Afari-Gyan�s Claptrap

Listening to Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan ranting these past few days has left us wondering whether the rangy fellow is not subtly admitting that there was something terribly wrong with his stewardship of the December 7 polls. With the Supreme Court just about to start the substantive case brought before it by some aggrieved Ghanaians, the last thing the embattled Electoral Commission (EC) Chairman should do is to pontificate over the subject under the guise of a so-called review of the December 7 polls. It appears he is scared of the outcome of the court process awaiting him at the Supreme Court after over 300 joiner-applicants fled from the Supreme Court gate last week. Otherwise what is the import of these reviews and threats to prosecute erring electoral officials who managed the elections on his behalf at different levels? We would rather he shuts up and spare us the agony of listening to his near-senility voice because we are close to our tolerance threshold. For those who are unaware, the man who nearly pushed the country to the brink has reviewed the December 7 elections and fingered the temporary staff of the Commission for what has befallen him. Arrant nonsense! If Dr Afari-Gyan does not know that the buck stops on his desk, let him know that now and stop feigning ignorance of what really took place. The meetings and ostensible education of NDC officials over the biometric registration outside Accra and the eventual manipulation of electoral figures which followed are tell-tale details which will haunt Dr Afari-Gyan and cause him to hallucinate as he appears to be doing now. The hiring of the staff, which he is now castigating for the wishy-washy management of the discredited polls of December 7, was his responsibility unless he seeks to re-write the manual of management and distance CEOs from the failures of their companies. These are testy times and Ghanaians would not brook whimsical jokes about the number of years he has left on earth and 28 pieces of tilapia stolen from his farm. If we were able to countenance his hubris close to the December 7 polls, when he strode across Ghana like a colossus, not so anymore. He has lost that aura which he wore when he dismissed representatives of political parties as though they were toddlers subservient to him even when they sought to discuss with him their fears and observations. Maybe he is missing the point about what is at stake. He supervised a discredited election that was redolent with fraud and verifiable manipulation of figures which nearly torched the country but for the option of the Supreme Court vent. Let him not rub salt into our wounds after all that we have gone through.