A Caveat Emptor On Okompa's Damaged Product!

A Caveat Emptor On Okompa's Damaged Product!
by Nana Akyea Mensah

A Rejoinder to: 'Political Prostitutes are also Citizens..., by Kwame Okoampa Ahoofe Jr. Ph; D., Feature Article of Sunday, 16 November 2008.



"I don't know, and I also don't see, why some Ghanaians feel so abjectly self-righteous as to demand that Ms. Frances Awurabena Asiam march according to their stereotypical, or conventional, notion of what constitutes consistent ideological integrity. In other words, for her most mordant critics, the former National Women's Organizer of the so-called National Democratic Congress (P/NDC) ought to have remained in the pay of Ghana's longest-ruling military dictator, even after the latter had sicced an unconscionable posse of P/NDC campaign thugs on, perhaps, the best-educated woman to have served as that pseudo-party's drum-majorette.

The pertinent question, though, is that even assuming that, indeed, Ms. Asiam were a "political prostitute," or harlot, as her teeming detractors claim, what ought to prevent her from being the very best political prostitute that she could ever be? And, by the way, has not the glorified mantra always been that in order for Ghana to progressively accelerate as fast as is humanly possible, all her citizens and residents need to exert their maximum efforts at whatever good it is that they do best? In any case, didn't Ms. Asiam offer the best riposte to her critics when she poignantly observed to novices of the trade that those who deem her purely pragmatic decision to truck with the winsome and fetching New Patriotic Party (NPP) "do not understand contemporary politics"? (Ghana Election Watch.com 11/14/08).

"Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr. Ph. D., 'Political Prostitutes are also Citizens... Feature Article of Sunday, 16 November 2008,

In the first place, I wish to strongly condemn the use of "political prostitute". The word "prostitute" or "harlot" is pejorative and therefore not an appropriate terminology to apply if we want to be politically correct. Being mindful that our national political debate must be devoid of insults, some of us have carefully preferred to use the politically correct terminology of a "political sex worker".

That said, what surprises me is the quality of this rumbling piece of writing which begins with a justification of the role of political sex workers like Ms. Frances Awurabena Asiam and attempts to glorify "political prostitution" on the alter of "Realpolitik", yet childishly accuses Prof. Atta-Mills, as though the writer had agreed all along with the critics of Ms Asiam on the despicable nature of her trade! Okoampa writes:

"Indeed, far, far more than Ms. Asiam, it is Prof. Atta-Mills who is the veritable and shameless political prostitute of Election 2008!"

If anyone is looking for instructions on the fine art of how to eat their their cakes and still have it intact in their hands, eureka! The address of this master of tautology, of the ranks of Shadwell, son of Flecknoe, is given at the end of his articles!

Caveat emptor:
Potential buyers are kindly requested to beware, Kwame Okoampa is a well-known charlatan and asking for a free demonstration first before paying a cent to him is strongly recommended as the rule of the thumb!

Okoampa dares to ask:

"And how better to do so than to truck with the party that has demonstrated by its sterling performance, within just two electoral terms, that it is the best and most progressive of all postcolonial Ghanaian political parties and governments?"
Quite regularly, one does not get used to getting completely lost and wondering which political party Okoampa is talking about when such words like "progressive" are used to describe the NPP, a party that is in competition with past military dictatorships to beat their records on impunity, on cold-blooded murder, on political persecution by means of judicial imprisonment of people associated with the opposition, the right to assembly, interference in chieftaincy disputes for short-term political gains, sale of any conceivable national resource, including our telecommunications, national gold reserves, and are now focusing their attention on our national forests preserved and reserved by successive colonial and post-colonial governments since Guggisberg in the 1920s! What is so progressive about freeing cocaine and heroin traffickers to enable them carry on their normal activities because they are important financiers of the NPP? What is so progressive about the President mentioning only a single case of "sniffing" corruption and citing a minister who was not even a member of his party, when even party officials like Dr. Arthur Kennedy have visibly dipped deep into our national coffers right under his very wide nostrils? What is so progressive about a whole Minister of the Interior, Dr. Kwame Addo Kufour, the president's big brother, running away from Mr. Will Ross, BBC West African Correspondent currently investigating the role of drug money in Ghana-Election 2008, and not being bothered to even attempt to clear the air concerning allegations of drug traffickers and barons behind the Akufo Addo campaign? Why did not the honourable Minister take advantage of this interview, two weeks ago, to clear the air? Is he not mindful of the implications on our reputation as citizens of a "narco state"? If Okapi's idea of progress includes our arses being torn apart to be peeped into at all international airports because our government is in bed with drug barons, I will have none of it! And I am ready to "YES-WE-CAN!" the NPP for this!

What is so progressive about the wanton interference with the judiciary to ensure appropriate verdicts? As if it was not enough to promote judges favourable to the government whims and caprices to the Supreme Court in order to reverse earliar decisions on the Tsatsu case, we have also been treated to a prosecutor of the case attempting to sit as an Apeals Court judge even though when he used to work with Nana Akufo Addo at the Attorney General's Department, he had accompanied Nana Addo several times before Justice Abban? Why does Justice Abban and all keading members of the NPP keep referring to Tsatsu's association with the PNDC as a basis of the justification of their high-handedness?

Okoampa's Feature Article of Monday, 13 October 2008 on the Daily Graphic eloquently states: The 'Graphic' Has Been Entrusted to the NPP, as Simple as That! What could be a better example of undemocratic governance when even the pretences of inclusion and the non-political use of the tax payers money for the promotion of one political party at the expense of other voices representing the next government of Ghana?

Okoampa asks:

"Anyway, what makes Ms. Asiam any more of a political prostitute than, say, Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, the chameleonic flagbearer of the rump-Convention People's Party (CPP), who has not hesitated to shamelessly spotlight his 7 years of service under the tutelage of President Kufuor and the New Patriotic Party, even while also cynically presuming to impugn the performance and integrity of the latter party and government?"

My answer is simple: One political prostitution does not excuse the other!
Nana Akyea Mensah

nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com