Encore: Kennedy Agyapong’s fifth column

“I am not a Minister and I don’t fear being sacked. I will speak the truth till death. If anyone invites me, I will not honour such an invitation from anyone in the NPP because I fear no one. No one can also threaten me. If they dare, I will come on radio and reveal how we won the election. If they can go and sit at Alisa Hotel and threaten to collapse my business…they should get ready for me…I am ready to face anybody in NPP,” Kennedy Agyapong, Assin Central Member of Parliament said on the 2nd July, 2017, Asempa FM, Accra.

Following Kennedy Agyapong's recent outbursts on our 2016 elections, we publish below from the stables of your authoritative tissues of the Issues,a repeated commentary on the maverick politician’s rhetorical dalliance with controversy and linguistic ‘treason.’

It may sound like an item in a newspaper or news magazine, but a fifth column has nothing to do with journalism, feature writing or anything in the big world of letters. A fifth column is a group of people or an individual who undermines a larger group.

They do not come in the guise of anything unusual or novel. Those who set out to destroy and misrepresent other people, especially their own, often display superfluous amounts of combative energy to set a dangerous agenda or chart a new course of thinking.

Bombastic braggadocio

They stir the still ponds and ruffle quiet feathers until another column is born. Shakespeare’s Iago may be the best idea of a fifth column that we know. Even for those of us who make a living by writing about almost everything, it is difficult to put the pieces together to write a decent column about Hon. Kennedy Agyapong.

A voice resembling that of a leading member of the New Patriotic Party has been captured on tape purportedly fanning ethnocentric tensions by his particular description of a section of the population as people who do not have resources yet control political power. The person whose voice was heard on the tape has come out to deny the statements, warning that the recording may have been ‘doctored.’

He suspects he may have been recorded by a ‘mole’ in his own party for money. Anyhow, the party he belongs to has come out to ‘dissociate’ themselves from the contents of the recording, to promote the unity and cohesion we all want to see in party politics.

In a TV interview, Hon. Kennedy Agyapong is heard employing very bad language to tongue-lash his own party, describing their politics and intellectual capacity in words too terrible to repeat in this column. The Assin legislator does not understand why the NPP should rush to ‘dissociate’ themselves from the purported ‘ethnocentric bigotry’ when the reality of tribal politics in Ghana is too glaring to misreport.

He predicts that his party would remain in political opposition forever because they fail to say it when it matters most–in the name of civility and democratic candour. The MP seized the moment to write a fifth column, undermining his own party and the political tradition that gave him the opportunity to be in Parliament. It was all a cocktail of braggadocio and bombastic language served on an acid tongue. How do these improve the political fortunes of the NPP?

How Honourable?

Words aptly spoken are apples of gold, pictures of silver. The title ‘Honourable’ is not to be used as an ‘antonomasia.’ That is, a person doesn’t carry it as part of his name because of the position they hold, in the same way that a judge carries the well-deserved honour of ‘Lordship’ or ‘Justice.’

In our jurisdiction, people are honourable not because of what they have done, but where they work and what they wear. If they also drive a huge car, they are honourable indeed even if they are in dire need of honour.

The other day, Kwesi Pratt Jnr., editor of the Insight newspaper, made a lot of sense when he suggested that the title ‘Honourable’ must not necessarily accompany people elected into positions of trust and responsibility until they have done something honourable enough to merit that honour.

You do not know how important a Member of Parliament is until you actually start typing those words on a notepad.

MPs are not only elected representatives of constituencies; they represent the values and aspirations of the people who elected them.

They are an embodiment of the powerful democratic institutions and constitutional structures that bind us together. Not everybody who wins constituency elections deserves to sit in that House.

We look up to MPs as people who shape our thinking on important issues of policy and governance, but MPs are also role models who influence opinion and character.

Giving scholarships to poor but brilliant students in Assin, and creating jobs from personal resources are good efforts.

However, Hon. Kennedy Agyapong would serve his constituency better by propagating good values and speaking like a wise man.

No Values, No character

We have been struggling for so long to find the right values to guide our lives. We know where to find them in the Bible and Quran but we do not care how we practice our beliefs. Our values have prepared us to steal from government, speak carelessly and insult one another when we get the opportunity.

Those who are respected in our society are the people who have loads of money to show and some influence to boast about. Nobody seems to care how they made their money until a new scandal is born. If they still have enough money to pay their way through, they turn the tables on us by supplanting the values we hold dear.

This society eulogises and pampers people for what they are not until they become invincible.

Who dares the big man? We have created and promoted strong and powerful men, instead of strong institutions and governance structures. It has taken a lot of sacrifice and hard work for the NPP to get this far.

Nana Akufo-Addo is President after a third try. The NPP prides itself on having ‘the men.’ Aye, there are many intelligent and decent individuals who have worked hard for the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition. Is Hon. Kennedy Agyapong one of those men? I beg your pardon.