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

I listened to the audiotape analysis of the conflict between Nana Akomea and Mr. James Agyenim-Boateng by Mr. Kwesi Amakye and promptly concluded that the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) political science lecturer woefully lacks the sort of scholastic objectivity that is the putative hallmark of a reputable social scientist (See “Akomea Will Be a Liability to NPP’s 2012 Campaign” MyJoyOnline.com 8/9/11).
His first shortcoming is the patent failure of Mr. Amakye to recognize the fact that while, admittedly, both Messrs. Akomea and Agyenim-Boateng were culpably indecorous in their verbal exchanges, Mr. Agyenim-Boateng, the Deputy Tourism Minister, had the greater burden of maintaining rhetorical civility, for the simple reason that he is a key player among the executive ranks of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The preceding, however, does not absolve Nana Akomea, who has also been a minister of state under the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party (NPP), from foul rhetorical culpability. Where the KNUST lecturer grossly errs, though, is to naively presume Nana Akomea’s action to be more likely to become a significant political liability for the Akufo-Addo Campaign.
Indeed, should the “politics of insults” become a major electioneering talking point in the lead-up to Election 2012, President John Evans Atta-Mills is the candidate who is far more likely to suffer heavy losses, for the simple reason that throughout this foully charged atmosphere, Tarkwa-Atta has roguishly acted like an absentee landlord, even as the uncouth and cantankerous likes of Mr. Kobby Acheampong and Dr. Hannah Bissiw literally got away with murder.
Interestingly, the foremost player in such sustained spewing of vitriol who has, curiously, been left out of the equation is former President Jeremiah John Rawlings, whose gratuitous personal attack on Nana Akufo-Addo, by calling the latter a dwarf, constituted the capstone of the Mills-Mahama Campaign. And so, really, contrary to what Mr. Amakye would have his audience believe, it is the ruling National Democratic Congress that has more explaining to do to a traumatized Ghanaian electorate.
Significantly, what the KNUST political scientist has to say about the reaction of the Communications Director of the Akufo-Addo Campaign, tells more about Mr. Amakye than either Nana Akomea or the NPP flagbearer. For starters, the KNUST lecturer pathetically demonstrates his abject lack of objectivity. There is clearly a double standard here, in the fact that Mr. Amakye appears to automatically expect the traditionally more urbane disciples of the Danquah-Busia camp to sit duck, like the proverbial punching-bag, while key operatives of the Rawlings Posse do what they are known to do best, which is verbally reduce their political opponents into outcasts of the very society for whose enviable liberal democratic culture their ideological forebears suffered untold abuse, humiliation, torture and death.
Well, as Nana Akufo-Addo poignantly reminded the NDC bullies at the beginning of the year, the days of the “cheek-turning” Nazerine are well behind us. This terror-charged era demands swift and instant justice; and it is precisely the latter that Nana Akomea gladly and kindly returned to Mr. Agyenim-Boateng.

*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 Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of 22 books, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2008). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.
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