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

I read Alhaji Bature Iddrisu’s rejoinder to Mr. Kofi Thompson’s open-letter to the editor-publisher of the Al-Hajj newspaper and literally fell off the edge of my seat with laughter (See “Re: An Open Letter to Alhaji Bature Iddrisu” Ghanaweb.com 5/19/12). What did it for me was the gross and shameless exhibition of abject hypocrisy on the part of the Bolgatanga native. And on the latter score must be recalled the fact that Alhaji Bature Iddrisu has spent the better part of the past two years incessantly drumming into the ears of the Rawlingses that their safest bet ought to be squarely hedged on President John Evans Atta-Mills, since, in the flighty imagination of Alhaji Bature Iddrisu, the presidential candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) represents all that is inimical to the peace, quiet and comfort of the man who held Ghanaians by their scruff and throttle for the longest two decades of postcolonial Ghanaian history.

In his afore-referenced rejoinder, though, Alhaji Bature Iddrisu was fulminating about the Rawlingses having perpetrated atrocities against Ghanaian citizens, which is why their victims find it next to an utmost impossibility to allow for the establishment of a “Rawlings Dynasty,” in order to facilitate an unwise and unhealthy reprise of the same.

The problem here, however, is that the Al-Hajj newspaper editor-publisher is then able to brazenly claim that come December 7, 2012, Ghanaians are unreservedly going to massively vote to return President John Evans Atta-Mills to the old slave castle at Osu, because, somehow, the very man who so profoundly collaborated with Mr. Rawlings to perpetrate his alleged atrocities against the Ghanaian people is more peaceful and God-fearing than Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who fiercely fought with like minds to make Fourth-Republican Ghanaian democratic culture a living reality for all his countrymen and women.

It is also a veritable act of sheer chutzpah that Alhaji Bature Iddrisu can write and publish the following words and actually be able to live with himself and the rest of us democracy- and peace-loving Ghanaians: “December would [will?] certainly be a referendum on Mills’ tenure as president, and I am of a strong conviction that despite his shortcomings, Akufo-Addo cannot be the alternative[;] he is not a [suitable?] replacement because I know that Ghanaians cherish their peace, they [also] prefer [an] honest and God-fearing leader[;] never mind even if he is uncharismatic…. [H]e would certainly be retained. However[,] in the event that he loses, so be it[;] after all[,] democracy dictates that power should be rotational and I understand that very well.”

Of course, those of us who have fairly closely followed his Machiavellian career these past two years are unreservedly convinced that Alhaji Bature Iddrisu has absolutely no conviction whatsoever. Else, why would the man, in the same breath, be talking about Nana Akufo-Addo’s being no sound and/or intelligent alternative to President Mills and simultaneously be resignedly pontificating about democratic culture being about “rotational” power/leadership? It is almost as if having squarely, albeit uncomfortably, conceded defeat before the fact, somehow, the Al-Hajj newspaper publisher-editor finds it epically difficult to accept the same.

Anyway, as I read the foregoing quote, I began to wonder whether, indeed, the writer really appreciated what he was talking about. For what kind of “God-fearing” leader hangs around his chief-patron with uncontrollable giggles as innocent and unsuspecting victims are hauled into Black Marias and driven in cuffs to the Osu slave castle to be given “Identification Haircuts” by the Rawlingses and their minions with broken beer and Fanta bottles?

I mean, I am not a Muslim, and profusely do apologize for this, but I can almost vividly and dazedly picture Alhaji Bature Iddrisu kneeling before the Ancient Black Rock – or Ka’aba – in Mecca and praying that the Almighty Allah richly bless the Rawlingses for having generously humiliated their political opponents and victims with “ID-Haircuts.”

And just what kind of “peace” could Ghanaians expect from a president whose ready riposte to the manhandling of biometric registrants, allegedly by hired members of his own party, is to simply shrug his shoulders and lamely claim, with a smirk, that he is not a policeman? Maybe somebody ought to define “Commander-in-Chief” for the former tax-law professor of the University of Ghana.

*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 Director of The Sintim-Aboagye Center for Politics and Culture and author of “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana” (iUniverse.com, 2005). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net. ###