Opinion: Not So Fast, Naa Oboshie!

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

I strongly disagree with the Minister of Tourism’s assertion to the Ghanaian electorate that the Dec. 28, 2008 presidential election run-off is no do-or-die affair (Myjoyonline.com 12/23/08). Were the preceding, in fact, the case, there would be absolutely no need for Ghanaians to go to the polls. For, it goes without saying that whichever of the two contesting personalities involved clinches Sunday’s ballot would be apt to determine the destiny of the country for the coming four years.

It is also significant to note that depending upon the outcome of Run-Off 2008, the quality of life of millions of Ghanaians is either likely to considerably improve or virtually go down the drain; and should the latter situation win over the former, Ghanaians may well witness a vengeful reprise of the cash-and-carry policy of the now-opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), as well as the immediate and summary cancellation of the laudable, seminal and salutary Capitation Grant and the School-Feeding Program chucked out the proverbial window.

There is also the eerie likelihood of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) being summarily quashed, even though as a relative at home recently quipped to yours truly, almost every one of the leading members of the NDC has quietly and shamelessly bought into the New Patriotic Party-minted National Health Insurance Scheme. The irony, though, is that people like Mr. Bagbin, the NDC parliamentary opposition leader, roundly boycotted the otherwise healthy debates that precipitated the salutary and all-too-intelligent enactment and implementation of the NHIS.

In essence, the fact that the very quality of life of the proverbial average Ghanaian is direly at stake in Run-Off 2008, ought to have seriously informed Ms. Oboshie Sai-Cofie to the unmistakable effect that, indeed, Election 2008 is an inevitably grave contest between those delightfully, albeit sinisterly, poised to returning Ghana to the bad, old days of media harassment – otherwise known as “Shit-Bombing” – and general socioeconomic regression, on the one hand, and the progressive forces of individual liberty and collective economic empowerment, on the other.

Already, well-meaning and diligent Ghanaians are being offered a bitter foretaste of exactly what the return of an NDC government would imply for them. In the run-up to Run-Off 2008, for instance, Myjoyonline.com reported that Mr. Daniel Ohene-Agyekum, Asante-Regional chairman of the National Democratic Congress, was vehemently disputing the results of a special voting exercise conducted for polling station officials who would be too engrossed with the supervision of Sunday’s presidential run-off to cast their ballots at the same time, even before the votes are counted.

What is interesting here is that Mr. Ohene-Agyekum is not calling into question other special voting exercises taking place in such traditional NDC strongholds as the Volta, Northern, Upper-East and Upper-West regions. And so, the signal is more than garishly clear: the NDC, as has become characteristic of its electoral ideology over the course of the last 16 years, would wrest political power by every means except that which is fair and square. And it is for the latter reason that Nana Akufo-Addo’s recent assertion that the resurgence of the NDC is the single greatest threat to Fourth-Republican Ghanaian democracy, must be envisaged with all the seriousness that it deserves.

Mr. Ohene-Agyekum’s basis for disputing the outcome of the Asante Region’s special election has absolutely no merit, whatsoever; this is because his argument is vacuously predicated on the fact that the voters’ roll has significantly ballooned from 540 to more than 1,500 registrants. The Electoral Commission has rightly and wisely explained that such development is primarily due to the woeful failure of a large number of polling officials not having been able to vote during the December 7 general election. Predictably, the NDC regional capo would have none of the preceding explanation.

The good news here, however, is that the Fourth-Republican Constitution of Ghana and the collective inalienable right of Ghanaian citizens to democratic self-determination trump, or supersede, both the cynical and individual interests of people like Mr. Ohene-Agyekum and any single political party or organization in the country. In effect, whether the shamelessly self-serving operatives of the so-called National Democratic Congress like it or not, come December 28, 2008, it is the airtight electoral decision of the people that is bound to carry the day, as well as national administrative policy for the next four years.

May God bless our one and only homeland, Ghana!

*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 the author of 18 books, including “Ghanaian Politics Today” (Atumpan Publications/lulu.com, 2008). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com. ###