I don’t know what Legon political scientist, Prof. Ransford Gyampo means when he asserts that President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo egregiously erred in his choice of words – or diction – when he recently addressed the nation in a multicast vis-à-vis the just-ratified Enhanced Military and Security Cooperation Agreement (EMSCA) between Ghana and the United States. The issue dealt, head-on, with the scandalous hypocrisy of the leaders of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress, nearly everyone of whom has criminally signed a secret military agreement with the United States that they now cynically pretend to have been inimical to the integrity and sovereignty of the country, now that President Akufo-Addo has democratically decided that such agreements must require the statutory/constitutional input of ordinary Ghanaian citizens, through their elected representatives.
Indeed, even as a renowned but grossly misguided award-winning young Ghanaian journalist cast such scandalous hypocrisy recently, “Nana Akufo-Addo ought to be aware, by now, of the fact that some of us have different expectations of the NDC and the NPP.” By the latter quote, of course, the journalist in question meant that it was perfectly hunky-dory or wholesome for the leaders of the National Democratic Congress to ride roughshod over the constitutional rights of Ghanaian citizens and the laws of the land but, somehow, legal lights like President Akufo-Addo can simply not be expected to do that. In view of the preceding, it was imperative for Nana Akufo-Addo to exhibit precisely the sort of anger that he so remarkably expressed during the course of the masterful delivery of his national address, so as to poignantly and unmistakably put both Ghanaians and his main political opponents on notice about the fact that the unctuously pontifical and self-righteous leaders of the National Democratic Congress have been selling them short down the proverbial creek/river for quite some time now.
Indeed, had he failed to express the contextually necessary conniption or outrage, Nana Akufo-Addo would have come off as just another run-of-the-mill Ghanaian politician who could not be taken seriously, and who could care less about the fate and fortunes of the very people who so generously offered him their mandate after three grueling tries or attempts. I also vehemently disagree with the European Studies professor that the most vocal and adamant critics of the EMSCA pact are not anti-American. Anybody who has been studiously following the policy pronouncements of the leaders of the National Democratic Congress needs no further convincing that these “unspeakable hypocrites” are rabidly anti-American, else why have the likes of Messrs. Haruna Iddrisu, Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa and Samuel Koku Anyidoho not equally called for the secret pacts signed with the Americans by Chairman Jerry John Rawlings and Mr. John Dramani Mahama to be retroactively revoked, if these pacts were so unwisely skewed against the integrity and sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Ghana?
Needless to say, it constitutes the height of irresponsibility for the likes of Prof. Gyampo to expect President Akufo-Addo to accept undeserved abuse lying supine. Ghana’s oil economy, for just one salient example, was almost singlehandedly made possible by the Americans, but we have scandalously watched the faux-socialist and fanatically left-leaning leaders of the National Democratic Congress, beginning with the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, furiously and adamantly attempt to cede the same to the Chinese who, by the way, have helped Ghanaians in a lot of ways but have not significantly contributed towards investment in oil prospecting in the country. If such attitude on the part of the NDC leaders is not patently anti-American, what else is?
I also don’t see where President Akufo-Addo has proven himself to be intolerant to criticism, when the same critics have yet to roundly condemn the fact that former Presidents Rawlings and Mahama would literally mortgage the sovereignty and integrity of their country by disrespectfully signing secret military pacts with the United States, at least one of which involved the use of Ghana, albeit temporarily, as a veritable American Military Base. And just where was Prof. Gyampo, when then-President Mahama literally ordered Ghanaians, in general, but his main political opponents, in particular, to shut up and stop criticizing him because other than former Presidents Rawlings and John Agyekum-Kufuor, none of these bona fide Ghanaian citizens had ever been voted into the erstwhile Flagstaff House as Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces?
You see, Ghanaians want our intellectuals and think-tank operatives to speak with fearless honesty and the courage of their convictions. With Prof. Gyampo, what one gets is much of the same nauseous pabulum or cant which has had us marking time these past 25 years of Fourth Republican Ghanaian Democracy. That we need an immediate scholastic paradigm shift can scarcely be gainsaid.
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