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

In his latest rhetorical salvo - and in all likelihood, more is apt to follow - against my strapping and husky distant relative - the relationship may not be nearly as "distant" as it seems to me - the retired New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa, in the Central Region, claims that my dear Uncle Kofi Diawuo unduly allowed his love for his widely alleged "favorite" political nephew to blind him to the greater interests and good of the main parliamentary opposition party (See "Kufuor's Love for Alan Caused NPP's Defeat - P.C. Appiah-Ofori" Vibeghana.com 11/23/13).

There is absolutely nothing new about the foregoing allegation, which some media hacks have rather cheaply taken to calling a "revelation." No wonder, our country is replete with more than our fair share of false prophets who would have our political fortunes determined by dreams and reveries. Anyway, I strongly disagree with the man affectionately called "PC" that, somehow, the deciding factor of Election 2008 was the Tain district of Brong-Ahafo.

Rather, I tend to believe that the fortunes of the NPP squarely hinged on such densely populated municipalities as Nkawkaw. I have recently learned to my rapturous delight that, indeed, a moiety of the township of Nkawkaw is actually Akyem-Abuakwa soil! I think the Party of Drs. J. B. Danquah and K. A. Busia, and Mr. S. D. Dombo unwisely fouled up its own chances of clinching the Jubilee-Flagstaff House trophy, when its key local pointment ignored the politically formidable Mr. Adjei-Baah, popularly called "Shaba," my good old friend and classmate from our St. Peter's Secondary School days.

It goes without saying that allowing the locally well-liked storekeeper to run on the ticket of the NPP, rather than as an Independent Candidate, could readily have countervailed whatever amount of votes it was that put the now-deceased then-Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills over the top. Alas, by the time that the stultifyingly aristocratic and cavalier operatives of the NPP regained the use of their gumption, as it were, the proverbial die had already been cast.

Of course, I am also quite well aware of another version of the Tain myth that has it that my Uncle Kofi Diawuo had actually arrived at Tain on the eleventh hour, but could not find his party's candidate for president to campaign with. If this version of the legend has credibility, then PC has some reparative explaining to do, to speak less of the rendering of profuse apologies. You see, former President John Agyekum-Kufuor is a man that I greatly respect and like; but I have never forgiven him for so bizarrely and opportunistically trucking with the "revolutionary" Flt.-Lt. J. J. Rawlings for some protracted eight months in 1982 as PNDC Secretary for Local Government, or some such "pacifier" appointment.

Naturally, I also have a remarkable modicum of respect for the two-time flagbearer of the NPP from Akyem-Abomosu, culturally speaking. Most of our readers believe that he is a bona fide son of Kyebi; and there is, of course, incontrovertible evidence to back up such belief, too. The fact of the matter, though, is that I personally am convinced that the politically formal and "standoffishly theatrical" Nana Akufo-Addo has tended to take his own Akyem kinsfolk for granted. The stark reality on the ground, and one of which he quickly needs to avail himself and promptly address, is that hailing from Ofori-Panyin Fie, at Kyebi, conspicuously does not have the same electoral traction as having been born at Manhyia. You see, "Yen Akyemfoo" tend to be more individually minded in a way that "Wommo Asantefoo" are not. We are also not as beholden to our "Osagyefo" the way the Asante are beholden to their "Otumfuo." And the latter observation makes a heck of a mighty difference!

I ought to know this, because as a thoroughbred scion of both Asante and Akyem descent, having also been delivered at St. Andrews Hospital on the very morning of President Nkrumah's landmark April 8 crusading Dawn Broadcast against rank CPP corruption, at Serwaa Amaniampong (you know it as Asante-Mampong), I definitely know what I am talking about.

Ultimately, Nana Akufo-Addo lost Election 2008 because, generally speaking, the Akan people have yet to healthily cohere and arrive at the same single-minded stage of urgency that makes some of the nation's ethnic minorities feel like an endangered species. We also rather unwisely continue to envisage our various sub-polities as "tribes," instead veritable and integral constituent states of one Akan mega-nation. I am not hereby unduly advocating hermetic ethnocentrism as a protective political strategy; rather, I am merely stating an empirical fact which, wisely taken to heart and operationalized, would never make "Yen Akanfoo" the scandalously embarrasing political minority that we have become under the rabidly pro-northern tenure of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress.

Akufo-Addo needs to do more campaigning among his own Akyem kinsmen and women, even as charity has been widely recognized to begin at home. It says quite an unpardonably lot, when John Mahama garners 35-percent of the Kyebi ballot, and Baba Jamal takes Akwatia by storm. And by Akyemfoo, of course, I mean anybody who lives and thrives on Akyem lands, irrespective of ancestral origins. The Okyenhene has to make space for the Zongo and Anloga chiefs resident in Okyeman-mu on the Okyeman Council, the way the Asantehene does with his Aboabo, Anloga and Asewase Hausa and northerner relatives on the more expansive Asanteman Council. This is what constructive political engagement is primarily about.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Nov. 24, 2013
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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