It is all-too-predictable that the most ardent critics of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo would predicate their criticism of the President’s prompt and rather laudable decision to suspend the Deputy Sports Minister, Mr. Pius Enam Hadzide, on everything, except the hard-preliminary evidence on which the decision was made. That Mr. Hadzide was suspended together with Mr. Robert Sarfo-Mensah, did not seem to matter the least bit to these critics. All that clearly mattered was the Anlo-Ewe ethnicity of the suspended Deputy Sports Minister, and the fact that Mr. Hadzide’s hierarchically immediate boss and substance Sports Minister, Mr. Isaac Asiamah, is of Akan ethnicity.
But you know what, Dear Reader, the nominal classification of Mr. Asiamah as Akan, auto-knee-jerkily, could very well backfire because there are quite a remarkable number of ethnic Ewes with thoroughgoing Akan names, such as the legendary genius composer and distinguished Professor of Music, Dr. Ephraim Amu who, by the way, thoroughly envisaged himself to be of Ewe ethnicity but, in reality, was culturally and genetically Akan to the core – or at the absolute least mixed-breed – from Peki-Avetile, whose familial font or head is Peki-Blengo, less popularly known as Peki-Abenase. I have personally met rabidly anti-Akan Ewes who had completely Akan names. And when they did not have Akan proper names, as it were, they bore unmistakable Akan “Day Names.”
Now, it goes without saying that almost not a single ethnic Ewe inhabits the West African sub-region without an Akan ancestor on at least one side of his/her family or another. But, of course, that is not the primary focus here; what is at issue here is the apparently vicious and deliberate disregard of the fact that in the letter, copied to the media, announcing the immediate suspension of Mr. Hadzide, and signed by Mr. Eugene Arhin, the Communications Director at the Presidency, specific mention is made of the critical fact that the decision to suspend the Deputy Sports Minister was based on the preliminary evidence of expert (read: BNI and CID) investigations. For me, personally, though, what seemed incontrovertible was the fact that quite a remarkable number of the operatives of the National Sports Authority (NSA) clearly seemed to be holdovers from the erstwhile Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
It does not appear to me that the composition of the staff of the NSA is thoroughly made up of appointees of the present Akufo-Addo Administration. There ought to be some truth in the maxim that “A few rotten apples can spoil a whole bunch or a barrel full.” I, obviously, have in mind here the 2014 Brazil World Cup Scandal, in which whole colonies of Ghanaian spectators who were deliberately and, perhaps, even strategically, sponsored by the John Dramani Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress with the sole purpose of having these jobless but staunch NDC supporters and sympathizers offloaded onto the then Brazilian government of President Dilma Rousseff.
In that witheringly scandalous incident, no meticulous attempt was made by Ghana’s then-President Mahama to ensure the repatriation of each and every one of these fraudulent supporters of the Ghana National Soccer Team, the Black Stars. It clearly appeared that Mr. Mahama, perhaps with the tacit complicity of Ms. Rousseff, was retroactively and, one might even say, reciprocally, repatriating these staunch supporters and sympathizers of the National Democratic Congress as a means of “equalizing” the massive Back-to-Africa Movement of the immediate post-slavery era of Brazil in the 1880s or thereabouts. Well, my good guess – and, of course, I stand to be corrected – is that some of the same cynical operatives and authors of the Brazil World Cup Immigration Racket are also at work here.
Back then, the extant Deputy Sports Minister, Mr. Joseph Yammin, publicly and vengefully boasted that just like during the tenure of President John Agyekum-Kufuor, only NDC party members, supporters and sympathizers would be emplaned to Brasilia to watch the Black Stars do the Democratic Republic of Ghana proud. Mr. Yammin would, of course, shortly be embroiled in a $3 million cash-flight scandal that would make Ghana the global butt of jokes and ridicule for quite some time to come. It was one of the most apocalyptic instances of gross administrative incompetence of President Mahama’s tenure and may very well have significantly contributed to his democratic ouster or dislodgment from the erstwhile Flagstaff House. Today, we learn that Mr. Yammin appears to have found religion and Divine Providence. Indeed, there is no crook that is more dangerous than one who cloaks his/her fraudulent activities under the guise of the Divine Godhead.
Those virulent Akufo-Addo critics also appear to have deliberately ignored the fact that at least three highly placed sports officials attending the Aussie Commonwealth Games with the Ghanaian team have been promptly recalled home to help personnel from the Criminal Investigations Division of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) and operatives from the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) with ongoing investigations vis-à-vis how some 60 Ghanaian “Immigration Flight Attendants” managed to secure legitimate visas to pose as officially certified journalists to cover the games. And contrary to what the Akufo-Addo critics would have the rest of us believe, none of the three highly placed sports officials – namely, Messrs. Ben Nunoo-Mensah; Kwadwo Baah-Agyeman; and Mohammed Sahnoon – is an ethnic Ewe, at least not going by the sounds of the names. So much for paranoia and petty-mindedness.
*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
The views expressed by this author remain solely their own and are not to be taken as the view of the Editorial Board of www.africanewsanalysis.com, www.zongonews.com and ZongoNews Radio & TV