grimly recalled the fact that the key to the vehicle that was used on the night of June 30, 1982 to abduct the three Supreme Court judges and the retired Ghana Army major was collected from the kitchen table of the Rawlingses’ residence with the full knowledge of at least Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (See The SIB Report). Then there is also the widely reported and morally untenable case in which Mr. Selassie Jentu, a young man who had, allegedly, broken off a romantic affair that the latter reportedly had with the eldest daughter of the Rawlingses, Ms. Ezanator Rawlings, was arrested and taken to the dungeons of the Osu Castle and given what became known as an “Identification Haircut,” a criminally excruciating process in which an arrestee summarily charged with an offence either against the Rawlingses or any of the key operatives of the P/NDC was crudely shaved with shards of broken liquor bottles. In the Selassie Jentu case, not only was the victim brutally humiliated for daring to break off his affair with Ms. Ezanator Rawlings but, even more flagrantly, Mrs. Rawlings would also go on public record as vehemently justifying such criminal maltreatment of Mr. Jentu.

What makes Mr. Julius Kwasi Debrah’s tirade against the Rawlingses, in general, and Mrs. Rawlings, in particular, rather suspect is the fact that the Eastern Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress must have long been aware of the criminal record of the Rawlingses – or what Mr. Alban S. K. Bagbin mischievously calls “Mr. Rawlings’ Vision” – before he decided to politically truck with the bloody couple. And to be certain, had Mrs. Rawlings not made the “outrageous” decision to contest President Mills for Election 2012 presidential nomination of the NDC, all would have been honky-dory with Mr. Debrah. Well, there is an age-old term for political expediency on the part of the NDC regional chairman; and it is called “abject hypocrisy.”

In his tirade, Mr. Debrah, who has since apologized (reportedly by means of extortion from Rawlings-leaning Azorka Boys) and who claims to be socio-economically superior to the Rawlingses, significantly notes that he joined the party for purposes other than socio-economic. Well, Mr. Debrah has yet to explain to Ghanaians at large what makes him so enviably patriotic, particularly since he also characterizes his closest political associates, the Rawlingses, of course, as “an aeroplane-seat stealing syndicate.” And also just why he thinks that an Identification Haircut maven like Mrs. Rawlings would tarry this long before taking her liquor-bottle shears to the testicles, or gonads, of the Eastern Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress.

Ultimately, if, indeed, Mr. Rawlings has an unsavory habit of addressing his former presidential second-bananas like a “household help,” there must be quite a plausible reason for that. For, needless to say, the now-President John Evans Atta-Mills has been lock-stepping with Mr. Rawlings for, presumably, much longer than Mr. Debrah has become acquainted with the bloody couple. Besides, hasn’t it been observed, time without number, that there is no smoke without fire?

For me, though, other than the preceding observation, I conclusively decided that Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings was no prime presidential material, not even by a long shot, the moment that she bitterly complained that “My husband has not approved of the selection of John Mahama” as NDC Vice-Presidential Candidate “by Professor Mills.”

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and the author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###