Dear Mustapha Hamid: Arthur Kennedy Will Only Destroy Himself

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Sept. 4, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

Mr. Mustapha Hamid, the Akufo-Addo spokesperson, has already more than amply and eloquently put Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy (aka Dr. McHypocrite) in his place; and so I merely intend to add my voice to the chorus of discerning Ghanaian scholar-activists and intellectuals who are determined to ensured that moral and political contaminants and mercenaries like the South Carolina-based NPP summer soldier does not get to do the sort of self-serving damage he is so hell-bent on wreaking on both the presumable New Patriotic Party presidential candidate for Election 2016 and the country's largest opposition political party itself (See "Arthur K is on a Mission to Destroy Nana Akufo-Addo - Mustapha Hamid" MyJoyOnline.com 9/3/14).

That he may need prompt psychiatric examination, is clearly and convincingly evinced from the fact that his vitriolic tirades against his greatest object of envy and jealousy and all, still, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo chose to select Dr. McHypocrite as the Communications Director for his 2008 Presidential Campaign. McHypocrite, it may be vividly recalled, had run a mudslinging campaign of personal hatred against Ghana's former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and lost miserably. In sum, Akufo-Addo is indubitably the one man who can most effectively unite all the factions with the New Patriotic Party. It is also clear that Arthur Kennedy has absolutely no credibility.

McHypocrite would also accuse Nana Akufo-Addo of riding undeservedly high on the fame and prestige of his patrician family, almost as if to imply that, somehow, the grandson of Nana Sir Osagyefo Ofori-Atta I (aka Kwaku Duah, The Original) had prevented the parents and relatives of Dr. Kennedy from distinguishing themselves in the country. This is what is called the "Politics of Envy." And it is deeply etched into the bones of the Irmo, South Carolina, resident. And until he seeks intensive psychiatric care to thoroughly disabuse his mind of this morbid projection of his personal inadequacies on Nana Akufo-Addo, Dr. McHypocrite ought to rest assured that he is going nowhere with his inexcusably depraved agenda of personal hatred and destruction against Nana Akufo-Addo.

By the way, what kind of Ghanaian father would name his son after one of America's favorite presidents, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, by having that son retain the family name, or surname, of the Kennedy Family instead of his own native Ghanaian family name? Add to the preceding, the fact that Arthur K. was at least two years old by the time that John Kennedy was elected President of the United States. Dear reader, I hope you get the drift of my argument here. Arthur Kennedy is a man with a decidedly confused ethnic and cultural identity. But the last legitimate thing for him to do is to obliquely attempt to blame Nana Akufo-Addo for being the cause of the same.

Indeed, Mr. Hamid, the Akufo-Addo spokesperson, could equally have added with indisputable credence that Dr. Kennedy is on an at once tragic and pathetic mission of political suicide. Not too long ago, McHypocrite made his real intentions known in one of his legion of plaintive articles, when he vehemently, and shamelessly, decried the fact of having sunk "a lot of my treasure" into the New Patriotic Party and having come up with a diddly little or absolutely nothing to show for his "investment."

In other words, dear reader, for Dr. Kennedy, the New Patriotic Party is some sort of piggybank or, properly speaking, a gambling casino in which one puts bits and pieces now and then in rapacious expectation of a massive payout, or bonanza, at the unconscionable expense of party foot-soldiers and the most vulnerable and materially deprived of Ghanaian citizens who need the most help and guidance from the party and its leadership. In plain language, Dr. Kennedy is a brazen political thug who looks at his membership of the New Patriotic Party purely in terms of dollars and cents, in hopes of filling his wallet, pockets and bank accounts. That is his understanding of the adjectival "Patriotic" in the New Patriotic Party.

In essence, for "Arthur K," the NPP is not about the emplacement, or establishment, of a progressive policy agenda aimed at facilitating the remarkable quality-of-life improvement for Ghanaians at large. And this, of course, is fundamentally where the likes of Messrs. Kyerematen and McHypocrite dramatically differ from Nana Akufo-Addo's peoeple-centered approach to responsible leadership. Dr. Kennedy also knows that he has effectively burned his bridges beyond repair. And it is this horrifying realization of his virtual political suicide that has provoked him into desperately, albeit obliquely, seeking concessions from Nana Akufo-Addo in the form of the latter's public promise of a plum job for Arthur K, should the renowned and distinguished legal expert and former legislator clinch the presidency in 2016.

And this is primarily the reason why Dr. McHypocrite keeps daring Nana Akufo-Addo to prove his credentials vis-a-vis the latter's ability to unite the party. Well, Akufo-Addo has already proved that by hiring Messrs. Kofi Konadu Apraku and Kennedy, among several of the 16 rivals who unsuccessfully battled the former NPP-MP for Akyem-Abuakwa South for the party's flagbearership in 2008. What Akufo-Addo need not do this time around, is to compromise his ethical principles by promising a kick-back-hungry Arthur Kennedy any job, whatsoever, well before the far more legitimate and more pressing needs and interests of the Ghanaian electorate and citizens have been met. In other words, the folks at home ought to be Nana Akufo-Addo's primary concern, not exiled freeloading political opportunists and unconscionable mercenaries like Dr. McHypocrite.

It is also rather cheap and morally repugnant for Dr. Kennedy to presume to speak for well-credentialled party stalwarts like Mr. Muktar Bamba, the former NPP National Organizer, and Ms. Otiko Djaba, the current NPP Women's Organizer, on the question of whether, indeed, these party faithful have been substantively included in the Akufo-Addo campaign in the past or have been merely brought along for the ride a la political tokenism. Needless to say, Dr. Kennedy is being invidiously condescending by presuming that just because Mr. Bamba and Ms. Djaba are both northerners makes him, Dr. Kennedy, a Fante-southerner, inalienably authorized to speak for these two respectable party operatives.

To be certain, if I were Nana Akufo-Addo, I would deliberately ensure that Dr. Kennedy was both "tokenized" and "marginalized" from my political campaign efforts. After all, who can trust a self-exiled opportunist like this Fante-Asebu native who, by the way, was roundly rejected by his own kinsfolk and relatives the last time he tried to represent them and their interests in Parliament. You see what I told before, dear reader, Arthur K. is not even trusted by his own people!

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