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

It is an apology that the thoroughgoing laptop- and Tokyo-gambling corrupt Mahama government is highly unlikely to receive from the perennially provocative editor-publisher of the Africa Watch Magazine anytime soon (See "Flagstaff House Demands Apology From Africa Watch" Vibeghana.com 3/5/14). Of course, those who have studously followed my columns here, and elsewhere, are fully aware of the fact that I am absolutely no fan of Mr. Steve Mallory's (aka Nana Kwadwo Osei).

And neither is it my intention here to back him up, personally speaking. I am primarily interested in the unvarnished truth of his alleged description of the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as the bona fide hive of unconscionable operatives of "The Republic of Corruption." For starters, even the General-Secretary of the NDC has gone on record as saying that his party won Election 2012 squarely on the strength of a thoroughly corrupted electoral system.

We won the election because the Akufo-Addo camp let loose its guard and was not vigilant enough, Mr. Asiedu-Nketia was widely reported to have confessed to the Ghanaian media. Then also, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the country's Electoral Commissioner, would tell the Atuguba-chaired Supreme Court panel that presided over the Election 2012 presidential petition that, indeed, a lot of irregularities had occurred, the worst among which was over-voting, or ballot counts far in excess of registered voters in a legion of polling stations.

Then also, in handing down its equally corrupt decision at the end of August 2013, the nine Supreme Court judges who presided over the Election 2012 presidential petition informed the nation and the global community at large that, indeed, neither of the two major candidates, including the declared winner, Mr. John Dramani Mahama, had crossed the constitutionally mandated threshold of 50-percent-plus of the total number of votes cast in the presidential column of the ballot.

If the preceding does not vividly, and strikingly, reflect the caliber of a veritably "corrupt republic" then, dear reader, what else does? It ought to also be made clear that by no measure and/or under no circumstances could the Mahama government be legitimately said to be synonymous with the Ghanaian citizenry at large. In other words, it constitutes the very height of arrogance and the inexcusably presumptuous for Dr. Clement Apaak, the so-called presidential staffer, to claim that in calling the Mahama government by its real name, somehow, Mr. Mallory had also presumed to insult the collective intelligence of Ghanaian citizens, as well as brazenly impugn their integrity.

Needless to say, no government side gripe could be more preposterous. As already indicated above, the Mahama-led government of the so-called National Democratic Congress does not have the mandate of the Ghanaian people; and so how could it confidently presume to be representative of the same? What is quite fascinating about Mr. Mallory's alleged accusation - for I have yet to acquaint myself with the same and, to be frank wth the dear reader, I am highly unlikely to do the same - is that the Africa Watch Magazine editor-publisher apparently predicated his "corrupt republic" characterization on the deliberately solicited views and opinions of a representative cross-section of the country's citizenry, among them the clergy, parliamentarians, educators, civil servants and ordinary citizens.

What this means is that Mr. Mallory's characterization of Mahama's Ghana as a thoroughgoing corrupt republic, has far more credibility and authority than the patently infantile hissy-fit of Dr. Apaak and his ilk of shameless sinecure-receiving presidential staffers.

_____________________________________________________________
*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
March 30, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
###