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

He is the General-Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), and so I am not certain that he has official permission to speak to the familial and private affairs of President John Dramani Mahama, rather than it being the salaried duty of the officially designated Presidential Spokesperson or the Chief-of-Staff at the Presidency.

I personally don't think that it is way above the means of the President of Ghana to take a constitutionally permitted vacation and spend the same with his family in any part of the world that he so decides or chooses. The problem we have here is the grossly ill-conceived decision of Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the NDC's General-Secretary, to suppose that he could personally and effectively defend the purely pedestrian and unnecessary. I call it "grossly ill-conceived," because what Mr. Asiedu-Nektia has only succeeded in doing is to make his boss seem to be inexcusably meanspirited, selfish and petty-minded (See "Mahama's Trip Is Cost-Saving Strategy - Gen. Mosquito" Citifmonline.com 12/24/13).

According to General Mosquito, as he is popularly known, Mr. Mahama decided to spend his Christmas vacation in the United Arab Emirates primarily to get away from hangers-on and total strangers who are apt to make importunate material demands on him during the yuletide. This is a rather hollow strategy aimed at drastically reducing cost or undesirable financial burden on our Chief-of-State, if, indeed, Mr. Asiedu-Nketia's defense of the President's purported vacation escape hatch - for that is what he clearly appears to be implying - is informed by a first-hand communication with the Big Kahuna, to this effect. Chances are that it is not; for not quite awhile ago, it was being widely reported by the media that the NDC General-Secretary had been huffing over his woeful inability to gain access to the President, let alone be granted audience by the latter.

As for loose talk about Mr. Mahama vacationing abroad at a time when the country is facing great economic difficulties, as the saying goes, the answer is neither here nor there. The Akan have a maxim which goes as follows, "Even a debtor has a right to eat to his/her fill." In other words, while he may be even aptly accused of not having done much to stem an already precarious economic situation, nevertheless, it can also not be gainsaid that Mr. Mahama did not singularly create the country's present economic mess. It preexisted him; and what is more, long after the man has exited the scene, the bulk of these problems will still remain with us Ghanaians.

Ultimately, though, absolutely nothing prevents those who lost out on hustling the President for a few crumbs from the master's table, during the yuletide, from accosting him in the post-X-mas season and belatedly demanding their crumbs. After all, he can't stay in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, or wherever he is presently vacationing forever. Or, could he?

At any rate, what makes Mr. Asiedu-Nketia's clearly unsolicited "subterfuge" for Mr. Mahama rather lame and, in fact, patently asinine, is for GeneralMosquito to feign as if the latter decided to spend his Christmas holidays on state side, only because he has absolutely nowhere else to go. Well, our terse contention here is that the man would have somewhere to spend his Christmas vacation if he really wanted to. For the last time that I checked, General Mosquito's wife was widely reported to be domiciled in Canada.

Merry Christmas, My Dear Reader! Happy New Year also to the Mosquito and all the other Ghanaian leaders, on both sides of the ideological divide, who have made lying through their teeth, straight in the eye, a shameless behavioral art of choice. Let us all hope that the year 2014 will imbue the moldy gray-matter under the skulls of our leadership pretenders with an ample dosage of conscience.

May Divine Providence also bless our homeland, Ghana!

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Dec. 24, 2013
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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