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

There is absolutely nothing either timely or commendable about the denial by President John Dramani Mahama, regarding widespread media allegations that the latter used the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu II, as an unwholesome conduit to facilitate the bribery of at least two - some accounts claim three - of the nine Supreme Court judges who presided over the Akufo-Addo/New Patriotic Party (NPP) Election 2012 Presidential Petition (See "Mahama's Dismissal of Allegations Against Asantehene Timely - Karbo" Peacefmonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 9/17/13).

It is no secret that the prime operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) have peremptorily and exclusively copyrighted the lurid art of denial to such "Rembrandtian" magnificence as to make truth a veritable suspect in the vocabulary arsenal of this brash and bloody juggernaut of a political organization. The fact of the matter is that the Asantehene decided to impolitically politicize his otherwise venerable and dignified hereditary post by insinuating himself into the shenanigans of the so-called National Peace Council and ought to squarely take responsibility for his actions.

Not long ago, for example, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu II served public notice that Ghanaian chiefs, as the traditional custodians of their peoples and the cultural embodiment of the latter, had a right to actively participate in mainstream Ghanaian political culture. And so the Kumasi Big Cheese ought to cultivate the requisite thick skin and intestinal fortitude, as it were, for the rough-and-tumble of partisan politics. He and/or his staff need not complain about any attempts aimed at bringing his person and office into abject disrepute. He simply needs to roll with the punches like a man.

To be honest with the dear reader, I partially agreed with Otumfuo Osei-Tutu II at the time, until I realized to my utter horror and visceral disgust that the sort of politics that His Majesty craved indulgence in, was the hard-nosed and dirty kind that has been perennially and deviously purveyed by the "revolutionary" thugs of the so-called National Democratic Congress. He also needs to explain to the global Ghanaian community just why he decided to junket abroad on the publicly owned Presidential Jet, unannounced, at the expense of the Ghanaian taxpayer, with the flagrant, and possibly criminal, complicity of President Mahama.

In a civilized democratic culture, such as pertains to Britain and the United States, both Mr. Mahama and Otumfuo Osei-Tutu II would have been looking towards footing a punitive reparative bill for cavalierly presuming to violate constitutional protocol and the law with impunity.

And to President Mahama's rather curious claim that in the protean age of the Internet, defamatory media reportage cannot be tracked down and deservedly punished, we can only chuckle with contempt and riposte that the Bole-Bamboi petty chieftain does not half-appreciate what he is talking about. The truth of the matter is that if his security forces wanted to track down any criminal Internet media suspects, they could promptly and readily do so. What I suppose Mr. Mahama is acutely pained and rankled by is the fact that unlike those terror-charged Nkrumah and Rawlings days, the power of totalitarian regimes, even theoretically democratic ones, to summarily and peremptorily control media machinery, content and ideological slant is virtually zip or zilch.

In short, Mr. Mahama needs to tell Ghanaian citizens something far better than vacuously blaming Internet technology for auspiciously holding his feet to the baptismal fire of leadership responsibility.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Sept. 17, 2013
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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