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

I am pretty much enthused by the lightening-swift and definitive manner in which the Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori-Panyin II, and the Okyeman Council riposted the most recent vicious and dastardly attempt by some media partisans of the internally besieged National Democratic Congress (NDC) to draw Okyeman – in particular, Akyem-Abuakwa – into the internecine wrangling among key operatives of the ruling party (See “Okyeman Denies Endorsing Mills’ Second-Term Bid” Peacefmonline.com 6/3/11).
Indeed, while he is quite well-known for making abjectly cynical and divisive comments, such as “There was an Akyem before there was Abuakwa,” nonetheless, it appears that in deputizing for the Okyenhene at the inauguration of a six-unit classroom block at the Abuakwa State College (ABUSCO), Osabarima Adusei-Peasah IV, the Akyem-Tafohene, overreached himself, perhaps inadvertently, by unwisely presuming to interpose himself between the two major warring factions of the so-called National Democratic Congress.
The problem thus had far less to do with the decision of Osabarima Adusei-Peasah to personally endorse the Mills government, as rightly pointed out by the press secretary of the Okyenhene, than the untenably egregious fact of drawing Okyeman into the fray, as it were. Needless to say, had he half-cared to familiarize himself with the unique history of Akyem-Abuakwa, the Tafohene would have readily learned to his own pleasant surprise that whatever significant cultural institutions that are found in Okyeman were almost wholly established with the local initiatives and resources of the Akyem-Abuakwa State, including Abuakwa State College, where President John Evans Atta-Mills recently inaugurated the six-unit classroom black, which event occasioned the unfortunate partisan political remarks of Osabarima Adusei-Peasah II.
Anyway, it is almost certain that President Mills used the aforesaid occasion to seek respite, or reprieve, from the personally destructive NDC fireworks raging in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, and must have therefore found the Tafohene’s tendentious remarks to be quite comforting, particularly being also that Kyebi, where the ceremony took place, is the hometown and political stronghold of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, unarguably the most formidable presidential candidate that President Mills is bound to encounter in Election 2012.
What is rather strange is another remark attributed to the Tafohene, in which Osabarima Adusei-Peasah was quoted as saying as follows: “I can foresee the establishment of a public university in [Akyem-Abuakwa] by the end of the President’s second term.” Well, maybe the Tafohene ought to be reminded that the man who “blindly” authored the patently flagrant STX scam with the South Koreans did so fully mindful of the fact of having effectively rendered himself a one-term president. At least his primary and perennial sponsors are hell-bent on making Tarkwa-Atta a one-term president. Still, the critical question of whether Ghanaians would passively lie face-down and let the Rawlingses ride roughshod on their backs into the lurid formation of a bloody bedroom cabinet remains to be seen.
Somebody also ought to have reminded the Tafohene of President Mills’ brazen and adamant refusal to attend the even more important inaugural ceremony of the Okyeman University of Environmental Studies; and also the fact that it was largely the sons and daughters of Okyeman, more than all else, who championed the establishment of the University of Ghana, Achimota, Korle-Bu, Ghana Cocoa-Marketing Board and the Ghana Football Association and League, among others.
In other words, the establishment of a public university is least bit among the major worries of the diligent and well-meaning citizens of Okyeman.
Needless to say, the one salient lesson that we have all learned from Osabarima Adusei-Peasah’s faux-pas is the imperative need for Ofori-Panyin Fie and the Okyeman Council to carefully screen all those who would be spokespersons and ceremonial representatives of both the Okyenhene and Okyeman. I, however, vehemently disagree with those who are calling for the sanctioning of the Tafohene. Nothing could be more counterproductive in this era of democratic culture. And here, also, must be fondly recalled Dr. J. B. Danquah’s strikingly accurate description of “Akyem-Abuakwans” as a people who are incurably “republican” and “democratic” in our personal and moral outlook (see “Introduction” to Akan Laws and Customs).

*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 a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and the author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.
###