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Opinions of Wednesday, 6 April 2016

Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis

Is Akufo-Addo Crazy? 3

RADIO HOST ADAKABRE FRIMPONG MANSO ON AKUFO-ADDO’S DEVIOUS MACHIAVELLINISM

“…Nana Addo abused and threatened me, I was so sad and scared but I kept quiet because I didn’t want to be the fall guy through which something happens and they would say it is because of Adakabre so I kept quiet.

“I was afraid because…I was told to the face you will be killed at a specific date, I have all the evidence, I can substantiate them…I have everything on my phone, I have kept the phones and I would be willing to show it to anybody who wants to see them…”

Why has Frimpong Manso not proceeded to court (and the police) with his damning allegations? Or could it be that he is already there?

Could it be that Frimpong Manso being alive today may have something to do with the timely foiling of the mercenary-training of those alleged NPP bodyguards? We do not know for certain.

And what has Akufo-Addo, our darling Machiavellian and psychiatric politician, put in place to clear his name (and the NPP), to save his face among others, in order to energize his still-born campaign?

AKUFO-ADDO AND THE SOUTH AFRICA’S THREE-MAN MERCENARY CONTROVERSY

Importing foreign mercenaries in the country without regard for internal statutory structures is the height of gross political miscalculation and of political immaturity though among other reservations, we are not directly saying Akufo-Addo and his conniving cabal of kleptocrats do not deserve protection.

They certainly do. Rather, our fear is that political hooliganism and gangsterism may do Akufo-Addo and the NPP in if steps are not taken to check or rein in Akufo-Addo’s new-found right-wing politics of terrorism and intimidation.

There is no doubt in our minds that our schadenfreude politics has given way to the politics of insults, lies, national subversion, intimidation and hatred.

Akufo-Addo is a personification of Ghana’s duopolistic shadenfreude politics.

Nevertheless, calls for Ghana’s military or police, or both, to train the 15-member bodyguard of Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawamia are, we believe, strategically and tactically misplaced.

The element of incumbency advantage and President Mahama being the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, make the presidency a direct beneficiary of privileged access to high-profile classified intelligence, including such information as a strategic and tactical regime of protection and psychological techniques theoretically deployed in training those bodyguards.

The question then boils down to an intelligence technicality of information asymmetry. Evidently, then, the opposition stands to lose big time in this skewed matrix of informational arrangement.

Ironically, it is either the primary responsibility of the state or state-approved or –licensed security establishments that can train these bodyguards to protect Akufo-Addo, his vice president and their immediate families, and of course, at the expense of the NPP in the second scenario.

Last but not least, Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson petitioned the federal government of the United States for national security protection. And the federal government honored their requests. Of course Ghana is not America, or vice versa.

Finally, Ghana stands to benefit if we can learn from the Americans.

KOKU ANYIDOHO ON AKUFO-ADDO AND THE POTENTIAL THREAT OF POLITICAL TERRORISM

Koku Anyidoho, a leading member of the NDC, recently gave the following interview:

“They attempted it on Dr. Kwame Nkrumah but failed. They do that to create fear and panic as well as war-mongering in the country and appeal for votes. But this time around we shall deal with them. If Akufo-Addo misbehaves he will see what we will do to him…

“They [the three South African mercenaries] came into the country under false pretenses and hid in the forest at Agona Gyakwa to train persons how to fire ammunition and detonate bombs…Where will they get the bombs to detonate? Nana Addo did the same thing in 1996 when he imported a group called the Fadigans. They were housed in Akufo-Addo’s hotel at Ring Road.”

Why were these body guards not trained in the Eastern Region or the Ashanti Region? Whatever the response, these serious allegations deserve all the forensic investigational attention worthy of a serious nation-state in political maturation.

We can only hope the second half of the quote is not a self-serving partisan agitprop calculation meant to score cheap political points on the part of Anyidoho.

On the other hand, the historicism of the first half is well documented and beyond the scope of methodological refutation.

BOB MARLEY: WE GONNA CHASE THOSE CRAZY BALDHEADS OUT OF TOWN

These wicked politicians hiding behind these ragtag vigilante groups are crazy or politically insane.

Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom is asking why President Mahama is not debating him too… Paa Kwesi Nduom is crazy…Akufo-Addo is crazy…President Mahama is crazy...Ivor Greenstreet is crazy…Akua Donkor is crazy…Nana Agyemang Konadu Rawlings is crazy…Kennedy Agyapong is crazy…Kofi Wayo is crazy…John Kufuor is crazy…J.J. Rawlings is crazy…John Atta Mills was crazy…Prof. Adu Boahen was crazy…Dr. Hilla Limann was crazy…General Kutu Acheanpong was crazy…

General Akwasi Afrifa was crazy…Otiko Afisa Djaba is crazy…Koku Anyidoho is crazy…Abudu Nelson Baani is crazy…Akwasi Addae Odike is crazy…Sam George is crazy…Asiedu Nketia is crazy…Chairman Wontumi is crazy…Victoria Hammah is crazy…Captain Edmund Koda is crazy…Attorney Nana Asante Bediatuo is crazy…Sir John is crazy…

They are all dangerous Machiavellian liars.

How we wish this insane asylum of crazy politicians had learnt to sing Gnarls Barley’s song “Crazy” and Bob Marley’s “Crazy Baldhead” and the Part 1 of Butabaruka’s “The People’s Court.”! What is more, these crazy-baldhead political animals who inhabit the convenient space of Orwellian animal-farm do not deserve the spectacular longsuffering temperament of the ruled.

And they are all crazy-baldhead political animals who must be chased away from the comfort of their kleptomaniacal Zootopia. Bob Marley had a great word of advice for them (“Time Will Tell”): “Think you're in heaven, but ya living in hell…”

But Akufo-Addo and Kennedy Agyapong lead the choir of Ghana’s crazy and dangerous politicians! Thus, our politician Madama Otiko Afisa Djaba lied when she said that “Mahama has the face of an angel but the heart of a devil.”

That description no doubt perfectly fits all our politicians including Madam Djaba herself, since a woman is more likely to wear “the face of an angel” than a man.

Beyond these rhetorical platitudes, Nkrumah was and still shall remain the only sane and likeable personality amongst Ghana’s politicians and the toast of intelligent men and women from around the world.

SAM COOKE; “A CHANGE IS GONNA COME”

“I was born by the river in a little tent; Oh, and just like the river I’ve been running ever since…

“It’s been a long, a long time coming; but I know a change gon’ come, or yes it will…

“It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die; ‘cause I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky…

“Then I go to my brother, and I say brother help me please; but he winds up knocking me back on my knees, oh.”

Those were the remarkable apocalyptic words of African-American singer Sam Cooke, to be found on the soulful track “A Change Is Gonna Come,” a song covered by African-American soulful singer Bettye LaVette and world-famous rock star Jon Bon Jovi, a New Jersey native, at Obama’s inauguration.

Incidentally, and probably expectedly, the song remains one of Obama’s favorites amongst a corpus of classics, a song whose hopeful and pointed lyricism crowns the African-American struggle for equal rights, social justice, and political representation in the American body politic.

What is more, the lyrical content of the song was and still is both a piercing description of Cooke’s and his friends’ firsthand encounter with the harsh realities of America’s racist culture and Apartheid, otherwise called Jim Crowism, and the indictment of that shamefully brutal system, and finally, of his apocalyptic hopefulness “a change” will arrive someday to change the course of history for the better.

While Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” took a local stand on social and political issues of the day, the German rock band Scorpions’ international hit “Wind of Change” took a stand on social and political issues on a global scale. Even so Cooke’s eventfully became an instant hit with America’s leading Civil Rights advocates, who adopted it and turned it into an anthem for the Civil Rights Movement.

In fact, a number of outstanding artistes including Seal née Olusegun Adeola Akarbi Samuel, ex-husband of actress, model and television host Heidi Klum, as well as a Nigerian-British-American musician with a gravelly voice, have covered Cooke’s classic. History aside, patriotic and conscionable Ghanaians of every ideological stripe expect the kind of change Cooke sang about.

But we take this Cooke’s “change” a notch higher. That change which we so desire should be revolutionary, catastrophic, radical, systemic, and sweeping in its social, moral, and political impact. Alas, that “change” cannot come from Akufo-Addo, President Mahama, Ivor Greenstreet (if Samia Nkrumah’s allegation of vote-buying is true), Jacob Osei Yeboah, Paa Kwesi Nduom, Henry Herbert Lartey, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, Abu Sakara Forster, Akua Donkor, Kwesi Addae Odike, Hassan Ayariga…

Apparently, none of this generation of ever-sleeping and lazy “leaders” seems to have what it takes to effect this revolutionary change in the body politic, since this catastrophic change requires a rebirth of radical Nkrumahism and an immediate stay of elitist pretensions to leadership ethos that has held the country back after the passage of Nkrumah from the political scene.

We shall return…

REFERENCES

Ghanaweb. “Nana Akufo-Addo Threatened And Abused Me—Adakabre.” April 4, 2016.

Ghanaweb. “Mahama Has the Heart of A Devil.” Sourced from Adomonline.com. February 27, 2016.

Ghanaweb. “NPP Imported SA 3 To Detonate Bombs—Anyidoho.” March 31, 2016.