Hearsay Is Not An Admissible Fact!

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



In an article titled “Some NPP Stalwarts Support Laurent Gbagbo – Diplomat” (See Ghanaweb.com 1/28/11), a Mr. Manasseh Azure Awuni claims that an Ivorian ambassador who worked for the Gbagbo government recently granted an interview to an Accra-based magazine in which the diplomat, Mr. Koffi Charles, claimed that some top members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) staunchly backed the besieged Ivorian leader.



As a result of the foregoing, Mr. Charles reportedly observed, “It cannot be wholly true that the NPP is behind Mr. Ouattara.” In judicial speak, as it were, the foregoing is appropriately characterized as “hearsay.” In other words, the officially stated position of the NPP vis-à-vis the Ivorian crisis cannot be simply invalidated or impugned merely because a Gbagbo payee allegedly claims quite the contrary to be the case.



On the other hand, what all Ghanaians know to be incontrovertibly true is the fact that President John Evans Atta-Mills attended an ECOWAS summit during which Ghana’s commander-in-chief knowingly and freely signed a pact to supply soldiers in case the ECOWAS leaders decided to forcibly unseat Mr.Gbagbo. It is also true that shortly thereafter President Mills cravenly and curiously contradicted himself by announcing to the world that the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) were spread too thin around the globe, on various international assignments, to be able to physically and directly participate in a possible military intervention in the Ivory Coast.

Matters are made even worse when the Ghanaian leader is also reported to have come to the foregoing conclusion shortly after conferring with divisional commanders of the GAF. Matters are made worse because both the spirits of diligence and competence required the president to have first conferred with his point-persons, or field officers, in the GAF before heading for Abuja to append his signature and, in effect, the credibility of Ghana to a document unilaterally declaring war against the government of President Laurent Gbagbo, in the dubious name of democratic cultural enforcement.

It is also quite certain that in deciding to impugn the politically and diplomatically unsavory equivocation of the NDC government, spearheaded by an evidently wishy-washy President Mills, the leaders of the NPP were fully aware of the fact of military intervention not being the foremost and best option under any circumstances.

Nonetheless, as a matter of principle and in logical consonance with the categorical commission of Ghana’s President Mills to military intervention, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the main Ghanaian opposition leader and NPP presidential candidate for Election 2012, had no other recourse but to publicly and vehemently challenge President Mills to uphold the inviolable tenets of what he had personally signed himself and the country unto.

And yes, even as one loud-talking Ghanaian journalist aptly put it, “Going to war is not about dancing to Tango and Abele tunes.” We really wish that Mr. Kwesi Pratt, who is bona fides with the president, had advised “Tarkwa-Atta” this much before the latter began beating war drums with his signature and the credibility of the Republic of Ghana at large in Abuja.

Curiously, albeit predictably, the man who promised to rain hell and Kenya on the Ghanaian electorate in the event of him losing Election 2008, now claims to be in full and unreserved support of the alleged winner of last November’s Ivorian election.

It is also rather ironic for the members of the most violent and murderous political party and government in recent Ghanaian history, and memory, to be self-righteously accusing the scions of the most democratic and pacifist political ideology and party of gratuitous war-mongering.



*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 also a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and the author of a just-published volume of poetry titled “The Obama Serenades” (Atumpan Publications/Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.

###