If we did not already know the politically destructive and the kleptocratic track record of the leadership and the entire institutional establishment of the John “I Have No Classmates in Ghana” Dramani Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC), we would almost definitely have been tempted to unreservedly concur with Mr. Godwin Mileba Kwame – the man weirdly writes his byline as Mileba Godwin Kwame, I hope and suppose that like a remarkable number of Anlo-Ewe Ghanaian citizens, the author’s surname or last name is “Kwame,” often spelt/spelled as “Kwami” – that Mr. Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa’s inexcusable and scandalous dodge of a politically and a diplomatically critical vote on the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, right here at the New York City Headquarters of the globally most inclusive organization was absolutely nothing short of unimpeachably masterful (See “Ablakwa’s Stand: A Masterclass in Diplomacy and Principle” Modernghana.com 7/11/25).
Which is why we find the critic’s vehement and heretically self-righteous protestation of Mr. Eugene Boakye-Antwi’s prayerful wish for the Mahama 2.0 government’s abysmal failure, in hopes of having the presently main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) have a fighting and a winsome chance of being comfortably returned to Jubilee House, come January 7, 2029, to be downright disingenuous and insufferably hypocritical. The fact and the unvarnished truth of the matter is that contrary to what the rhetorically stentorian Ablakwa shill or hireling would have the rest of us, that is, the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian citizens, believe, Mr. Boakye-Antwi’s political death-wish for the present Mahama 2.0 regime to seismically fail, strikingly and unmistakably mirrors the same death-wish that not very long ago, a twice-failed Candidate Mahama had had for the twice consecutively elected Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party. And by the way, we are all fully aware of the fact of the previous Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress having unspeakably failed to deliver on its electioneering-campaign promises to the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian people.
A striking example of such grossly irresponsible leadership is scandalously and despicably reflected in what the then Ghana’s main opposition leader had to say about both his predecessor and immediate successor’s yeomanly and heroic achievement in definitively resolving the age-old internecine Yendi/Dagbon Chieftaincy Feud. You see, rather than emulatively and laudably respond in the highly commendable manner that Mr. Mileba Godwin Kwame accurately and poignantly attributes to Mr. Andrew “Andy” Appiah-Kubi, the recently democratically ousted New Patriotic Party-sponsored Member of Parliament for the Asante-Akyem-North Constituency, in the Asante Region, the then royally failed Candidate Mahama, all-too-characteristically cynically and pathologically enviously, and downright blasphemously, would tell a visibly irate and indescribably flabbergasted Ya-Naa Abubakari Mahama, II, that the then President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had done absolutely nothing worthwhile to auspiciously facilitate and definitively resolve the age-old Dagbon Chieftaincy Feud.
Instead, Yagbonwura Kwame Gonja of Bole-Bamboi, in the Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region, would flakily inform Ya-Naa Abubakari Mahama that, in fact, it was the former Arch-Lieutenant to the “Mysteriously Vanished” President John Evans “Atta-Woyome” Mills’ globally infamous “Inscrutable Divine Providence” who had abruptly and beneficently descended from Heaven down to Yendi to resolve the bloodiest chieftaincy crisis in the country in recent memory.
Ironically, presently, under his watch and second nonconsecutive tenure, President John “European Airbus SE Payola” Dramani Mahama has yet to invoke the preternatural powers of his “Inscrutable Divine Providence” to descend from Heaven to the Bawku and the Bolgatanga municipalities to promptly resolve the equally protracted age-old interethnic conflict that has become the staple political diet of the Upper-East Region for as long as any adult Ghanaian citizen well past 60 years old can remember.
As of this writing, the Bole-Bamboi Petty Chieftain and Military-Fatigues addicted Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) had instructed some personnel of the latter National Security Establishment to make a routine habit of providing protective convoys for the escorting of each and every vehicle plying the highways and the roadways in-between the aforementioned municipalities and all other places in-between as well.
Now, if one may humbly ask: Is this the most politically savvy and cost-effective means of definitively resolving the Frafra-Mamprusi Chieftaincy Dispute in the country’s most politically and economically underdeveloped region? Of course, Mr. Mileba Godwin Kwame is politically savvy and sophisticated enough to recognize the fact that talent-wise, Mr. Mahama is absolutely no peer or the classmate of former President Akufo-Addo. The truth of the matter is that irrespective of whether Mr. Eugene Boakye-Antwi wishfully prays for the Mahama 2.0 government’s failure or Mr. Andrew “Andy” Appiah-Kubi’s equally prayerful wish for the Mahama regime’s bountiful political harvest is highly unlikely to significantly alter the metaphorical price of Camomile Tea in China or the price of Lipton Tea in Sri Lanka, for that matter.
What is even more outrageous is Mr. Mileba Godwin Kwame’s downright lame and peevish attempt to cavalierly justify Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa’s decision to have Ghana abstain from the UN Human Rights Council Vote, on the inexcusably vacuous grounds that the set of issues being voted upon at the time partly had to do with the civil rights protection of LGBTQ+ people, even while also equally vacuously and bankruptcy claiming that abstaining from voting on the aforementioned subject was, somehow, on behalf of the inviolable protection of the rights of other vulnerable people in Ghanaian society, such as women.
Now, the most logical question to pose here is as follows: Since when did the leadership of the National Democratic Congress prioritize the protection of women in Ghanaian society, other than as a tactical and/or strategic and tokenistic means of grabbing power? Other than Ghana’s Akan-Majority Ethnic Community, nearly every other cultural group and/or community in the country, including the Anlo-Ewe Cultural Group and Community, to which both Messrs. Okudzeto-Ablakwa and Mileba Godwin Kwame belong, routinely exploits and oppresses women in ways and manners that cannot be said of the matrilineal Akan people and their culture.
Even as I write, the Akan-descended Third Female Chief Justice of the august Supreme Court of Ghana (SCOG), Mrs. Gertrude Araba Esaaba Sackey-Torkornoo, has been indefinitely suspended by a perennially and globally infamous Anti-Judicial and politically implacably vindictive Gonja-descended President John Dramani Mahama, as were also the other two Akan-descended women Chiefs Justice Emeritae who preceded “Suspended” Chief Justice Sackey-Torkornoo.
Ghanaians have also not forgotten Mr. Ablakwa, the Mahama-appointed current Foreign Minister’s reckless and relentless campaign of false propaganda against the previous twice consecutively elected Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party. Now, there is a tired, old maxim that runs as follows: “One Good Turn Deserves Another,” a saying that we learned in middle school from one of our English-language textbooks, just as one can also logically expect “One Bad Turn” to be equally deserving of “Another Bad Turn,” for that matter.
Ultimately, there are no “ifs” and “buts” about Mr. Ablakwa’s cynical and downright hypocritical decision to have Ghana scandalously abstain from voting on the UN Human Rights Council’s vote to renew the mandate on the jealous and the sacred protection of the inviolable rights of all humans, irrespective of race, religion, gender and cultural and sexual orientation. Absolutely nothing “masterful” or “masterclass” about such morally depraved and politically rancid dodge and copout. Nothing masterful or classy about a patently and insufferably fetid diplomatic gambit.
By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]
