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

Mr. Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie (alias Sir John) is right on the money, as it were, when he asks all branches of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to establish prayer groups in the lead-up to Election 2012. Needless to say, ours has always been a godly tradition, be it Christian or Muslim and/or Traditional African. On the other hand, the ruling National Democratic Congress, which is Marxist-/Socialist-oriented has tended to worship guns and other forms of weaponry as a means of repressing civil liberties and thereby entrenching itself.

It, therefore, came as no surprise at all when a recent poll conducted by the group called Research International indicated that his public moral grandstanding and all, more Ghanaian Christians preferred an Akufo-Addo presidency to the Atta-Mills presidency (See “More Christians Prefer Nana to Mills – RI Poll” The (Ghanaian) Statesman 8/8/11).

What the foregoing means, of course, is that, by and large, an increasingly sophisticated Ghanaian electorate is not fooled by the president’s well-choreographed display of Christian religiosity. They have not been fooled primarily because Tarkwa-Atta’s tacit complicity in the politics of insults, as liberally and routinely practiced by key operatives of his cabinet, has not been lost on a largely well-cultivated Ghanaian public.

This curious presidential attitude is not wholly accidental; it has grim historical roots in the country’s first postcolonial governing party, the so-called Convention People’s Party (CPP), led by Mr. Kwame Nkrumah. The latter has been widely quoted to have claimed to be a “Marxist-Christian” who saw absolutely no contradiction in these two ideologically disparate doctrines. In practice, however, Nkrumah would demonstrate himself to be an insufferable tyrant, megalomaniac and an irredeemable dictator. And on the eve of his landmark overthrow in February 1966, some of his most ardent critics even believed that Mr. Nkrumah was severely afflicted with a form of psychosis called a “God Complex,” a delirious mental state in which the patient actually comes to believe s/he is the quintessential Divine Godhead or the Supreme Deity itself!

One recognizes a milder form of such God-Complex psychosis in President Mills’ communications director, an obnoxiously voluble and morbidly overweight man by the name of Koku Anyidoho. In the wake of the New Patriotic Party general-secretary’s call for the establishment of prayer groups at all the party’s branches across the country, Mr. Anyidoho was widely reported to have imperiously retorted on an Accra radio program that it would be far better for the members and supporters of the New Patriotic Party to pray for the forgiveness of their own collective and individual sins, rather than fervidly aiming to constitute the next government of Ghana. You see, to the morally decadent and logically addled likes of Mr. Anyidoho, the Atta-Mills government is akin to a latex football purchased on the flea market by the communications director’s mother for this little boy who thinks that, somehow, he can decide on who has a right to play with the ball, and who does not, on what terms and conditions.

It is also quite interesting for Mr. Anyidoho to sneer that the prayer-group strategy announced by the NPP “will in no way attract votes from the Christian community.” Interesting because Mr. Anyidoho, who has yet to compose a decent “State-of-the-Nation Address” for President John Evans Atta-Mills, is not known to be particularly Christian in either temperament or orientation. We also know from the Research International poll that it is, in fact, among non-Christian and non-Muslim religious Ghanaians that the Akufo-Addo Campaign ought to consider making serious inroads. Of course, quite a remarkable amount of work also needs to be done in the Muslim community, as also throughout the three northernmost regions of the country.

Needless to say, Mr. Anyidoho may well find humor in Sir John’s call for the establishment of prayer groups by all branches of the New Patriotic Party, being that some leading members of the NPP have accused President Mills of neglectfully converting our august seat of governance into a prayer camp. Well, there is a modicum of logic to such criticism, especially when one reckons the fact that the now-President Mills has staunchly trucked with the Butcher-of-Sogakope for some two decades. I mean, how many Ghanaians would find it to be perfectly in character if Capt. Kojo Tsikata showed up on Metro-TV claiming to be a missionary avatar of Pope John Paul II?

*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 “Sounds of Sirens” (iUniverse.com, 2004). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###