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

I have read the rejoinder by the so-called National Democratic Congress' Joint Socialist Forum to the Okyeman Youth Association, and the latter's rejoinder to President John Dramani Mahama's rather intemperate and impolitic tagging of the Akyem-Abuakwa State (or Okyeman) as the nation's capital of "Galamsey," or the illegal-mining industry, and find both to be abjectly disturbing (See "NDC Joint Socialist Forum Tackles Okyeman Youth Group Over 'Galamsey' " Modernghana.com 4/4/14).

Both rejoinders strikingly exhibit the imperative need for the immediate and rapid upgrading of the quality and standard of Ghanaian public education. In this short commentary, however, I intend to first tackle the so-called press release by the NDC Joint Socialist Forum. Maybe the undersigned executive members of the group ought to have advised their hat-in-hand president to go to Moscow or Cuba in search of grant money to supplement the shortfalls in his latest budgetary statement, rather than the thoroughgoing capitalist countries that make up the European Union.

We must also hasten to point out that the recent potable-water project commissioned by Mr. Mahama at Kyebi, while on a two-day working tour of the "Sunrise" Region, did not come from either the private wallet of the Gonja petty chieftain or the kleptocratic Tokyo gambling casino proceeds of the so-called National Democratic Congress. Rather, the funding for the aforementioned water project came from the United Nations. It is therefore deeply offensive and outright preposterous, as well as scandalous, for the leadership of the NDC Joint Socialist Forum to expect the citizens and residents of Okyeman to be any specially grateful to President Mahama.

And on the preceding score ought to also be underscored the fact that it was primarily the Rawlings-founded government of the National Democratic Congress that massively opened up our beloved country, in general, and Okyeman, in particular, to the wanton and predatory activities of Galamsey. And while this writer has not conducted a head count of the culprits involved, it is quite certain that the bulk of the Galamsey predators are not of Akyem descent or sub-ethnic origin. And the latter, of course, include Chinese nationals and other foreigners widely alleged to have dominated this environmentally destructive activity.

What is clear, even as the Okyenhene's chief-of-staff, Barima Yentumi Boaman, insightfully observed in the wake of the President's rather unfortunate description of Okyeman as the headquarters of the Galamsey industry in Ghana, is that it it the government of the day which by statute controls the mineral-laden lands in the country. And for the most part, it is the central government and/or its representatives and proxies that have engendered the ecological disaster that is the wanton destruction of Okyeman lands.

And so it is immitigably criminal for the undersigned members of the NDC Joint Socialist Forum press release to so rudely presume Mr. Mahama to have been within the delicate bounds of decorum, or his inalienable democratic right, to have so distastefully and callously and insolently subjected the entire Okyeman citizenry to ridicule, even a playful and apologetically qualified ridicule. It is inexcusably depraved!

As already adumbrated, I have also read the press release put out by the Okyeman Youth Association and find the grammar to be equally disturbing and curiously "Un-Kyebi-like" or even "Un-Okyemanlike." It well appears to have been written in anger and hurriedly published without giving much thought to editorial common sense. And as I hinted earlier in this brief write-up, a frontal response to the President is really the prerogative of either the press secretary or the designated spokesperson of either the Okyenhene or the Okyeman Traditional Council and/or both.

And, of course, the most perfect response was the one given by Barima Yentumi Boaman. It is also crystal clear that our youths are in dire need of tutorials on decorum and the fundamentals of English grammar. And it does not take the massive spending of hard-earned foreign exchange to inculcate cultural refinement and dignity into our youths.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
April 4, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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