By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Dec. 9, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

The murky circumstances surrounding the death of President John Evans Atta-Mills in July 2012 continues to swirl around the heads of the leadership of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) - (See "'I Never Said I Had A Tape On Who Killed Prof. Mills' - Boateng-Gyan" Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 12/8/14). In the latest of such lingering hints of President Mills' having very likely met an "untimely death," the National Organizer of the National Democratic Congress is widely reported to have told the host of a program on the Kumasi-based Okay-Fm Radio that Mr. Kofi Adams, one of the several vice-chairpersons of the party, may have premeditatively caused the premature demise of the former University of Ghana tax-law professor.

According to one version of the report, this is what Mr. Yaw Gyan-Boateng had allegedly told the Okay-Fm Radio program host about what he claims Mr. Adams had confided to Mr. Gabriel (Gabby) Asare Otchere-Darko, the Founding-Director of the Accra-based Danquah Institute: "Let's not forget how someone said he would make sure the late President Mills did not run the second term; in his case, not only did President Mills not run for the second term, but he (President Mills) can't be found today amongst the living, and these are the people we are dealing with."

Needless to say, there is a clear-cut suggestion here that Mr. Boateng-Gyan is accusing Mr. Adams of having had a direct hand in the putative liquidation of President Mills. Whether the accuser had initially claimed that he had an audio- or videotape recording in which the aforesaid allegation was made is completely beside the point. The existence or non-existence of any evidentiary magnetic tape is irrelevant to the fundamental content of the allegation, unless, of course, the aforesaid allegation also contains a footage of the alleged assassination of the late president in process or in progress.

What is important here is the glaring fact of Mr. Adams' having provoked Mr. Boateng-Gyan to the extent that the latter is willing to publicly expose the former for having participated in the physical removal of the former president from among the living. It well appears that Mr. Boateng-Gyan's accusation is based on his firm belief that Mr. Adams has been maliciously spreading rumors about the accuser (whose job, by the way, is being hotly contested by the accused), in a bid to impugning the professional integrity of the NDC's National Organizer.

On the latter score this is what Mr. Boateng-Gyan has been quoted to have said: "These matters concern our party, because my brother [Kofi Adams?] is spreading rumors that I left party activities behind and went to Brazil, but Brazil had nothing to do with the NDC and its activities." Of course, Brazil had everything to do with the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress, because no World Cup tournament had been as divisively politicized as the 2014 Brazil World Cup.

But that is not the thrust or focus of the issue at hand. Rather, what is significant here is that this is not the first time that incriminations and recriminations have been bandied about among the executive members of the National Democratic Congress. Indeed, some relatives of the late president have reportedly insinuated the possibility of foul play having contributed to the demise of the late Ghanaian leader. I am also certain that Mr. Boateng-Gyan is mature and culturally savvy enough to fully appreciate the legal implications of his allegation.

The priority of the country may well be economic, as one passionately partisan NDC commentator recently suggested, but it is equally true that human rights, justice and the rule of law cannot be divorced from the salutary development of Ghana's democratic culture, of which economic development and prosperity are only a fraction.

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