John Kumah Nabbed For Returning Insult For Insult

John Kumah

YESTERDAY, along with two other lawyers (Kwadwo “Sir John” Owusu Afriyie and Adwoa Safoa), supported by Nana Akomea, Abayirifa Karbo, Kwaku Kwarteng and several others, yours truly was at the CID headquarters with John Kumah, the spokesperson for the Young Patriots.

He had been picked up in the middle of a live radio programme at Hot FM, accused of an offensive conduct. The said conduct was that he was in the studios of Asempa last Saturday and Peter Boamah Otukonor, a man whose words sometimes make a month-old decomposed body seem inoffensive, repeated an insulting, vile, false allegation against Nana Akufo-Addo, the NPP presidential candidate.

A week earlier, John Kumah, Adomako Bafi, Hopeson and others of the sharp-shooting brigade of the NPP, announced at their maiden news conference that they the Young Patriots were now ready to match the NDC insult for insult, lie for lie and fire for fire.

“We have hoped that our political discourse will be focused on ideas, policies and programmes that can truly deliver jobs to the teeming unemployed and lift the mass of our people out of poverty. Rather, we have noticed that political discourses of the NDC government appointees and party activists have increasingly been focused on personal attacks, fabrications, wicked lies, and smear campaign against NPP leaders and functionaries,” their statement read.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that this culture of lies, personal attacks, fabrications and smear campaign against NPP leaders is a deliberate political campaign strategy of the NDC.

NPP leaders, without any evidence, described as thieves, drug addicts, drug barons, fruit cakes, uncivilized, uncouth, drunkards, perverts …. The list goes on.”

So they warned “it is time to take a stand. We urge President Mills to call his appointees and party activists to order… [I]f this culture of insults and personal attacks are not stopped then we the young patriots of the NPP would henceforth take a stand. We would stand up against this campaign. Every insult, personal attacks, fabrication, lies, smear campaign against our leaders shall be met with an equal and opposite insults, personal attacks, fabrication, lies and smear campaign against NDC leaders.”

The response from the NDC, through Chris Ackumey’s Media Analysts, was to call the NPP young turks’ bluff. Perhaps, the NDC sharp shooters either underestimated the conviction of the NPP young guys or were overly confident in the pungency of their own verbal decomposition.

So last Saturday, the NDC man repeated with the usual liberty the usual insult against Nana Addo, and John Kumah responded with a similarly painful one against President Mills.

John Kumah, a law student, had to be shown where power lies. The decision to arrest him was a gross miscalculation.

Now, the whole nation is asking what called for the arrest, a clear abuse of the young man’s human rights.

It is time our national leaders and radio station owners and their producers and hosts came together to say: enough is enough.

The NDC is giving the impression that as far as it is concerned, the 2012 election is not about kenkey and fish issues. It is about character and the characteristics of that character is not about the discernible attributes of our political leaders but manufactured facts attributed to them.

The NDC took a decision in 2008 to redefine for Ghanaians who Nana Addo was, pushing aside his over thirty years of public record, including his latest long and distinguished service to Ghana as foreign minister.

With not much of a political record to go on before 1996, the NDC set out to effectively manufacture a brand for Prof Mills and offer it to Ghanaians. It was a marketing strategy that paid off finally, even if after three trials. He was branded as caring, peaceful, humble, trustworthy and honest. It is up to his performance in these four years and the opposition to tell Ghanaians whether or not the President has lived up to the reputation that preceded his ascendency.

While branding Mills, the NDC was also in 2008 busily rebranding Nana Akufo-Addo as an arrogant drug addict who could not be trusted to run the country after President Kufuor. It was as if, suddenly, Ghanaians had forgotten who Nana Addo was. After all, this was the man who in the last seven years had served the nation with distinction, first as Attorney General and for five years as Foreign Minister. It was under this period that Ghana’s international image soared the highest since the collapse of the First Republic.

Alarmed by this, on February 5, 2008, I wrote a piece (which has now become popular on Asempa FM) with the title, ‘GETTING HIGH ON INSULTS AND LIES.’ The article began, “It has gotten to the point that NDC presidential candidate, John Evans Atta Mills has to come on radio, from his temporary base in South Africa, to say “I’m not speaking from a cemetery. I’m talking to you from my hotel room. I’m well and fit. Atta Mills is not dead!” From discussions at bars afterwards, not even his own voice could kill the suspicion created by the minacious mind which pulled that practical joke on the NDC.”

I noted then, “The NDC’s way of dealing with speculations about their leader was to apply what they saw to be tit-for-tat. They upped their jejune, libelous attacks on the NPP presidential candidate Akufo-Addo. Since his nomination as his party’s presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo’s popularity has soared; he appears to be clearly running away with the polls from the other presidential candidates. The NDC can’t find an antidote to this so they have attributed Akufo-Addo’s ratings to performance-enhancing drugs.

They are even calling for a drug test! As if this year’s presidential election is one of the disciplines at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.”

I warned, in what seemed then as an empty threat, “What the NDC, hopefully, should learn from the Mills is Dead fabrication is that the cheapest commodity in political PR is lies. It requires no research. Just make it sensational. Everybody can do, so don’t ever fool yourself that you hold a monopoly on it.”

I gave an example, citing my newspaper which had published that Prof Mills had been diagnosed as having cancer. “Indeed, if The Statesman had not apologised, retracted and continued with their 2006 story that Prof Mills was afflicted by a throat cancer, an extension of that would have been that cancer of the larynx is often caused by excessive alcohol or smoking. Naso laryngeal cancer also affects the nose like sinus. Work that out for yourself.”

My point then, as stated in that article, was that, “Telling lies is cheap and can be as effective as you have friends in the media. The NPP has plenty. So let not the NDC kid themselves. Fortunately for them, the NPP candidate wants a campaign based on issues.

And so it shall be, but let no one mistake responsibility for meekness.”

To me it was ridiculous that a man who had excelled with courage, confidence and competence in every public endeavour over the last three decades could be successfully relabelled a junky.

I reasoned then, “There is something extremely irresponsible about what the NDC is doing. To falsely accuse Akufo-Addo of being a drug addict – a wee smoker, cocaine addict – is to send a very dangerous message to this country’s youth who see him as an excellent role model. The message from the NDC to the youth isthat ‘if you want to rise to the top take cocaine like Akufo-Addo.’ Akufo-Addo is a man who has excelled in every field of endeavour. His children will tell you, ‘he’s the best dad!’ In law, he reached the pinnacle of his profession, being counted as among the best of the elite profession. In politics, he has worked hard over the last 30 years and got to the top on merit. In business, he has excelled. He has earned a remarkable international reputation as diplomat par excellence. He’s a great sport. He’s loved by all. To say this man is on drugs is to campaign for drugs.”

Now, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the real Akufo-Addo is standing up and there are many who are ducking and diving.

Our people must address themselves to the causes of poverty. That’s the real oppression in this country. We should not allow such issues to be oppressed by oppression against freedom of decent speech.