Opinions of Tuesday, 2 June 2015

Columnist: Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame

Don't Insult The Intelligence Of Ghanaians, Mr. Atubiga

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
May 6, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

It is very characteristic of the political sharks of the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to insult the intelligence of Ghanaians by attempting to put those who boldly call the government out on its gross incompetence on the defensive. In the latest of such scam-artistry, we have Mr. Stephen Atubiga, not to be confused with Justice William Atuguba of Election 2012 infamy, vacuously accusing Ms. Yvonne Nelson, the renowned actress of Ghollywood and Nollywood, of doing the "dirty work" of Nana Akufo-Addo, because Ms. Nelson has dared to use a social network to launch a vehement protest against the government's evidently woeful inability to solve the raging energy crisis in the country (See "Yvonne Nelson, Sarkodie, Others Doing Akufo-Addo's 'Dirty Work' - Atubiga" Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 5/6/15).

If any public figure could aptly be accused of doing a darn "dirty work" on Ghanaians, that personality is none other than President John Dramani Mahama; and his "dirty work" clearly entails deliberately making life ncomfortable and increasingly ungovernable for Ghanaian entrepreneurs and their employees, who are having a Herculean task, respectively, staying in business and keeping their jobs, because President Mahama prefers hopping onto his Gulf Stream Jet and flying out of the country on the least opportunity and flimsiest pretext, than facilitating the ability of those who make the country's economy tick to operate at full-throttle for the progress of the country.

At another era in our nation's history, the rag-tag Mahama government would have been conducted out of town at gunpoint long ago. As of this writing, the filmic bombshell had pointedly shot back at her critics. We shall make time to take up this aspect of her scrap with Mr. Mahama and his unconscionable hirelings in due course. I have said this before and hereby repeat the same, that the most constructive way for operatives of the Mahama government to answer its critics is to either promptly resolve the raging energy crisis or present the people with a viable strategy to resolving the energy crisis, other than the rag-tag and uncreative and myopic and tired approach of shipping in flimsy power-generating barges.

This is not the 1950s or even the '60s; Ghanaians need more effective and reflective solutions to their problems, and not such infantile and shallow approach. Mr. Atubiga must also learn to intelligently apply his mental faculties and stop talking as if he was dealing with a nation of clinical cretins. What is even more annoying is for this purportedly trained lawyer to be cavalierly passing himself off as a key member of the so-called NDC Communications Team. This is the man who attempted to intimidate the Atuguba panel of Supreme Court justices that presided over the 2012 Presidential Election Petition by vowing to spark a nationwide strife or war, if the Supreme Court delivered its decision in favor of the main opposition New Partiotic Party's Presidential Candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. He would be thrown into the slammer for several days and come out shivering like the craven coward that Mr. Atubiga veritably and incontrovertibly is.

The Akan have a saying that a beast in the throes of death often flails and kicks around. The insufferable crudity of his behavior strikingly mirrors the foregoing imagery. As for Mr. Atubiga's vow to launch a campaign boycott against the movie videos and music of celebrities like Ms. Nelson and Mr. Sarkodie, the forward-looking rapper, it predictably reflects the temperament of an irredeemably uncouth rascal and a coward presuming to play Commander of a Thought Police Bureau.

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