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

Let’s get this straight and right off the bat, as it were: I do not hate Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, for there is absolutely nothing about the man that I either envy or admire. One thing, though, is clear and incontrovertible – I unreservedly have great and indescribable contempt for the man and what he has come to represent and symbolize on the contemporary Ghanaian political scene, particularly during the past three decades.

As a prime architect of the infamous People’s Court that orchestrated the immitigable humiliation and outright destruction of hundreds of thousands of otherwise productive and diligent Ghanaian lives, Mr. Tsikata’s persistence in making his glaringly criminal culpability in his willfully collaborative design to bilk the Ghanaian taxpayer of hundreds of thousands of dollars into a national crisis is more than nauseating. It is unpardonably outrageous, and I resent the morbid attempt to make this impenitent participant in the brutal assassination of the three Supreme Court judges and the retired Army officer into a martyr by the unconscionable likes of Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills and his equally cynical running-mate, Mr. John Mahama. And here, we must all rest assured that until Ghana becomes a nation of ardent lovers of justice, there can be no hope of any meaningful socioeconomic and cultural development.

I was also rather amused to learn recently that the convicted former Managing-Director of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) had been rushed to the Cardiothoracic Center at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital from the Nsawam Medium-Security Prison, where this bloody butcher has been cozily relishing and vacuously protesting a 5-year prison sentence for the kind of crime that exacted the dire penalty of death by firing squad or at least a 10-year prison term under the troglodytic and Paleolithic regimes of the so-called Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) (see “Tsatsu is Responding to Treatment” Ghanaweb.com 12/11/08.

But what rankles me even more than anything else, regards the fact of Mr. Tsikata having made the personality of Dr. J. B. Danquah fair game for obloquy every year by systematically and consistently maligning the Doyen of Gold Coast and Ghanaian politics before the so-called Ghana Socialist Forum or League, or some such dubious and scandalous phenomenon. Scarcely three years ago, for instance, the former law lecturer of the University of Ghana commended President Kwame Nkrumah for having deftly caused the death of Dr. Danquah in the same Nsawam Medium-Security Prison of which condign domiciliary the Valley Farms scam-artist has fabricated every form of legal and medical pretext in hopes of escaping.

The excruciatingly painful fact of the matter is that unlike Mr. “People’s Court” Tsikata, Dr. Danquah was never accorded the right of being treated outside the high walls of Nsawam; rather, the African Show Boy would employ neo-Nazi physicians from Apartheid South Africa and some eastern-bloc countries to “take exceptionally good care” of his nemesis and former political mentor.

The tragic story is also grimly told of Mr. Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey who, having been partially treated for a terminal ailment at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, and having passionately pleaded with hospital authorities to be allowed to spend his final days peacefully at home with his family, relatives and friends, would be callously and summarily returned to Nsawam by Africa’s Man of Destiny to be swiftly dispatched off the Ghanaian political landscape. Indeed, a quite common, if also heart-rending, version of the story has Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey being buried alive somewhere.

The preceding, to be certain, is what partially informs my understanding and sympathy for Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey’s widely reported request to be allowed to purchase the government-owned residence in which he now lives. Needless to say, the children and relatives, and even friends, of far, far less significant Ghanaian statesmen and politicians have received favors of which they were absolutely undeserving. And once the keen and critical student of postcolonial Ghanaian politics aptly casts the foregoing in perspective, Mr. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey’s request readily loses much of its outrageous edge and tenor.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is the author of “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@aol.com. ###