More Than Stephen Atubiga Bargained For

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
May 6, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

If he has any critical mass of gray-matter underneath his skull, Mr. Stephen Atubiga, the National Democratic Congress' communications team member, would promptly and profusely apologize to Ms. Yvonne Nelson, the well-known Ghanaian actress who recently took the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress to task for its unduly prolonged failure to resolve the country's acute energy crisis, otherwise known as "Dumsor" (See "I'm Not Akufo-Addo's Hatchet Girl - Yvonne Nelson" Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 5/6/15).

The unspoken subtext of the Nelson-Atubiga spat, of course, is the deathly fear which Mr. Atubiga and his paymasters and sponsors harbor for the 2016 Presidential Candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. And, needless to say, such fear is only likely to balloon into a hurricane, unless the Flagstaff House Boys are able to remarkably meliorate the raging energy crisis that threatens to return the country's level of development to the Stone Age. And lest the NDC Abongo Boys begin to prematurely celebrate, we need to promptly emphasize that while the canker of "Dumsor" may be the most pressing problem at the moment, it bears reminding the Rawlings Posse that there are equally important problems such as healthcare and education that also need to be tackled, multi-task fashion, if President Mahama is to have a fighting chance at Election 2016.

Of course, I also fully appreciate the bizarre power of incumbency on the African and Ghanaian political landscape. On the question of her all-too-righteous decision to launch a massive protest against the retrograde regime of "Dumsor," we can only heartily congratulate Ms. Nelson and her equally progressive celebrity friends and associates who have decided to link cause with the pretty Ghollywood star. The days of celebrity artists shying away from matters pertaining to the people's socioeconomic and cultural wellbeing are well behind us. And even as Ms. Nelson poignantly observed, at least implicitly, while openly partisan activities may not be good or even savvy for business, nonetheless, the inalienable right of Ghanaian citizens to a decent quality of life cannot be contradicted. Ms. Nelson says that her Stop-The-Dumsor Campaign is on behalf of the "voiceless" and politically and economically disempowered in Ghanaian society.

And clearly this is what differentiates her from the thuggish and hawkish "social kleptocrats" like Mr. Atubiga. And this yeomanly and civically responsible approach to the nation's problems ought to be the desire and focus of eligible Ghanaian voters when it comes to deciding who is the best citizen to station at the Flagstaff House, in order to take studious care of the people's business, which is what the Presidency ought to be squarely about, and not for the mere sake of having taxpayers maintain and support the political office of a President. In other words, the Presidency must be envisaged to represent far more than an architectural landmark or a palatial facade. It ought to organically and functionally embody the moral and cultural values of the people.

So far, what we have was best approximated by Central University College's President Kwesi Yankah, when he recently described the Flagstaff House as a veritable asylum for corrupt and pathologically incompetent cabinet appointees. Rather than cynically presume to second-guess Ms. Nelson, President Mahama ought to call his human attack dogs to order and set about the serious adult task of governance and nation-building. The nuisance activities of shyster lawyers like Mr. Atubiga can only serve to further damage the already badly damaged image of the Mahama government. In other words, it is about time political parasites like Mr. Atubiga found real jobs and more qualitatively contributed to the development of the country.

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