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

A couple of days ago, as of this writing (4/20/14), lawyers for the younger brother of Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama, Ibrahim, sent a letter to the 36-year-old newly elected Asante Regional Chairman of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, alias Chairman Wontumi. The letter, which was widely publicized by the national media, contained the threat of an imminent defamation lawsuit. In it, the lawyers noted that at an electioneering campaign rally in his home region, Mr. Antwi-Boasiako had scandalously suggested that the President and his brother were plundering the resources of the country with reckless abandon.

In short, the Mahama lawyers were giving the alleged culprit of such flagrant act of unprovoked defamation just enough time to retract and profusely apologize for his intemperate remarks, or be prepared to meet the powerful fraternal duo and/or their representatives in a court of law to settle matters.

Anyway, since reading the aforesaid defamation suit threat on Ghanaweb.com, and other media websites, I haven't thought much about it. For a fleeting moment or two, however, I fathomed writing an article about the subject and promptly admonishing Chairman Wontumi to retract his alleged defamatory remarks and apologize to President Mahama and his brother, Ibrahim, as demanded by the lawyers.

What motivated me to rather reluctantly arrive at such conclusion was because in asmuch as like the Asante Region's New Patriotic Party chairman, I personally found these two Mahamas to be of questionable character, largely based on extensive media fare on the same, nevertheless, I also found the tone and tenor of Chairman Wontumi's remarks to be too upfront and personal to pass muster in any legitimately constituted court of law anywhere in the world. But, of course, in Ghana, where ultimate power lay with the occupant of the Flagstaff House, Mr. Antwi-Boasiako stood a far greater chance of being found liable for defaming the two politically powerful siblings, even if he was certain that he could present forensically sustainable evidence to back up his claims.

After all, did we not recently witness a similar judicial scenario in the widely publicized case involving the General-Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress, Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, on the one hand, and the editors and publisher of the pro-New Patriotic Party newspaper the Daily Guide? In spite of what we all know about Mr. Asiedu-Nketia's widely alleged and self-corroborated shady dealings in the Bui Dam Affair, for example, the NDC scribe literally walked away with C 250,000 in damages award. He would also, sarcastically, thank the proprietor and operators of the Daily Guide for having gifted him with such a handsome largesse.

But, of course, nobody was really fooled by the fact that Mr. Asiedu-Nketia's was veritably a pyrrhic victory. For contracting the services of a crackerjack defamation legal specialist does not come that cheaply; unless, of course, the plaintiff's attorneys had pre-contracted to be paid in another politically savvy manner far more lucrative but deftly concealed from vigilant public eyes. Then also, pyrrhic victory or not, General Mosquito - as Mr. Asiedu-Nketia is popularly known - had clinched an epic propaganda trump card against his accusers and, in effect, obliquely against the movers and shakers of the main opposition New Patriotic Party.

For me, though, as it might also have been the case with the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian opposition party members, supporters and sympathizers, the widely publicized sighting of an American flagged, or "legended," Bombadier jetliner at the Tehran airport, allegedly leased by Mr. Ibrahim Mahama, owner and chief executive officer of a mining company called Engineers and Planners (E & P), may yet point to a credible nexus of the latter event with the Tehran-bound "gravy" jetliner carrying tons of Ghana's mineral gold, in bullion, reportedly impounded in the Turkish capital of Istanbul some two years ago.

In the latter incident, the jetliner involved was reportedly flagged by a North African country and originated in flight from the Libyan capital of Tripoli (or some such Libyan city) and landed in Ghana's Kotoka International Airport, uploaded its bullion cargo and suavely lifted into the air for Istanbul, where visibly staggered airport officials raised the eardrum-grating alarm that was heard throughout the world at the time. Back then, we had also been informed that the bullion, valued at tens of millions of U.S. dollars, and already refined was, nonetheless, bound for the Iranian capital where was located a gold-refining laboratory whose first-rate scientists had been scheduled to ascertain and certify the genuineness of the Ghanaian-produced bullion.

Then amidst the brouhaha and commotion, we also learned to our utter embarrassment and amused contempt that President Mahama had flown into the Turkish capital to sort matters out. And, of course, that was the last time that anybody learned of any substantive details about the aforesaid contraband, whose identity and make had, allegedly, been deliberately falsified by some officials at the Ghana Minerals Board, or some such pertinent department of state. Once again, a couple of the usual scapegoats were rounded up and detained, and then everything went dead silent as before. Until recently, of course, when we learned that a new man had been named head of the government's minerals board.

Dear reader, let's get one thing straight and upfront: yours truly is not herein accusing the Mahama brothers of any legal or actionable wrongdoing; he is only fairly and objectively, he hopes, commenting on an issue that has been weighing down his brows and the brows of many a well-meaning and law-abiding Ghanaian citizen for quite sometime now, particularly in view of the fact that some well-placed Americans in government are not very happy about the fact that Mr. Ibrahim Mahama would presume to lease a partially U.S.-manufactured and flagged jetliner and cavalierly transport some well-connected Ghanaian business operatives into the Iranian capital for high-level bilateral dealings between the two countries, knowing fully well that good, old Uncle Sam currently maintains, at best, "frosty relations" with the Tehran theocracy, as the New York Times dourly put it (See "Paper Shows U.S.-Flagged Plane in Iran Has Ties to Ghana" 4/18/14).

And, well, as one anonymous Ghanaian commentator wrote in the forum of one of the country's media websites that carried the Ibrahim Mahama "escapade," Ghana has too many socioeconomic, cultural and political problems to be drawn into the middle of U.S.-Iranian diplomatic fisticuffs. And while the high-powered and filthily-moneyed brothers and / or their representatives have vehemently denied it, nevertheless, the New York Times reports that based on its careful study of the Canadian-manufactured Bombardier jetliner's "known itineraries from photos posted online," President Mahama may well have a vested interest in the high-end flying machine than the Ghanaian leader may be willing to let on.

We hereby quote relevant portions of what the New York Times implicitly has to say about the unmistakable circumstantial connection between President Mahama and the Bombardier jetliner, identified by the following call letters on the tail of its engines - N604EP: "Former [United States] federal officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they believed the plane has been used to transport President Mahama before. They based that conjecture partly on the plane's itineraries from photos posted online. / One image captured the plane flying to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where President Mahama spoke in September. The Ghanaian president was also in London last October when the aircraft was spotted leaving there for Accra."

Now, what the Americans are not directly telling the two powerful brothers of the postcolonial Republic of Lilliput, is that Uncle Sam literally has the Mahamas by their balls. And that if it ever becomes necessary to clip their fast-growing and meddlesome wings, Washington would not hesitate for even a split-second to do just that.

As for Chairman Wontumi, the New Patriotic Party's young rising star, there are two options open to him, namely, to either retract and apologize for his allegedly defamatory remarks against the Mahamas and quickly move on with his life and business, or be ready to boldly and fiercely call the bluff of the two powerful brothers and actually define for Bole-Bamboi chieftains the practical limits of their power and influence. And that is assuming that, indeed, Mr. Antwi-Boasiako has the relevant evidence to back up his claim.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
April 20, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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