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

President Mills’ third “State-of-the-Nation Address” was also quite interesting for the shocking insight that it provided Ghanaians and the international community at large into how little he understands about the culture of the very country which he has been ruling for some two-odd years now. Touching on the age-old question of widespread decadence in society, for example, this is what the former University of Ghana Law School professor had to say:

“Madam Speaker, we are going to make an effort to reorient the psyche [sic] of our youth[s] towards what we consider to be Ghanaian values – especially on the issue of moral consciousness.” And in case the keen listener/reader was wondering precisely what such psychical reorientation and moral consciousness entailed, this is what the tragically debonair Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces means. Here again, “take a reading,” dear reader:

“The Ministry of Education will be working in conjunction with the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture[,] as well as the relevant State and private entities[,] to reinforce Arts and Culture Festivals in second[-]cycle institutions.” If the preceding is not an epic disappointment of apocalyptic proportions, then we don’t know what else it is!

Needless to say, we had anticipated the President to highlight the training of more indigenous language and culture teachers, such as has been done at the Ajumako School of Ghanaian Languages, in order to enhance the inculcation of positive Ghanaian/African cultural values into our youths. This then could be theatrically and/or practically reinforced by experts from the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture collaborating with counterparts at the Ministry of Education to design and implement a holistic curriculum of constructive engagement between African cultural values and the boundary-pushing pressures of modernity.

Predictably, he did not fare remarkably any better on the question of how abjectly disrespectful or totally oblivious Ghanaians tend to be with regard to those whom we consider to be our national heroes. And in what appears to be a barely veiled riposte to the perennial Danquah query, President Mills smugly observed: “My 2010 Christmas card featured a picture of the gallant Black Stars who did the nation proud in the 2010 World Cup [tourney] in South Africa.” And then the following punch-line: “I meant it as a signal that our heroes will always be remembered and that Ghana is worth dying for.”

If only this renowned amateur soccer player appreciated even half of what he meant, then, no doubt, Ghana would have finally and, indeed, arrived at the level where it could be aptly described as a nation that is auspiciously endowed by Divine Providence with an enviable sense of “moral consciousness,” the kind of patriotism that, for instance, one routinely observes in the casual conversations of the proverbial average American.

Now, the foregoing is the theory. In practice and rather bewilderingly, President John Evans Atta-Mills has not been any different from the typical pathologically partisan Ghanaian politician. And we feel deeply ashamed and flabbergasted to have to observe the same. Indeed, the very brazen manner in which the Mills-led regime of the National Democratic Congress conducted public discourse on the question of the means by which to honor our Founding Fathers was not one that was worthy of emulation.

In brief, the President’s unpardonably jaundiced attempt to, once again, totally and conveniently proscribe and even summarily consign the other members of the legendary Big Six, other than his own “Osagyefo,” into the gray margins of Ghanaian and African history, is not one that ardent and diligent students of the history of Ghana’s independence struggle are likely to either readily forgive or even forget anytime soon (See “Danquah Was a Great Patriot; the Lie about [Him] Being a CIA Agent Must Stop!” MyJoyOnline.com 2/14/11).

Related to the preceding must also be painfully recalled President Mills’ rather tepid response to the national outcry for members of our Under-Twenty World-Cup winning team to be deservedly and generously rewarded. His simple flippant riposte was as follows: “They shall be rewarded at the right time.” President Mills would also maintain the same lukewarm stance towards the massive earthquake that destroyed much of the historic Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. A flurry of national criticism would shortly prompt the President to announce the release of $ 3 million aid package for the victims of the first modern Black republic. Would it, therefore, come off to the dear reader as any surprise that this author has yet to read, or even peruse, the recent press release in which President Mills called for the accelerated development of the African continent?

It was also quite amusing to “hear” Ghana’s Commander-in-Chief exuberantly hold forth about the Kufuor-led New Patriotic Party-initiated West African Gas Pipeline. And here, also, must be sadly recalled that then-Candidate Mills spent much of his 2008 electioneering campaign maligning the man who initiated it and even calling the project itself a white elephant! In his February 17, 2010 “State-of-the-Nation Address,” Ghanaians would learn to their delight and the abject hypocrisy of President Mills that, indeed, the Nigerian-originated West African Gas Pipeline was already powering two 100 megawatt turbines at Akosombo, “as well as the Ho Asogli Thermal Plant”!

Now, we have decided to put the latter in quotation marks because in the wake of him standing down as a two-term Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, and the country at large, President John Agyekum-Kufuor was roundly brought up for mordant public excoriation by the paramount chief of the Ho-Asogli Traditional Area, a Yale University-educated man by the name of Togbe Afedi XIV.

Ultimately, what was also interesting about President Mills’ third “State-of-the-Nation Address” was the shockingly, albeit predictably, infantile manner in which Ghana’s Chief-of-State attempted to impugn Nana Akufo-Addo’s incontrovertibly apt call for members of the main opposition New Patriotic Party to vigorously defend themselves against executive-condoned, seasonal NDC assaults on Danquah-Busia-Dombo partisans. Once again, “take a reading”:

“And let no one think that inciting or priming others for violence [almost invariably provoked by the infamous NDC Azorka Boys and “Foot-Soldiers”] is the way to determine the outcome of elections.” And still further: “We will not sit idly by and allow some persons to throw this country into a state of chaos just to satisfy their self-centered and inordinate political desires.”

The President might just as well have directed his cautionary note at his mentor and Ghana’s bloody strongman for some two decades, Mr. Jeremiah John Rawlings. Or better yet, President Mills ought to have read the latter quote while looking into the mirror!

*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 author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.
###