By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
April 18, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

The New Patriotic Party-leaning and hard-driving Daily Guide newspaper did not directly indicate what concern the Vice-Presidential Candidate of Ghana's main opposition political party was responding to, but it was clear and unmistakable that Dr. Mahammudu Bawumia's reference was to the worrisome fact that the Volta Region has virtually become a Boko Haram turf of the ruling and grossly incompetent Mahama-led government of the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC) - (See "NPP Will Not Abandon Volta - Bawumia" Ghanaweb.com 4/18/15).

We shall fully take up this matter in a near-future discussion specifically focused on the perennial and consistent and persistent determination of some key operatves of the NDC and their goon squads and other hirelings to prevent New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidates, both local and national, from campaigning in unarguably the most ethnically and ideologically chauvinistic and hateful region in the country. I have always maintained that its highly divisive and politically alienating posture and flagrant misbehavior notwthstanding, the Volta Region must be rendered conducive to the electioneering activities of both major parties. Residents and Ghanaian citizens of Volta descent, including former President Jerry John Rawlings, must be unreservedly faulted for the sort of abjectly primitive reception reportedly accorded Dr. Bawumia during his most recent attempt to campaign in the region.

While it is only fair to recognize collective and individual exceptions to the foregoing observations, nonetheless, it goes without saying that the kind of clinical xenophobia perennially exhibited by NDC-paid thugs in the Volta Region makes the wanton and savage killings of African non-South African nationals, even as I write, far pale in both the level of moral turpitude and civility. I personally had occasion to briefly, albeit significantly, interact with the Oxbridge-educated NPP Vice-Presidential Candidate at Ghanata Hall, Bronx, New York, on Saturday, April 4, 2015, and can sincerely and unreservedly report that when it comes to his commanding appreciation of the dynamics of our national economy, Dr. Bawumia is without equal among the ranks of Ghanaians actively campaigning for elective public office. Hopefully, there will be time to talk about the breath-taking experiential and managerial wealth which a Vice-President Bawumia will bring to bear on the rapid and healthy development of Ghana, at all levels of endeavor but in particular our beloved nation's economy.

Indeed, the violent political record of the Volta Region and its residents is not a recent phenomenon; and it is also not one that has been uniquely and perennially focused on adherents of the revered Danquah-Busia-Dombo Tradition. For instance, the first to be exploded for political reasons and against the political cohesion of Ghana was detonated barely twenty-four hours after the country's declaration of sovereignty from British colonial rule in the Volta Regon. And it was a full half-decade before the infamous Kulungugu assassination attempt. And so it could not be that the seemngly inveterate animosity of some key National Democratic Congress elements in the Volta Region, against leading members of the New Patriotic Party, has either rhyme or reason besides sheer parochial and nihilistic assay at raw mischief and intimidation deployed in the unholy service of political expediency.

Even as Dr. Bawumia poignantly and perspicuously noted, there clearly and eerily appears to be no tangible connection between New Patriotic Party-spearheaded development projects and achievements in the Volta Region, and the deployment of abject hatred against NPP key operatives. This inexcusably nihilistic and quixotic NDC misbehavior cannot be allowed to persist unchallenged. And if it takes a battalion of soldiers to provide adequate security for astute New Patriotic Party stalwarts like Dr. Bawumia to campaign in the Volta Region, then President John Dramani Mahama has a constitutional obligation to ensure the same. Dr. Bawumia may wisely and conciliatorily talk about ten players and ten regions being indispensable for the resounding success of Team Ghana, but the stark fact of the matter is that if one of the ten key players insists on playng against the collective harmony and material success of Team Ghana, then, of course, the coach of Team Ghana has no other constructive choice or recourse but to promptly sideline that deliberately and criminally willful player.

The recalcitrant anti-Team Ghana player also reserves no right, whatsoever, to expect any assistance and goodwill from the other nine players.

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