Opinions of Sunday, 22 February 2015

Columnist: Adofo, Rockson

COP Kofi Boakye Threateningly Takes Sides In The Kumawu Chieftaincy Dispute

My in-depth research conducted as far as to the offices of more knowledgeable persons, experts of course, on policing matters, indicates that the current laws of the land do not permit police personnel to involve themselves in chieftaincy issues, let alone, taking sides in the most biased manner. The Inspector General of Police (IGP) even confirms the veracity of my established conclusion following the painstaking investigations.

The police can only proceed to intervene when violent factionalism has broken out, resulting in injuries to people or loss of lives, destruction of property, or to prevent committal of crimes. Police can be deployed to forestall riot. In this case, they are to play a neutral role, but not to take sides, in a prejudicial manner.

However, the Ashanti Regional Police Commander Kofi Boakye, an Ashtown boy, an alumnus of Kumasi Ahmadiyya Secondary School, and a junior student to then student Kwaku Duah, now Asantehene Osei Tutu II, has decided to throw his unflinching weight behind his Senior (Asantehene), Kumawuhemaa and the dubiously enthroned Kumawuhene Barimah Sarfo Tweneboah Koduah, known in private life as Dr Yaw Sarfo, a Saudi-Arabia-trained Medical Doctor, in the Kumawu stool dispute.

He is very much aware that the police have strictly no business doing by involving themselves in chieftaincy affairs; however, he is opinionatedly of the belief that in Ashanti region, things can be done differently. He is a law unto himself same as his Senior has claimed to be. Asantehene has asserted both in private and in public domain that no court, nobody and no law in Ghana can prevent him from doing whatever he wishes to do, as and when he wants to.

To my dear fellow "Asantenin" Kofi Boakye, please bear in mind that the law is no respecter of persons. Everyone in Ghana is answerable to the same laws, and is under the same laws. Ghana is not a Federal State with Ashanti region being a State within a Union of States where every State has their own State laws different from one another's, and then have common Federal Laws as operates in the USA. Ghana is a Unitary State with laws passed by the Legislature, the only one House of Parliament that the nation has, binding on all citizens of the land, whether one is strong or weak, young or old, rich or poor, a king or a subject, thus, a commoner, a police personnel or an unemployed rough sleeper.

Kofi Boakye cannot portray himself in public as the strictest police officer Ghana has ever had if he chose not to be fair, breaching the very laws he is rather employed by the taxpayers to uphold and defend. He can arrest armed robbers, thwart thieves from carrying out their nefarious activities on the public, stop contractor killers in their tracks, but that does not grant him the licence to meddle in chieftaincy affairs when executing his official duties. The law does not allow him to, period! He cannot play the role of the notorious Robin Hood, robbing the rich to give to the poor. His current intimidating posture is illegal and amounts simply to an act of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I am aware, according to rumours circulating in Kumawu that Kumawuhemaa and Dr Yaw Sarfo have given him (DCOP Kofi Boakye) a sheep. What did he do for them to merit that mentioned thank you offer to him? Could it not amount to bribery of some sort?

Is Kofi Boakye acting on the contents of the letter sent to him by the Kumawu Traditional Council at the behest of Barimah Sarfo Tweneboah Koduah of which the underlying web link will take readers to? I have included one of my other publications addressed to his attention. http://www.modernghana.com/news/589565/1/kumawuhene-sends-a-manipulative-letter-to-police-c.html http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=336870

Kofi, do not think that your political party (NDC) is in government hence you can commit any reprehensible acts with impunity. You have accused the NPP of nearly sacking you as soon as they came into power in 2000. However, the NDC have lined you up for the position of IGP, the dream of any police officer when given the choice. All that I shall tell you is, TIME CHANGES as stated in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 - To Everything There is a Season. Therefore, when you are given the opportunity to serve your nation and people, do it honestly.

God is able. Man proposes but God disposes. I shall conclude with the following three biblical incidents out of many numerous others, in case they may be of any significance to you.

Remember the fate of King Herod (Herod Agrippa) as at Acts 12, especially Acts 12:21-22 – "21 On a chosen day Herod put on his royal robes, sat on his throne, and made a speech to the people. 22 They shouted, "This is the voice of a god, not a human!" 23 Because Herod did not give the glory to God, an angel of the Lord immediately caused him to become sick, and he was eaten by worms and died".

Additionally, remind yourself of "The Parable of the Rich Fool" as at Luke 12:18-20 ...18"Then he said, 'this is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry."' 20"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?'

Finally, the incident that befell King Nebuchadnezzar is vital for our learning. "Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of the whole world, (96) to whom even the wild animals paid obedience, his pet was a lion with a snake coiled about its neck, (97) did not escape punishment for his sins. He was chastised as none before him. He whom fear of God had at first held back from a war against Jerusalem, and who had to be dragged forcibly, as he sat on his horse, to the Holy of Holies (98) by the archangel Michael, he later became so arrogant that he thought himself a god, (99) and cherished the plan of enveloping himself in a cloud, so that he might live apart from men. (100) A heavenly voice resounded: "O thou wicked man, son of a wicked man, and descendant of Nimrod the wicked, who incited the world to rebel against God! Behold, the days of the years of a man are threescore years and ten, or perhaps by reason of strength fourscore years. It takes five hundred years to traverse the distance of the earth from the first heaven, and as long a time to penetrate from the bottom to the top of the first heaven, and not less are the distances from one of the seven heavens to the next. How, then, canst thou speak of ascending like unto the Most High 'above the heights of the clouds'?" (101) For this transgression of deeming himself more than a man, he was punished by being made to live for some time as a beast among beasts, treated by them as though he were one of them. (102) For forty days (103) he led this life. As far down as his navel he had the appearance of an ox, and the lower part of his body resembled that of a lion. Like an ox he ate grass, and like a lion he attacked a curious crowd, but Daniel spent his time in prayer, entreating that the seven years of this brutish life allotted to Nebuchadnezzar might be reduced to seven months. His prayer was granted. At the end of forty days reason returned to the king, the next forty days he passed in weeping bitterly over his sins, and in the interval that remained to complete the seven months he again lived the life of a beast. (104)"

God does not share His glory with anyone. He jealously protects that right and reserves it to Himself only. God, according to my intuition and revelations, has appointed his servant Barimah Tweneboah Koduah V to liberate His children from the slavery, poverty and needless problems they have been plunged into by Kumawuhemaa over the years. He will not have, or tolerate, human beings preventing His wish from materialising.

It is only my prayer that God proves to all those sabotaging His efforts that He is Who He is, and that He will not sit down nonchalantly while a mere creature of his own making takes His glory away from Him.

Rockson Adofo