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As Okoampah-Ahoofe knocks
on my door…
By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
STuesday, December 29, 2015
Folks, I am thrilled beyond description at this time of the
year because of what Okoampah-Ahoofe, the resident pesky
pest of Ghanaweb and other online media, has girded his loin
to do with me. It is not the first time, though; but this
time, I am more than well-togged for his kind of rhetorical
balderdash, guided by his deceptive sense of Akan
superiority as an Akyem, even though I hear he has some Ewe
blood in him and has never lived in the Northern part of the
Volta Region to discover his bearings in the world.
I have read the opinion piece written by him, entitled "Then
why is President Mahama on the campaign trail?”, and laughed
it off as the inner-workings of a seriously frustrated mind.
It lacked the energy to provoke any thoughtful discussion of
issues. All that it did was to expose his own lack of
intelligence.
Here is a caveat. For all these years that I have been
writing opinion pieces, I haven’t really deigned it fitting
to take on any other writer of opinion pieces expressing
their thoughts on happenings or seeking to undermine me for
whatever purpose. It is all because of my understanding and
acceptance of the fact that every writer writes from his or
her own perspective (a position of situatedness), not
necessarily bent on forcing his/her viewpoints down the
minds of readers to be accepted as the truth inviolate. I
have tried to rein myself in, even when some won’t do so and
rush to attack me for reasons best known to them.
One of them is Kwame Okoampah-Ahoofe, Jnr., of the Nassau
Community College (no stranger to anybody conversant with
the trend on online media), who has been quick to hide in
the shadows, looking for opportunities to attack others and
emerging with what he sees as the height of intellectual and
rhetorical accomplishment, but which settles flop as a
confirmation of his lack of self-confidence and betrays his
penchant for counter-productive political jingoism. Sane
readers of all that he churns out will quickly dismiss him
for what he is, as is evident in comments passed or no
comments at all attracted by his pieces.
As a teacher of a graduate-level course on “The Writer and
Style”, I have known that language use must be guided by
certain factors, especially the currency of words (if they
are still in common use and can be readily understood by
readers) or whether such words are in national use and not
limited to a group of fogeys lagging behind the times.
Okoampah is known for using the kind of English that Dr.
Samuel Johnson and Co. won’t dare use, even in their time in
the 18th and 19th centuries. And we are in the 21st century.
Despite comments from his readers to guide him, he is still
unmoved. Such a stiff-necked writer can’t successfully teach
journalism and creative writing to community-level students.
He is endangered.
No need to even talk about how he struggles to achieve
relevance, beginning with all that he had earlier thought he
was in the Danquah Institute (the worst SHIT-TANK to have
surfaced in Ghana); then, forming his own Sintim Missah
Ideological Institute (or something of that murky and
nonsensical coloration that faded as soon as announced). We
are even not talking about why he constantly used the
institutional image of the Nassau Community College to back
up his personal identity only to drop it for something fuzzy
like the “Garden City”, whatever that means.
Isn’t it ludicrous that he would turn to attack anybody
emerging with ideas that he cannot accommodate? He has done
so to almost all writers in the online media, creating the
impression that he fears the prominence that these writers
get while he fades. How many people react or respond to his
drivel? Zero. I have monitored public reaction to his
writings and can confidently say that he has lost it, which
explains why he has turned himself into a hatchet man to
attack others doing better than him—the hallmark of a
typical rhetorical psychopath. Such a celebrated fool has no
place anymore. But it provides me the opportunity to take
him on.
A reasonable writher will not be as judgemental as Okoampah
and others of his low-brow ilk are. Clearly, it is all a
matter of the Panopticon conundrum, depending on who is
standing where and seeing what!! Chinua Achebe aptly
captures it in his perspectival representation, saying that
the world is like a mask, dancing. For those wishing to see
things clearly, they need to be well positioned.
In reacting to my opinion piece on “Don’t Ghanaians already
know President Mahama?’, he characterized me as “a notorious
ethnic chauvinist and a National Democratic Congress’
propagandist”. I wonder what I am “notorious” for. Misuse of
the word “notorious”? To whom do I qualify as “notorious”?
And who says that I am an “ethnic chauvinist”? Of course, I
have been bold to say that I am no supporter of the NPP and
that I favour the NDC. And I have given reasons to support
my stance. Nowhere have I advocated ethnicity as the basis
of my political persuasion. So, why should Okoampah
characterize me as an “ethnic chauvinist”? Dear reader, go
through all my over 600 opinion pieces to tell me what I
have failed to see but which Okoampah alone has in hand to
paint me black as an “ethnic chauvinist”.
Readers of my opinion pieces who rush to paint me as anti-Akan
make me laugh a lot, clearly because they fail to separate
reality from their politically jaundiced impressions about
me. Indeed, I have written to say that the NPP is nothing
but an Akan-based party, drawing inferences from the outcome
of elections in Ghana to say that the party has no clear
national representation as does the NDC. And in an opinion
piece tracing that issue, I asked whether the NPP was Asante
and Asante the NPP (which angered so-called “intellectuals”
of the Asante extraction to threaten me with whatever won’t
cut butter). It’s a long story to be told one day.
Thus, for Okoampah to root his characterization of me in
that drivel makes me laugh out really loud. It is so because
no day passes by without his own portrayal of Ewes in a
manner that does more damage to the very Akufo-Addo cause
that he has deceived himself to be fighting through his
opinion pieces. He has been petulant enough to brand all
Ewes under the term “Trokosi”, creating fertile conditions
for a lot of political backlash against the cause for which
he is using his daily writing of opinion pieces. It’s just
like Victor Owusu’s infamous statement that “Ewes are
inward-looking”. The Akufo-Addo that he is projecting won’t
benefit from that rhetorical mischief. I pause here to
wonder if he really knows what is at stake.
In his opinion questioning my take on the rebranding of the
116 MMT buses, he has left traces for me to know how
unbalanced he is upstairs. A stylistic analysis of his
opinion piece leaves me wondering whether he really knows
what to do as a writer. The first two paragraphs lay the
foundation for what one expects him to develop; but he
digresses into irrelevant issues only to return to the
premise in the final paragraph without developing anything
to guide the reader:
“Well, if it were really true that President Mahama had such
an unassailable household-name recognition as to be
practically and absolutely in no need of having his
portraits, together with those of other strategically
selected past Ghanaian presidents, sprayed onto state-owned
and operated buses, why would Mr. Mahama be frenziedly
touring the country and vigorously campaigning for
reelection, on the heels of the just concluded “Arise and
Build” electioneering campaign tour of the nation by his
main political opponent, Nana Akufo-Addo?”
In effect, nothing came from him for us to know why I was
wrong and he, right. Talking about President Mahama’s sole
candidacy has nothing to do with the matter on board. As to
why he would even wonder why President Mahama should be on
the campaign trail, I need not comment.
Folks, I do not intend to waste time and energy flogging
this dead horse, having already dissected it in an opinion
piece that I wrote long ago, entitled “The fuddy-duddy
called Okoampah”. If you need more on my take on him, just
read it on ModernGhana.com. Then, if you really want to know
more, just visit Okoampah’s Facebook page to see how many
friends he has. In this advanced age of technology for
networking!!
I don’t want to be so personal beyond what happens between
us online; but I wish that Okoampah will contact me
personally to be told what his own colleagues at the Nassau
Community College had told me about him when they
participated in events honouring me for winning the most
prestigious teaching award of the Long Island University in
April 2013. I am more than willing to reveal it all to him
so he can shape up properly or be shipped out. Since that
time, he hasn’t improved standards. He may be deceiving
himself, but the truth of his precarious situation will soon
catch up with him.
Then, he may not want to wonder why he settled at a
community college (mostly for drop-outs) and not a
full-fledged university where one has to go through the
rigorous process of recruitment, competing with brains in
one’s field of specialization. Those of us who went that way
have a lot to share with him to guide him if he ever decides
to wet his feet elsewhere when defeated by the fates at
Nassau Community College. On a more interesting note, I plan
to visit there soon to know him as he is so I can deal with
him better. Probably, seeing how his head is screwed on his
torso may give me a better panoramic view of him to know why
he writes the way he does. Otherwise, I’ll leave him to
continue stewing in his foolery.
I shall return…
• E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com
• Join me on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/mjkbokor
to continue the conversation
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