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

Sometimes I wish that our politicians could go beyond the diplomatically insincere expressions of unctuous niceties about opponents, and enemies, widely known to have wilfully, callously and cynically collaborated with other self-seeking associates to irreparably wreck the otherwise promising destiny of our beloved country. For going by all the reliable accounts so far, it well appears that the recently deceased Mr. Paul Victor Obeng was one such reprobate. He may have mellowed and even remarkably reformed, somewhat, with time and age, as well as in his own warped imagination, but the reality of things on the ground clearly indicates that to the very end of his life, PV, as Mr. Obeng was popularly known, was a crossover diehard "personal capitalist" and a devious accomplice of the faux-socialist rascals of the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC).

That in the wake of his passing, at 67 years old, the man has been almost invariably described as "an engineer, businessman and politician" is what has piqued my imagination and interest more than all else. In particular, PV's description as a "businessman" is what fascinates me the most, if also because it is the most politically ironic aspect of the man who inexorably colluded, conspired and collaborated with the Trokosi Nationalists to systematically and wantonly destroy progressive and innovative Ghanaian entrepreneurship. And as has been recently pointed out by several of his most ardent and caustic critics, PV was to unduly take advantage of his perennial association with the Trokosi Boys to amass a great fortune, largely by serving as a liaison, in recent years, between foreign investors and contractors and the key operatives of the so-called National Democratic Congress. He even once threatened to sue some of his vengeful and muck-raking critics.

Like his most criminal business accomplices, his allegedly considerable wealth has yet to be reliably assessed by cutting-edge Ghanaian scholars and economists. And the preceding measure is imperative, being that the first order of business by the key players of the erstwhile so-called Provisional National Defense Council junta and, before the latter, the so-called Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), was to compell legions of hardworking and legitimately well-heeled Ghanaian businessmen and women to account for every cedi and pesewa found to have been deposited in their individual and corporate bank accounts. And where deemed by the "revolutionary" courts - largely composed of politically and ideologically jaundiced, frustrated and modestly successful lawyers - not to have been creditably accounted for, such monetary wealth was summarily expropriated by the State for the exclusive personal use of the Trokosi Nationalists and their upper-middle-class-hating associates.

In essence, PV became a bona fide member of a group of "revolutionary" politicians notoriously assocaited with a phenomenon called "The Politics of Envy." Today, the most prominent practitioners of this crass political crudity constitute the wealthiest citizens of the country. And their impenitently self-righteous and stentorian leader, you guessed right, is the former Chairman Jerry John Rawlings. In sum, it would have been quite refreshing if in paying tribute to PV, while commiserating with the latter's family members and relatives recently, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had also been bold and honest enough to have gone beyond such vapid platitudes as "despite our political differences, P. V. Obeng and I maintained a good personal relationship."

Really, what kind of good personal relationship could exist between a pathologically self-serving faux-socialist kleptocrat and a firebrand fighter for a liberal democratic society of the sort that ultimately made Mr. Obeng and his associates the storied businessmen and women that they are widely reputed to have become today? It ought to be clear to the dear reader, by now, why yours truly finds it extremely difficult to trust any Fourth Republican Ghanaian politician of either political divide.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Board Member, The Nassau Review
May 25, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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