By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Feb. 13, 2016
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

In Ghana, Raymond Senyo Amezado and his ethnic ilk have effectively cannibalized the militant and politically rambunctious National Democratic Congress (NDC), the faux-civilian party founded by a megalomaniacal Chairman Jerry John Rawlings out to extending his erstwhile Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC)-driven military dictatorship with the overriding objective of imposing Ewe hegemony on the country’s Akan ethnic and cultural majority. And for the most part, it was been easygoing for the Anlo-Ewe minority political hijackers for the past 30-odd years and counting.

Presently, however, the immitigably extortionate and odious pathological Culture-of-Silence has far and well receded into the auspicious thaw of Fourth-Republican democratic national politics. But, of course, the morally debilitating psychological scars and traumas are still raw. And even as I write, the National Democratic Congress still retains its top-heavy Anlo-Ewe composition. The Mahama cabinet continues to be remarkably overrepresented by appointees of Ewe descent, with their Fante-Akan ethnic expedient collaborators and co-conspirators a close second.

And so I was not the least bit surprised when ethnic-Ewe Ghanaian-born U.S. Army veteran Mr. Raymond Senyo Amezado, rank not given, was reported to have been involved in disorderly conduct of some sort, perhaps a scuffle, at the American Consulate in Accra (See “Police Releases Ghanaian-Born U.S. Soldier Allegedly Assaulted at U.S. Embassy” MyJoyOnline.com 2/13/16). We are told that Mr. Amezado had accompanied an unspecified number of his brothers to the Consulate to enquire about the basis upon which these brothers had been denied visas to enable them travel to the United States.

Evidently not satisfied with the answer that he had gotten from Consulate officials, Mr. Amezado, who reportedly serves with the 518th Sustainment Brigade of the U.S. Army, located in North Carolina, demanded that visa application fees paid by his brothers be refunded. The rest of the details of the story are not clear, but it well appears that Mr. Amezado was rudely and adamantly attempting to ride roughshod over non-refundable visa application fee rules and getting impertinently loud and out of control, when Consulate security agents forcibly tamed him and handed him over to some local Ghana Police Service personnel.

Mr. Amezado’s case is quite interesting because it has the striking behavioral hallmarks of a stereotypical uppity Anlo-Ewe been-to, especially whenever and wherever a prime opportunity offers itself for the kind of boorish showoff that the 9-year U.S. Army veteran has been accused of being guilty of. The man obviously, and erroneously, presumed his veteran status with the U.S. Army to have authorized him to disrespect and get abrupt and, perhaps, even abuse Consulate officials with impunity. It is also not clear whether the MyJoyOnline.com reporter, Mr. Joseph Opoku Gakpo, who covered the event, very likely after the fact, and wrote the story fully appreciated the fact that Mr. Amezado is in deep trouble and may not be returning to the United States, and to his North Carolina army base, anytime soon.

Indeed, if he had a good head over his shoulders, as it were, Mr. Amezado would be profusely apologizing to the U.S. Consulate officials he is alleged to have raucously affronted. And if he were really the disciplined U.S. Army veteran that he claims to be, he would have known far better than to provoke the sort of incident he has been accused of provoking. My prediction here is that Mr. Amezado is likely to be dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Armed Forces, after having been meted some tough disciplinary measures. He may have rather unwisely tested the status of his naturalized U.S. citizenship.

In all likelihood, Mr. Amezado’s brothers may have been denied entry visas into the United States because the non-governmental humanitarian organization that he claims to have established for their employment may have been discovered to be fraudulent. At any rate, it was rather presumptuous of Mr. Amezado to think that he could so imperiously dictate visa-disbursement policies to the U.S. Consulate officials. Looking at the pictures of his bloodied misshapen oblong visage and scraped right-knee cap, about the only fair and objective conclusion that yours truly could arrive at is the fact that Mr. Amezado clearly appears to have deserved what his unruly behavior reaped him. Any meaningful lessons?

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