By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.

Those who lack formidable critical-thinking skills have been tempted to dabble in suppositions and hypothetical presumptions over what the legal and moral implications of the spurious accusations made by the dismissed Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) have for Dr. Emmanuel Osei-Akyeampong.

The latter claims to have divvied up a $100,000 bribe money allegedly offered Prof. Emmanuel Martey, the outgoing Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (GA-PCG), which the spiritual head of the Church himself initially revealed but also added he had roundly rejected (See “Presby Church Backs Moderator; Denies Former PRO’s ‘Malicious Lies’” Citifmonline.com / Modernghana.com 9/2/16).

Moderator Martey also added that he had outright rejected several offers of V8 luxury vehicles from ruling party politicians who sought a solemn pledge of silence from the outspoken activist-clergyman and American-trained liberation theologian.

What makes the dismissed Presby PRO’s allegation that Moderator Martey not only accepted the bribe sum of $100,000 presented him in the office of an unnamed opposition politician but also invited Dr. Osei-Akyeampong to the venue of the payola and evenly split the said bribe money with him patently absurd, even as contained in an official media release by the Church staunchly backing the outgoing PCG leader, is that the July 28, 2013 date given by the accuser as the acceptance date of the bribe money comes a little more than a month after the dismissal of Dr. Ose-Akyeampong from his post.

In other words, it clearly appears that either the accuser suffers from acute memory loss, otherwise known as amnesia, or he is afflicted with a serious clinical case of dementia, perhaps resulting from the psychological trauma suffered by Dr. Osei-Akyeampong in the wake of him being publicly and officially relieved of his PRO’s job, on grounds of fraud and gross misrepresentations.

Very likely, the accuser’s story is cut from a whole cloth of mendacity, for Dr. Osei-Akyeampong has yet to present any credible witness to his alleged racket. For instance, if he has a wife or a spouse, one would have expected that the accuser would have appeared in public with that wife or spouse as a foolproof backup for his very serious allegation.

S/he would also have provided evidentiary testimony to the aforementioned allegation. As it presently stands, at best, in U.S. legal parlance, all the evidence we have here is Dr. Osei-Akyeampong’s word against the word of Moderator Martey.

And, of course, as previously stated, the testimony of Moderator Martey has far more credibility than the decidedly desultory, infantile and inescapably malicious version provided by the dismissed and disgruntled Presby Church’s PRO. Among the Akan, there is a maxim which says that “If you decide to make up a mendacious story about somebody or something, by all means, make sure that you create an escape hatch or window to slip out of, should your story be found to have been fabricated.”

In sum, it well appears that Dr. Osei-Akyeampong concocted his story without perspicuously creating an aperture of escape, in the certain possibility of his story’s being exposed for the absolute lie that it inescapable is.

To be certain, were he that facilely for the taking, as Dr. Osei-Akyeampong would have his supporters and sympathizers believe, very likely Moderator Martey would have done so with the far more logical complicity of the Synod Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, the Chief Administrator and second most powerful official of the PCG, and not the Church’s handpicked Secretary.

I hope this most credible testimony of the entire executive membership of the PCG permanently puts matters to rest.

Ultimately, the question of whether the naked truth is on the side of Moderator Martey or his accuser is one that is the especial preserve of Divine Providence. Whatever be the case, it cannot be gainsaid that Dr. Osei-Akyeampong is a wounded animal on the prowl for that proverbial fatal bite.