By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
August 3, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

I don't know how long Mr. Abraham Amaliba has been resident in the country, but his vow to return fire at Nana Akufo-Addo for aptly calling President John Dramani Mahama what he practically and veritably is - a clueless and crassly incompetent administrator - ought to come as inescapably absurd to any Ghanaian experiencing the unbearable economic hardship visited on the nation by the former Atta-Mills arch-lieutenant (See " 'Incompetent, Clueless Mahama' Charge: NDC Will Return Fire - Amaliba" Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 8/3/14).

Who does Mr. Amaliba take the Ghanaian electorate and citizenry for? A bunch of clueless corrupt scam-artists like the key operatives of the ruling so-called National Democratic Congress? And by the way, Mr. Amaliba, it is the man that makes the Presidency the august position that it is, and not the other way around. In other words, the Presidency is no facile protective shield or cozy hideout for grossly incompetent occupants; and so we shall continue to call President Mahama out on his performance - if he does well, we shall commend him for the same, and if he goofs, we shall not hesitate to let him know about the same.

And would Mr. Amaliba, himself a northerner, shamelessly claim that the criminal embezzlement of taxpayer money meant for the accelerated development of the three northern regions, under the managerial scam-artistry of SADA and GYEEDA and SUBAH deserve the National Order of Merit? He had also better cut out this nonsense about Mr. Mahama's parliamentary service having been marked by an unprecedented exhibition of competence and excellence which, somehow, a rabidly partisan Nana Akufo-Addo has been too blinded by ideological differences to recognize.

If, indeed, he really believes that his Flagstaff House paymaster is administratively far more competent than all the economic indicators and the quality of the country's abjectly poor public health standards are showing, then what Mr. Amaliba ought to be doing should be hopping from radio station to radio station, as well as television station to television station, explaining to malnourished, underfed and unemployed Ghanaian university and college graduates why they are grossly mistaken to suppose that the country is presently experiencing a level of economic crisis and depression the likes of which was never experienced under the John Agyekum-Kufuor-led government of the New Patriotic Party.

At any rate, what sort of insults could the likes of Mr. Amaliba possibly fathom and/or presume to unleash against the personality and professional and political image and reputation of Nana Akufo-Addo that Chairman Jerry John Rawlings, the self-righteous founding-patriarch of the National Democratic Congress, has not already employed and deployed?

As I vividly recall, even studiously looking in on Ghanaian politics from the Diaspora, there was really never a time that both major parties amicably and cordially worked side-by-side in Parliament, besides thievishly conspiring to divvy up flagrantly conceived quadrennial gratuity payments among themselves. For the most part, the period that Messrs. Mahama and Akufo-Addo served together in Parliament was effectively characterized by boycotts and one-party voting on issues of far-reaching implications for the nation at large.

Perhaps the critic ought to have compared notes with Mr. Alban S. K. Bagbin, the putative Dean of Northern Parliamentarins, before opening his mouth to serve up such fetid comment. And, does Mr. Amaliba suppose that too many Ghanaians are afflicted with such short memories as to have so soon forgotten that it was Mr. Mahama, the Rawlings Communication Capo, who introduced the apocryphal vocabulary of "Shit-Bombing" into our national lexicon?

Then also, who spearheaded the STX housing scam? Now, Mr. Amaliba, come on, let's talk about competence and Mr. Mahama. Come on, let's duke it out!

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