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Opinions of Monday, 13 July 2020

Columnist: Rockson Adofo

Relevance or irrelevance of Prof. Opoku-Agyemang as NDC Vice-Presidential Candidate

Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang and John Dramani Mahama Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang and John Dramani Mahama

Fellow Ghanaians, I have come to your various abodes today, Saturday, 11 July 2020, to share with you my views on the relevance or otherwise, of the selection of a lady, in the person of Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, as the NDC Vice Presidential candidate going into election 2020. There are ongoing tantalizing hoo-has about her selection in the Ghanaian political arena. While the NDC camp and some feminist gender activists are touting her credentials and nomination as a plus of enhancement for them winning the election and women empowerment, many others in the NPP camp and discerning ones, see it differently

Subsequently, the writer of this article after thoughtful consideration, analytically battling with his God-endowed brain of wisdom, has decided to wade in to throw light on what is presently an obscured fact from the Ghanaian public.

The bible admonishes that he who lacks wisdom must consult God. Therefore, I do not hesitate to seek wisdom from Him whenever the need arises by engaging my brains in a fair manner.

Yes, Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang is a great woman-academician that worth her salt. She has held big official positions both in Ghana and outside Ghana. She has made the nation proud in some ways and to some extent. She has been able to raise all her three children to obtain academic doctorate degrees.

Nonetheless, it is said, “all that glitters is not gold”, thus, “the attractive external appearance of something is not a reliable indication of its true nature”. Despite all her higher paper qualifications and positions held as are obvious to every Ghanaian, she could not mean well for her country in some areas of her life.

Was she not fanatically supportive of President Mahama’s NDC government’s directive to abolish the trainee teacher’s allowance? Credible information available to me on my WhatsApp page as I write indicates that by her statement, she was overly supportive of the abolition. Here is a woman who was killing the academic future of some people who are the pillars of the success of the nation.

Without formal education that engenders the creativity in humans for the development of nations, how could Ghana prosper when Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang was blindly or selfishly throwing her full weight behind a government policy that was directly stifling the desire of people to become teachers, the pillars on which formal education revolves? She is proud to have given education to her children, a fact the NDC are happily proclaiming over the mountains and in the valleys as going to help them win election 2020. I only see her as a selfish, myopic individual who believes in all for me and my family but nothing for others.

Was she not the very woman who campaigned for, and was among the signatories to the NDC public petition to free the three notorious NDC would-be murderers and rapists from their three months incarceration in the Nsawam Medium Prison? The NDC guys who threatened to kill and rape the Supreme Court Judges were the Accra-based Montie FM programme presenter Salifu Maase aka Mugabe, and programme guests Alistair Nelson and Godwin Ako Gunn.

Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang proved herself unworthy of her credentials as an intelligent woman. She could not prevail upon her colleague NDC members to see the evil in what they were doing but myopically selfishly thought about herself and saving her position in government.

As a researcher, a fair person and God-endowed wise person, let me point her to what happened in the United States of America in years 1972 to 1974, in relation to then American President Richard Milhous Nixon and his Watergate scandal. I quote from the Bloomberg Opinion of Saturday, 11 July 2020, “By commuting the prison sentence of Roger Stone, President Donald Trump has made his contempt for the rule of law plain for all to see. Clemency for a crony convicted of interfering with an investigation of presidential malfeasance is a flagrant abuse of power. President Richard Nixon wasn’t willing to pardon the Watergate criminals who broke into Democratic Party offices in the run-up to the 1972 presidential campaign because he knew how bad it would look; the evidence that Nixon hinted at clemency for his convicted associates was part of the reason he was eventually forced to resign or face certain impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction and removal by the Senate”.

Therefore, for President Mahama to pardon and free the Montie FM three scheming murderous musketeers from their three months jail sentence barely had they started, at the influence of Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang and her NDC colleagues, makes her unfit to be a Vice President going by the Americans’ perspective. Then President Mahama succumbed to the pressure and prodding by Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang and Co. He freed the criminals exactly a month into their sentence to come out to continue with their breaches of the law. She does not respect the laws of the land and the people of Ghana by not only this singular action of hers but many others known and unknown.

Additionally, is it not said when the head is corrupted, the whole body is corrupted? When the head of the fish is rotten, its entire body is rotten. Therefore, what good is a Vice President to a nation, regardless of their gender, when the President is corrupt, incompetent, insatiably greedy and infatuated with taking major administrative decisions all by himself in the hope of accruing personal wealth to himself?

What good is a Vice President, whether a female or male, when their boss (President) has made it his resolute determination to employ and reward criminals to insult and attack the personality of his political rivals? What can a Vice President do when the President has ordered a propaganda machine to churn out lies to fool Ghanaians by telling the public black is white, a sheep is a cow, a hen is a goat and an old banger is a brand new 4 x 4 car as once revealed to the nation by NDC stalwart and lawyer, Baba Jamal, once a Member of Parliament for Atiwa Constituency in the Eastern Region?

Does the bible not have Jesus say in John 13:16 - “Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him”? The same message is repeated in Matthew 10:24 - “Students are not greater than their teacher, and slaves are not greater than their master”

The quoted bible verses go to emphasise that the Vice President cannot do any greater things than the President and contrary to the wishes of the President. If the President is honest, visionary, and competent and has aversion to corruption, so shall the Vice President be compelled to imitate. As the President is, so shall be his Vice.

In this NDC John Mahama’s case where he loves, eats, talks, sleeps and dreams corruption, so shall Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang be in order not to offend her boss. She cannot do anything different but to submit to the wishes of her boss. Therefore, her gender as a female so she can perform miracles does not come into the equation.

With the passage of time and in the heat of the political discourse, Rockson Adofo, the fearless son of Kumawu/Asiampa soil, who by the abundance grace of God upon him, is overflowing with a fountain of wisdom, will invite whoever wants, to approach him, for what to tell to the Ghanaian electorate. The truth will have to be said and the truth shall set us free. The same truth shall win the political party that has a vision for the wellbeing of Ghanaians the election.

My truth will empower Ghanaians to set us free from injustices, and political shenanigans by the Ghana political parties, especially, the NDC.

Ghanaians should please not make a mistake to bring back the NDC to use the nation’s money as though it is the personal wealth of Mr John Dramani Mahama, to be used to purchase luxury cars to dish out to chiefs, fake pastors and prophets, and criminals who support him and his short-sighted antics.

To conclude, it is irrelevant for anyone to applaud the choice of Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as a Vice Presidential-candidate that is credible to win NDC election 2020 because of her feminine gender and higher education background coupled with her public positions held both in Ghana and internationally. They are all VANITY! All her qualities have already been eroded away by the excessive corrupt behaviour of former President John Dramani Mahama and her own actions as mentioned above.

Less I forget, the following richest men in the world at the moment whose businesses and activities have impacted the world in such a positive manner have not got doctorate degrees.

1. Bill Gate: “Programmer-turned business tycoon, Gates, started at Harvard as a pre-law major in 1973, but soon shifted focus, quickly ran through “the university’s most rigorous mathematics and graduate level computer science courses,” says NPR, then dropped out and founded Microsoft”. He started at Harvard University”. Thirty years later, after dropping out, he was awarded an honorary degree by Harvard University.

2. Mark Zuckerberg: “Co-founder and CEO of Facebook. Major: Psychology/computer science – drop out

Social media entrepreneur, Zuckerberg, studied psychology and computer science at Harvard. It was there that he developed “The Facebook” – which would later become Facebook – in 2004. He eventually dropped out to focus on the project, and now basically runs the social media world”

3. “Jeffrey Preston Bezos, born on 12 January, 1964 is an American internet entrepreneur, industrialist, media proprietor, and investor. He is best known as the founder, CEO, and president of the e-commerce colossus multi-national technology company Amazon, created in 1994 out of his garage in Seattle. Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science”

While Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg never graduated from University, Bezos on the other hand has a First degree. Nevertheless, their achievements, wealth and how they have impacted on the world, can never ever be matched by Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang and her entire highly educated family combined so the NDC should please give us a break from their ignorance. It is only in Ghana and Africa that PhD holders are venerated as tin gods.

The battle is still the Lord’s both for President Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP. The battle again is the Lord’s for Kumawuman in their ongoing chieftaincy dispute of which the writer is an appointed vessel of God to secure justice for the oppressed subjects.

Whoever comes across this publication must please share them on their various social media platforms and escalate it to the NPP Communication Teams and His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. They should be guarded by the clues I give to expand them for their campaign message. Nobody should attack the personality of anyone but their policies.

The NDC must come again. I am ready to rubbish any arguments put forward by them on the credibility of the choice of Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as the Vice President because of her feminine gender and education qualifications.