The article appeared in the Ghanaweb.com edition of March 24, 2008. It was titled “Applaud Rawlings for Democracy – Alhaji.” I wasn’t in the least bit surprised that it was one of those Saudi-oriented, “NDC Alhajis” who was leading the chant, for such alienated, self-righteous souls constitute the bulk of the leadership linchpin of the so-called Provisional National Democratic Congress (P/NDC); they have been blindly supporting the P/NDC for nearly thirty years now, and show no signs of any constructive political re-orientation.
The problem, though, is hardly the right of these misguided souls to, finally, see the proverbial light; the problem is that these reprobate and opportunistic Alhajis continue to draw hundreds of thousands of innocent and unsuspecting youths in their wake and criminal trail.
Still, the preceding is not the focus of our discourse today. Rather, our present conversation regards the contribution of Dzelukope Jeremiah, if any at all, to the forging and development, as well as the preservation, of modern Ghanaian democracy. And by “modern Ghanaian democracy” is implied democracy in the twenty-first century. And democracy in the twenty-first century, of course, refers to Ghana’s Fourth Republic.
But what particularly piqued the interest of yours truly about the article titled “Applaud Rawlings for Democracy – Alhaji,” was the photograph accompanying the article which, as was only to be expected, was sourced to the pro-P/NDC radio station Joy-Fm. And here, yours truly readily owns that Joy-Fm is, indeed, not without any redeeming features. Exactly ten years ago, for example, yours truly was privileged to feature as a guest poet on one of the station’s early Saturday-morning shows; the producer of the show was the ebulliently inimitable Mr. Gabby Adjetey, my late father’s favorite presenter. And the two co-hosts were Naana Danquah and Akosua Larbi. But, of course, the Joy-Fm of a decade ago belongs to the proverbial good, old days.
Yes, the picture accompanying the article titled “Applaud Rawlings for Democracy – Alhaji” was quite fascinating, indeed, if also because it featured Dzelukope Jeremiah and his wife sitting at a table in what appeared to be a restaurant of some sort. The avid photography fun readily arrives at this conclusion because the criminal-couple have in front of them several bottles and glasses of drinks. The latter kept yours truly wondering about exactly what the satanic-couple’s drink(s) of choice might be; not that acquiring such epistemic trivia mattered, really. Yours truly simply wondered because he just wanted to know if the blood of any of the legions of Ghanaians officially massacred by Dzelukope Jeremiah, his consort and their lackeys had, indeed, been bottled up for the purpose, as the grapevine once had it. The same picture, interestingly, had appeared in the widely circulated Ghanaian, coffee-table magazine called “Dondo.”
Dzelukope Jeremiah was dourly dressed in what appeared to be a black political suit – sometimes also called the Nehru-suit or trademark. It made him look the part of a hangman. His bewigged consort and criminal accomplice, the ever-ironic “Agyeman” wore what looked like a beige chiffon evening dress, with both holding what appeared to be menus. Faintly printed on the back of “Agyeman’s” yellow menu copy – for Dzelukope Jay wielded a green one – was the number “60.” The rest of the print on the menu cover was bleary, very likely the result of a combination of the scale of the published photograph and the distance and angle of the shot.
Obviously, the number “60” represented the fact of Dzelukope having long outlived his Ghanaian welcome by nearly a generation. Come 2010, yours truly recently learned, Dzelukope Jeremiah’s dastardly, albeit “constitutional,” hedge against his indelible crimes against Ghanaian humanity is due to expire; and here we must caution the Ghanaian parliament, particularly members of the so-called Provisional National Democratic Congress (P/NDC), against any flagrant attempt at abetment by voting to nullify Ghanaian democracy, by attempting to renew Dzelukope Jeremiah’s especial claim to prosecutorial indemnity unless, of course, Dzelukope Jay undertakes, via a binding oath, to resurrect the slain Supreme Court justices – as well as all law-abiding and patriotic Ghanaians coldly butchered by the infamous SOB – and actually follows through with his promise!
From the picture accompanying the afore-referenced article, yours truly also wondered if the menu did not, likely, contain such irresistible gustatory specials as “I. K. Acheampong Lamb Chops,” “Yaw Boakye Spare-Ribs,” “Akuffo Roast Beef” and “Felli French Fries.”
That a group called Youth for Leadership has actually been formed in Tamale “to correct the distortion of history about Mr. Rawlings and the NDC” is rather fascinating, if also because the majority of the Youth for Leadership’s membership are highly unlikely to have been born while Dzelukope Jeremiah literally held Ghanaians by our scruffs. And so exactly what these Tamale youths aim to revise about the sanguinary history of Dzelukope Jay and his P/NDC is anybody’s good guess. Of course, youthfulness is no withering barrier to sound scholarship on the period, not necessarily.
Even so, when Alhaji A. Y. M. B. Ibrahima, former Tamale Municipal Chief Executive, asserts cavalierly that “the democratic dispensation being enjoyed in the country is largely [the result] of the positive legacy of former President Jerry Rawlings,” precisely what does Mr. Ibrahima mean? Yours truly supposes that the Youth for Leadership would be spending the rest of the twentieth-first century explaining Dzelukope Jeremiah’s legacy to both well-meaning Ghanaians and the democratic world at large.
Interestingly and quite predictably, it appears that Mr. Ibrahima is hell-bent on using the youth wing of the P/NDC to cynically extort undeserved credit for the sterling and nonesuch achievements of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). This is how Joy-Fm reported Alhaji Ibrahima’s address to the Tamale branch of the so-called Youth for Leadership: “Addressing NDC youth in Tamale, he ‘claimed’ [that] Rawlings’ decision to hand over power 8 years ago has laid the foundation stone for a peaceful democratic dispensation.” In fine, even the Joy-Fm reporter who dispatched the story appears to be quite convinced that Alhaji Ibrahima may direly require the immediate services of a psychiatrist or a shrink, as New Yorkers would say, thus the reporter’s subtle and deft use of the verb “claim” to characterize Alhaji Ibrahima’s assertion.
On a far more significant level is Alhaji Ibrahima’s implicit concession of the fact of the terror-mongering and criminally-oriented Provisional National Democratic Congress having salutarily made way for the far more imaginative and constructive New Patriotic Party to build and develop Ghana’s present democratic culture.
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