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

The last time that I checked, which was when he made his intemperate statement calling for Nana Akufo-Addo to be prohibited from taking a third shot at the presidency by the executive operatives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku categorically refused to either confirm or deny his intention to contesting the 2016 NPP presidential primary. Besides, the call for candidates to line up for such contest has yet to be issued from party headquarters.

And so it is rather curious that Dr. McHypcrite should be attributing the massive backlash against Dr. Apraku's failed attempt to impugn the integrity of Nana Akufo-Addo to Dr. Apraku's alleged "declaration to contest the flagbearership of the party" (See "Akufo-Addo Cannot Call NPP Members to Order - Aide" Citifmonline.com/ Ghanaweb.com 11/17/13).

What we clearly see here is that some political eunuchs may be deviously using the former Trade and Industry Minister to further their obliquely and publicly avowed agenda of splitting the NPP, in apparent hopes of landing either a plum job or a hefty payola settlement from the Mahama government.

Even more significantly, it is rather presumptuous for anybody to think that, somehow, s/he is the only human Ghanaian who has the constitutional and democratic right to speaking his mind, whenever s/he so decides, or desires; but that , somehow, everybody else ought to be told to shut up, particularly if their speech, writing or ideological stance is deemed to be supportive of the wrong candidate, in the magisterial opinion of Dr. McHypocrite.

Needless to say, if Dr. Apraku takes it to be his bounden obligation to denigrate Nana Akufo-Addo as the only surefire means of upgrading himself, then, of course, those of us who find the former Offinso-North NPP-MP to woefully lack the requisite credentials for the presidency are not going to sit duck and tongue-tied, while Dr. Apraku mischievously schemed with Dr. McHypocrite to steer our ship-of-state into a ravine.

Simply put, Ghana is not a constitutional dictatorship; and so absolutely nobody, including Dr. McHypocrite, can claim to be uniquely qualified to call anybody to order, whatever the latter judgment call means. Of course, the South Carolina-resident Ghanaian political opportunist has every right to insult our intelligence; but so do we, his political foes, have the inalienable right not to brook such flagrant abuse.

It is also quite obvious that Dr. McHypocrite spoke grossly out of order. For even as Mr. Mustapha Hamid, Nana Akufo-Addo's spokesperson, poignantly pointed out, the NPP's Constitution clearly states that the function of a presidential candidate as the substantive leader of the party ceases forthwith with the counting of the last ballot paper (or record of the same thereof) in the most recent election. It is therefore inexcusably disingenuous for Dr. McHypocrite to presume to ride roughshod over both the right of Nana Akufo-Addo to be left alone by internal detractors like the Orangeburg, South Carolina rooftop sniper, and the equally legitimate right of his teeming supporters to vengefully lash back.

It is all-too-obvious that Dr. McHypocrite is too dictatorial in temperament and style of rhetoric to genuinely belong among the ranks of the scions and followers of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo Tradition.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Dec. 17, 2013
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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