There is the need for reinforcement in this forum. It promises to be very interesting. The Akufo-Addo camp is in a damage control offensive to rush under the carpet the extremely reckless statement he make recently without accounting fully for them and rendering the necessary apologies. I have decided that this shall not come to pass. I need help and support here!
Akufo-Addo: "We Akans Are Not Cowards, In 2012 All Die Be Die!" - Part One
Read Article Ghanaweb.com: Red Alert For Our Welfare?" by Herbert Krapa, press aide to NPP Flag-bearer, Mr. William Kofi Nana Akufo-Addo; Feature Article of Saturday, 19 March 2011
Comment: "WE AKANS ARE NOT COWARDS" AKUFO-ADDO
Author: Office of Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
Date: 2011-03-19 05:14:33
Comment to: Red Alert For Our Welfare?
"We Akans Are Not Cowards, In 2012 All Did Be Die!" - Akufo-AddoBy Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
a rejoinder to "Red Alert For Our Welfare?" by Krapa, Herbert, Ghanaweb Feature Article of Saturday, 19 March 2011
Introduction: The Elephant is beating about the Bush!
We all knew, even before Dr. Arthur K. Kennedy superfluously confirmed it with a whole book, that the elephant had been chased into the bush, the very moment President Mills took the Oath of Office as the President of the Fourth Republic of Ghana two years ago! What is new to us, is the current phenomenon which indicates that the elephant has not just been chased into the bush, but it also appears to be beating about the bush!
At his age, Akufo-Addo ought to know that Ghanaians shall never accept such ethnocentric outbursts, and that he runs the risk of becoming an outcast, the more he refuses to withdraw those words and reject calls for apologies. And some of us have decided that we are going to make sure he comes to his senses and withdraws the offensive aspects of his speech, otherwise he will not like what he is going to read each time he fails to do the right thing and begins to play his monkey tricks to escape responsibility and accountability for these utterances. He shall see and feel this as the temperature of my pressure rises with each subsequent article published under the same title, to be released in parts. Our message is therefore very simple: the earlier he complies with our humble request to gracefully withdraw the offensive aspect of his speech, the better it will be for him, and for his chances of securing a respectable second-place in the 2012 presidential race!
There are thousands of NPP members, particularly the non-Akans, but not necessarily limited to the non-Akans only, who feel very uncomfortable with the inward-looking nature of the appeal to the Akan people by Akufo-Addo. For example a rabid and semi-illiterate and formerly as ethnocentric as most members of the NPP until he passed through my hands on Ghanaweb, had this to say:
"Let me make it crystal clear here that, I do not agree with the part of Nana's speech talking about the bravery of Akans and making it seem like NPP is an Akan party at war with the Ewe dominated NDC Party. Ghanaians are not going to war war with each other, we have come a long way in our democratic rebirth we will not resort to the Kenya or Ivory Coast examples but we will not allow any Party, either NPP or NDC to hijack any election in Ghana, that NDC should not try to rig the 2012 election. Rawlings peacefully handed over to Kuffour and he in turn did the same thing to Mills. We expect Mills or Nana Konadu Agyeman to concede defeat gracefully in 2012 when the tide turns against NDC. We do not need to use guns, arrows and bows to affirm the will of the people. Ghanaians are too enlightened and matured to resort to this kind of primitive [endevour]." See; 'NDC Dunderheads, Atta Mess "Threatened" Kenya On Ghana', Columnist: Sarpong, Justice, Feature Article of Sunday, 13 February 2011.
And please take note! Justice Sarpong is a supporter of Akufo-Addo. Justice Sarpong is an Akan member of the NPP! Justice Sarpong is an Ashanti, to be precise. So, it is very clear that such gimmicks by Herbert Krapa are going to prove a hard-sell even to die-hard NPP members! That is how bad the situation is today. And the only solution to this is an equally "crystal clear" apology, not running away with silly antics like hugging the President or articles such as the one currently under review.
To be honest, I think Mr. William Kofi Akufo-Addo, flag-bearer of Ghana's right-wing opposition party, the NPP, did not miscalculate the timing for the need he must have felt to draw public attention to himself before all the cameras begin to turn on his arch-rival, President John Evans Atta-Mills, in the lead up to the delivery of the 2011 State of the Nation Address. What must have been his worry was obvious: President Mills has been gathering positive opinion-polls after opinion-polls, especially after each of his recent public interventions. For example, in the recent "two years in office", a media encounter which raised among others, the issue of whether or not Ghana should go to war in the Ivory Coast, the President carried the nation, including some traditional NPP supporters with him in his very wise and astute diplomatic tango to dismantle the attempts by some faceless individuals to impose a war on us from without for reasons other than the ones they are giving us.
The state of the nation address was an occasion to look as Presidential as possible and canvass for political legitimacy. It is a moment every politician would relish. It is thus understandable that Mr. William Kofi Akufo-Addo, consumed with jealousy, would want to draw some attention to himself. There is nothing wrong with that. What I find very difficult to understand is what he chose to say and how he said it. Here is what Akufo-Addo said:
"They have made up their minds that they are going to intimidate us in 2012." Akufo-Addo was caught on the microphone, speaking in Twi, an Akan language, 'I sometimes explain this as the claim that we Akans are cowards. They argue that if one is able wound one or two of us, then all the rest of us remaining take to our heels! Is that so? Well, We shall see! Atiwa for example, was a little illustration of this. During the by-elections at Atiwa we did "something small" that showed a little bit of this. And so we have to understand that this party was formed by brave men. Our elders who formed this party which is now the biggest political party in Ghana, were not people who were hiding under beds!
The courage that is needed now to face the 2012 elections is 'All die be die! All die be die!' Nobody is a man more than his fellow! Nobody more manly than the other. No matter how tall you are, no matter how small you are in size, by God's plan, all of us are endowed with exactly the same thing. You cannot tell us that you have three inside yours. All of us have how many? Two! Ha! ha! ha! So we are going to pick up courage. Ghanaians need us to come back to power. Whatever courage we need to stand firmly and to ensure that we come back to power in 2012, we are going to have to do it!" (Transcription by the Office of the Odikro, from audio, source: @joyonlinenews: Listen to key voices on Nana Akufo-Addo's 'all die be die' /dlvr.it/Gb2v7)"
I think that to explain the President's effective response to the silly threats to the security of our nation is not necessary because it is self-explanatory from the levels of stupidity and irresponsibility behind this very mindless call for inter-ethnic conflicts in Ghana. Our expectation was that of a national inter-party competition which cut across ethnic lines and prevent the hardening of organised and systematic civil strife. Inciting racial hatred or inter-ethnic animosity, and xenophobia, and sorts of social ills that have the potential to paralyse a nation, and every Ghanaian, big or small has the right to condemn this.
Herbert Krapa's article only seeks to criticise the President's reaction to the silly utterances by Akufo-Addo, rather than dealing directly with the nonsense which called for such a reaction. I think the President gave a measured and responsible response to a dangerous powder keg of politically explosive and unnecessary, uncalled-for buffoonery of inciting inter-ethnic strife and exploiting the conflict for political ends at this time of the day and age! The timing of the Present in dealing with this took the bull by the horns. It sent a clear and unequivocal message that they needed to know, that the President is awake to his responsibilities and Oath of "ensuring the safety of Ghanaians"! Herbert Krapa finds this funny. Is the safety of Ghanaians a funny subject for the Akufo-Addo camp? I don't see what is so funny about this!
"We members of the NPP are not cowards"
If Akufo-Addo had said: "We members of the NPP are not cowards", and not "We Akans are not cowards", it would have probably not necessitated the kind of high profile attention and the sense of urgency the President attached to this. It is rather frustrating to see that instead of people who are closer to Akufo-Addo putting everything aside and seriously pointing out to him, the gravity of of the situation that his irresponsible statement has plunged our nation into, they are rather urging him on! Akufo-Addo must be helped to see the kind of image he has cut for himself with this statement, and do a deep soul-searching, Does the writer of this article really think the "All die be die" nonsense could just be brushed under the carpet with a half-witted article of this nature?
Indeed the President was not alone in condemning this. We were all very much horrified and instantly amazed the moment those words were uttered. It is as unusual as it is unprecedented, that a leader of a major political party in Ghana could mount a public platform and speak in his dialect to a very close audience of only those destined to understand the Twi, that "We Akans are not cowards, therefore 2012 All die be die!" What type of lunacy is that? Is this the effect of alcohol or some other drugs?
Equally important and crucial is the role of Akufo-Addo's PR handlers. Herbert Krapa is a press aide to NPP Flag-bearer, Mr. William Kofi Nana Akufo-Addo. He is supposed to also give the correct feed-back to his boss and help make the people feel they are being listened to. Otherwise this leads to charges ranging from insensitivity to absolute arrogance. And it is certainly not the best way to endear oneself! Instead of a retraction and apology the best gimmick that the Akufo-Addo Public Relations guru could come up with is to complain about the President's Red Alert! It appears they are gloriously oblivious that the are leaving their toxic faeces in public places! Just listen to Herbert Krapa:
"Mr. Osu Castle resident President, the Ghanaian people, thanks to the mass media and information technology, are clear in our minds that there is no tension in any part of Ghana today: we haven’t heard, we haven’t seen. Indeed, for many of us, the biggest insecurity of our lives today, is the growing hardships and sky rocketing cost of living that your obviously insensitive government continues to subject us to."
Meet Your Violent "Akan" National Party! "All Die Be Die!"
Here are some of the fundamental flaws of going the "Akan tribal party" angle. If you believe that the economy is the most important issue for Ghanaians, it should not be too difficult for you to imagine that this is important to all Ghanaians, irrespective of ethnicity. All Ghanaians use the same currency, go to the same market, and enjoy fairly equitable access to education, health and employment, and that the basic discrimination is based upon their economic class rather than their ethnicity.
Mr. Krapa, your ideological bankruptcy shows in the manner you opportunistically use the argument about the economy to divert attention from the fall-outs of that unfortunate statement. Under intense pressure, he tried to cover this up by hugging the President, it did not work. I am surprised that you see silly articles like yours as the next best foot forward. You cannot simply defend anyone who opens his mouth to create inter-ethnic strife in this country. You cannot promote a system that thrives on elitism and primitive loyalty based upon ethnicity and at the same time launch a popular appeal about the economy! What is Akufo-Addo's strategy for the development of Ghana in 10 years? Is it by means of a civil war? Must I suppose he is talking about "economic development" during a heated "inter-tribal war"? How can you talk about war, which means death and destruction, on one side of the mouth, and turn around to talk about economic development on the other side of the mouth?
"Akufo-Addo’s “all-die be-die” call is a peaceful one, members of the NPP understand it, the Ghanaian people have embraced it and it is therefore not a surprise that ever since he made that statement, not a single incident of violence has been reported in any part of our country in connection to it. In any case, why are the NDC being hysterical and paranoid about the statement? The man says if you throw a stone at us, me and my people will defend ourselves. My question to the NDC is: why worry about such a harmless comment if you know you will not throw a stone at them?"
Go and tell Akufo-Addo that no amount of spin is going to wash off this monumental national determination for peace to prevail in Ghana, and to punish those responsible for breaching the peace as well as inciting inter-ethnic violence.
Akufo-Addo must withdraw the offending aspects of his speech and render unqualified apologies for such unqualified bunkum. This is the only way he can get out his current predicament. Certainly not mentally-challenged assumptions and analysis as has just been churned out by his very unintelligent propaganda team led by Mr. Herbert Krapa, press aide to the NPP flag-bearer's so-called "Victory 2012 Team"!
I remember, as a young man in the early days of my university life, I was always amused at the humour behind such bizarre expressions such as "If you have nothing to say, don't say it here!" I found it so funny! Then, later on in life, as an adult, I came across the Australian version. The Australians say, "Tell your story walking!" Of course, the point in this is that they are very anxious that by the time you would be half-way through your obviously stupid story, you would be out of ear-shot, and they could resume their normal activities in peace and have their peace of mind restored! I think that is apt.
Tell your story walking!
I really believe that should the unexpected misfortune for Ghana happens, and Akufo-Addo becomes the President of Ghana he would be the worst President that Ghana ever had. I am often confused between Kufour and Rawlings, but Akufo-Addo does not leave a doubt! I did not like Kufour, but at least, he appeared to be listening! When he claimed at the Kasoa rally to their hungry-looking supporters that there is no one hungry in Ghana, it backfired. Many Ghanaians did not like what he said.
Kufour, the listening President, would mount another platform at Nwabagyina, his home-base, and make the necessary amendment to the effect that "I am very sorry for the mistake I made at Kasoa." His Excellency was full of wine, He muttered something to this effect: "Admired, there are Ghanaians who are hungry. It was an error on my part to claim that no Ghanaian is hungry. Some Ghanaians are hungry, but those are the lazy individuals!" This is a listening President! It is not someone who is so arrogant that even when it is obvious that he has committed a blunder he arrogantly and very stupidly continues to repeat it, then change tactic, go and hug the President, whilst he sends his lieutenants to fire as much nonsense as possible to keep him away from imply saying, "I am sorry"!
We have work on our hands to ensure that such a person never gets near to the seat of power. As Nkrumah rallied the people of the Gold Coast, "all men of goodwill, organize, organize, organize. We prefer self-government in danger, to servitude in tranquillity." those who are organising silly psychological warfare stoking any kind of flames that can help them in the "manufacture of public consent" seem acceptable to these merchants of death! "Me nim NPP firi tete"! I know them so well that they even make me laugh.
When they are out of power, they have a different set of register and vocabulary, such as the talk about "the unfortunate hardships that his insensitive fuel price hikes have brought to all of us,", but we also know that whenever you see them in power, you are also seeing the time when the "poor Ghanaians", "unfortunate hardships" dramatically change, at a time whilst ironically stealing and looting the economy, the poor and the hungry Ghanaians suddenly become "lazy individuals"!
I avail myself of this opportunity, my dear Mr. Krampa, to extend to you, the assurances of our highest consideration.
Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!
Cheers!
–
Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro
E-Mail: nanaakyeamensah@gmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheOdikro
Feature Articles: http://nanaakyeamensah.
Comments: http://theodikro.blogspot.com/
Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/
Listen to him:
"On Thursday, February 17, 2011, the President, Prof. Mills, in his state of the nation address, supposed to be the general situation and status of the entire country, remarked to all of us, that, “Madam Speaker, as Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, and having sworn to protect the integrity of mother Ghana, I have put security agencies on red alert and they are under strict instructions to deal decisively within the ambit of the law with anybody or group of persons who will attempt to disturb the peace and stability of this dear nation of ours. We will not sit idly by and allow some persons to throw this country into a state of chaos just to satisfy their self-centered and inordinate political desires.”
Listen to him:
"On Thursday, February 17, 2011, the President, Prof. Mills, in his state of the nation address, supposed to be the general situation and status of the entire country, remarked to all of us, that, “Madam Speaker, as Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, and having sworn to protect the integrity of mother Ghana, I have put security agencies on red alert and they are under strict instructions to deal decisively within the ambit of the law with anybody or group of persons who will attempt to disturb the peace and stability of this dear nation of ours. We will not sit idly by and allow some persons to throw this country into a state of chaos just to satisfy their self-centered and inordinate political desires.”
No comments:
Post a Comment