Analysis: The NPP’s Jumah is a clear example of our failed political and judicial system – By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Dr Michael J,K. Bokor
Dr Michael J,K. Bokor
Folks, since ex-President Kufuor created the elbow room for Maxwell Kofi Jumah to function in as an NPP operative, everything that he has done or said goes to prove that we in Ghana are lost when it comes to democracy.

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Let me be blunt upfront to say that any democracy that doesn’t refine the citizens for them to behave rationally and ensure national development is a doomed democracy. Ours is just that!!
Take all the happenings in the country as the basis for apprehensions that our democracy isn’t helping us develop our country the way others use it to advantage. It is so because of the hordes of misfits digging in to settle in its grooves to misbehave all over the place without being punished. A democracy that encourages this kind of behaviour is no democracy to uphold. Ours is just that!!

How many times haven’t characters of Kofi Jumah’s type given cause for concern that our democracy is a mere window-dressing for upstarts to exploit?

Pardon me for picking on Jumah, but his own waywardness has established him as a classic example of the problems that our democracy cannot solve. And there are many of his kind in the system who have grown ugly horns because the system itself allows them to do so.

Since Kufuor brought down this Jumah to be part of his administration, he has done things and made public pronouncements that are nothing but a sad reflection of the mish-mash that a Ghanaian living overseas for many years can represent.; One might think that exposure to the finesse of behaviour and politics in the advanced world would help a Ghanaian like Jumah know how to do things properly. But it is not to be so; and Jumah had spent many years outside Ghana, trying his hands at odds and ends before being salvaged by Kufuor.

What has he brought to national politics? Nothing but shame. Consider how he did things when in charge of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly and how he got booted out for Ms. Apiagyei to take over only for him to descend into the gutter, condemning her for using her “buttocks” to win favours from Kufuor. No wonder he lost the Asokwa seat but is still bent on causing trouble.
What he did during the NPP’s primary in that constituency brought him face-to-face with the law, but the weaknesses of our Ghanaian legal regime/regimen freed him. The offence for which he was arrested and prepared for trial was serious, but he managed to wriggle himself out of trouble—and to toughen his horns for more mischief.

Why did the Attorney-General’s office not prosecute him as such? What happened to that case?
Emboldened by happenings, Jumah is taking his notoriety to a different level, this time, insulting the British High Commissioner, Jon Benjamin, and the British government-—a very serious misconduct that will have serious implications for now and beyond.

What is the cause? The British High Commissioner had deflated the NPP’s campaign of calumny against the NDC’s Central Regional Chairman ,Allotey Jacobs, and suddenly became the target for Jumah and the NPP operatives. Leading the attack, Jumah is reported to have described him without any hesitation as a “fool”.

“So if Britain wants someone as a High Commissioner to Ghana, must they appoint a fool like Jon Benjamin as their Commissioner to Ghana? That man is a fool,” he angrily said on NEAT FM’s morning show ‘Ghana Montie’. (See http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Why-must-UK-appoint-a-fool-as-a-commissioner-to-Ghana-Jumah-443208).

Is this the kind of politics that one expects Jumah and those in the NPP to do for Ghana’s good? And so far, no reaction has come from Akufo-Addo and the NPP camp to help matters?

Folks, I am appalled at Jumah’s misconduct and blame our judicial system for letting him loose to misbehave this way. Had the law taken its cause, he wouldn’t have been so foolhardy to go this distance. He would have been nailed by now.

The long and short of it all is that Jumah gives Ghanaians abroad a very bad signal. If returning home to do politics is what Jumah portrays, who will be attracted? Not me!!
Of course, Jumah and others like him who returned to Ghana knew what they were looking for. Have they had it yet? I don’t know; but all I know is that once they fall foul of the law, they should be taken on so they don’t behave with impunity as Jumah is doing.

I wait to see the fallouts from his outright damnation of the British High Commissioner. It seems, though, that this British High Commissioner has inserted himself too much into Ghanaian affairs, commenting on issues that other diplomats shy away from. Why does he feel that only he has the balls to do so?

Given the numerous controversies in which he has involved himself, I won’t be surprised if he is recalled one of these days; but I won’t miss the fact too that characters of Jumah’s type who insult foreign diplomats are a problem for Ghana to solve. In truth, then, Maxwell Kofi Jumah is a disgrace!! And there are many of his type all over the place, abusing the system with impunity without being dealt with. Our kind of democracy is a mockery!!

Lawlessness of this type doesn’t grow it; instead, if destroys public confidence in it. Eventually, it degenerates into something else to be feared.

I shall return…

• E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com
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