Dr. Amoako-Tuffour Has No Choice But To Stand By His Own Guff!!!

I have been watching the Amoako-Tuffour Circus desperately attempt to sanitize the Mahama lackey's vacuous misappropriation of ethnicity as a campaign cudgel to strong-arm the Akan-Ghanaian majority into unimaginatively going against its own sacred and inviolable democratic interests in the dubious name of ethnic and regional balance in NPP and Ghanaian politics in general. And, needless to say, the picture is insufferably and unpardonably lurid.

Of course, we know what the true intentions and motives of Dr. Amoako-Tuffour are, but it is rather inexpedient at this juncture in the game to delve into details. Suffice it to say, however, that attempting to draw Dr. J. B. Danquah into his devious campaign gimmickry would not work. And, indeed, were Dr. Amoako-Tuffour humble enough to avail himself of the enviable political record of the putative Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics, in the Legislative Assembly, he would have readily learned, to his utter embarrassment, the unalloyed fact that Dr. Danquah fought harder for the interests of northern Ghanaians, against the regressive policies of the British colonialists than any other Ghanaian statesman or nationalist politician, including President Kwame Nkrumah! Besides, one does not become “the Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics” by either preaching or practicing tribalism, as the Mahama loyalist would have Ghanaian voters believe.

Ignorance is bliss, indeed, which is why the Aliu Mahama “spinmeister,” somehow, manages the quite curious chutzpah to rather gratuitously gush about some protean phenomenon called the Danquah-Busia Tradition's “mistakes of the past.” And just what “mistakes” is the Mahama go-fer talking about? And if, indeed, the Danquah-Busia Tradition, personified in Ghana's Fourth Republic by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) had “an image problem” in the Volta Region, for example, why did Dr. Danquah consistently keep trouncing Prime Minister (later President-for-Life) Kwame Nkrumah at the polls by the staggering margin of 9-to-1 (or 90-percent to 10-percent) in the Volta Region? Was it because Dr. Danquah fielded Alhaji Mahama, or a northern predecessor of the latter's, in the position of presidential candidate or flag-bearer?

Come on, Dr. Amoako-Tuffour, you can't simply hide your abject contempt, and spite, for a certain front-running non-Asante Akan behind the chimerical façade of ethnic and regional balance! Just when did Alhaji Mahama come to represent all northerners, by the way? And, also, have you ever taken the time to count the number of northern parliamentary seats controlled by the NPP since Mr. Mahama assumed the vice-presidency of Ghana?

Unfortunately for the divisive and regressive likes of Dr. Amoako-Tuffour, both Akan and Ghanaian politics have advanced far beyond regional and sub-regional superficialities to a salutary stage of “meritocratic-determinism.” In sum, the Mahama hireling's vicious attempt to draw prominent NPP members like Mr. Appiah-Menka into his disingenuous fray, a la pure hearsay, or flagrant name-dropping, would not work this time around. We have gone this way before and, needless to say, the blistering consequences are still glaring enough for those of us with unmediated cognitive sight to behold and promptly regret.

And then again, except for his base opportunism, just exactly when did Zongo communities come to dominate Ghanaian politics? Another pathetic case of reckless pandering? Or is it a canine cultivation of strategic, ethnic self-effacement? Give us a break; and, then, to think that such a political knave, or rascal, would have his more rational and pragmatic critics respect his self-hating antics, simply because he has earned a doctorate in the practice of medicine, a degree that he, apparently, would rather have promptly converted into Doctor of Akan-Baiting Tribalism?

And just what does the Mahama campaign Jihadist mean by NPP executives ignoring the supra-constitutional prerogatives of a “sitting vice-president,” when even the Fourth-Republican Constitution does not, in any way, shape or form guarantee the extra-electoral succession of Mr. Mahama to the presidency?

Finally, it is, indeed, quite laudable for Dr. “I am an Ashanti man with a mission” Tuffour to loudly pat himself on the back for having, supposedly, successfully fought against Dr. Hilla Limann's allegedly illegal attempt to bump former Chief Justice Apaloo from the august bench of the Ghanaian Supreme Court. Whatever the quiddities of that case were is totally irrelevant here; what is relevant, of course, is the fact of Justice Apaloo having also been the maternal uncle of the notorious Tsikata brothers, including the P/NDC's so-called National Security Advisor under whose “secure” watch three Akan Supreme Court justices were coldly murdered. In essence, would Dr. Amoako-Tuffour also tell Ghanaians exactly what he did to bring justice and closure to the bereaved families, relatives and friends of these justices? And lest we forget, also to the family of Major Sam Acquah (rtd.)?

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English and Journalism at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is the author of “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005). E-mail: [email protected].