? ?It is the will of the people that ought to be manifested by the outcome of Election 2012, not the fraudulent collusion of Messrs. Afari-Gyan and Mahama on who best qualifies to lead the nation for the next four years,? thus says Mr. Paul Collins Appiah-Ofori.
?Actually, those are not exactly the words used by the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa. But I am quite sure that the fire-brand and largely maverick MP would approve of my quoting him in the above manner. What I have done, of course, is to essentially capture the spirit of the thrust of his righteous indignation and tirade against Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby, the burly and cantankerous Ghanaian politician whose admirers prefer to call him ?Tarzan.?
For Mr. Appiah-Ofori, whose son, Appiah-Ofori, Jr., once e-mailed me to express his great admiration for my writings, although I had recently carped his father in a rather intemperate manner (he had not used exactly those words either), what matters most, regarding the decision of the main opposition New Patriotic Party to file a lawsuit against the fraudulent conduct by the Afari-Gyan-chaired Electoral Commission of Election 2012, is justice and the legitimate representation of the will and aspirations of the Ghanaian people (See ?Wereko-Brobby Must Go Back to School; He Has Very Low IQ ? Appiah-Ofori? JoyOnline.com/Ghanaweb.com 12/17/12).
The Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa MP is a righteously angry man, because Tarzan has rather unwisely and, in the quite bitter words of Mr. K. T. Hammond, ?selfishly, divisively and rebelliously? dared to impugn the constitutional right of members, supporters and sympathizers of the New Patriotic Party to seek legal redress for Dr. Afari-Gyan?s flagrant violation of their franchise.
As I have garnered from his stance on this issue, Dr. Wereko-Brobby appears to be saying that the onus of whether votes cast in favor of the NPP was accurately counted and diligently transmitted to the Accra headquarters of the Electoral Commission fell squarely on the shoulders of NPP polling agents. And this is where I am in perfect agreement with Mr. Appiah-Ofori, because the 1992 Constitution expressly charges the Electoral Commission with the fair and just conduct of all elections in the country, regardless of whether the individual political parties are adequately represented at all the polling booths. In other words, ultimate responsibility for running a legitimate election falls squarely on the shoulders of Dr. Afari-Gyan and his staff and their delegates scattered across the ten regions of the country.
If the preceding interpretation has validity, then what Dr. Wereko-Brobby does when he gratuitously faults key operatives of the NPP for ?complacency,? which Tarzan claims caused the defeat of the NPP at Election 2012, is called ?Blaming the Victim? here in the United States. In plain language, Dr. Wereko-Brobby appears to clearly prefer the cheap and tawdry approach of copping out, as it were, rather than frontally and justifiably toughing it out, as counseled by Mr. Appiah-Ofori and the rest of the executive membership of the NPP.
There may be several reasons for the curious stance of Dr. Wereko-Brobby. Indeed, his stance is rather curious because Tarzan has in the past distinguished himself in Ghanaian political circles by courageously fighting off Mr. Rawlings and his Provisional/National Democratic Congress? attempt to silence him as a formidable media force. What also makes the stance of the reportedly most extravagant Chief Executive Officer of the Volta River Authority ever curious is the fact that, as Mr. K. T. Hammond has already indicated, Tarzan was present when the decision to contest the 2012 presidential election in court was taken and had the prime opportunity then to have registered his reservations but did not.
Personally, though, I have never deemed the membership of Dr. Wereko-Brobby in the NPP with any seriousness, being that like Mr. Kofi Wayo, Tarzan had earlier on formed his own political party with the intention of contesting the presidency, if I recall accurately. And so when he so glibly and casually demands that his colleagues drop their intended lawsuit, and instead focus on preparing for Election 2016, in the insightful words of Mr. Hammond, Tarzan is veritably and inescapably pleading his own parochial cause.
It is also perhaps not worth broaching the quite remote albeit emotionally and psychologically significant fact that Dr. Wereko-Brobby is widely known to be the nephew of the late Mr. Victor Owusu, the 1979 presidential candidate of the Popular Front Party (PFP), one of the two factions of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo Tradition that ran against the Limann-led People?s National Party (PNP). The other faction, headed by Nana Akufo-Addo?s uncle, Mr. William (Paa Willie) Ofori-Atta, of course, was the United National Convention (UNC). It is therefore not very difficult to appreciate why Dr. Wereko-Brobby would assume a ?counter-team-player? posture and a decidedly ?very low IQ? stance on the NPP suit, in the words of Mr. Appiah-Ofori.
Then again, it may also just be that Tarzan has decided to truck with the clerically-collared Abongo Boys of the so-called Ghana National Peace Council. Lately, though, I have been wondering just where was the Peace Council when Mr. Rawlings was performing routine target-shooting practice with the likes of Messrs. Acheampong, Akuffo, Kyeremeh, Felli, Boakye, Utuka and Afrifa, among a host of others.
*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Dec. 29, 2012
###
