Threatening Nana For The President

It takes only one of the many imps surrounding the President to raise the political temperature of the country, especially through a reckless remark or even a threat. Koku Anyidoho, the man through whom President John Evans Atta Mills speaks, on one occasion, insulted many Ghanaians during a radio programme outside the country. He does this once in a while and so when he did it while in the company of his boss in North America, it was a d�j� vu, powered by a desperation which, in recent times, has become a prominent feature of the government. The North American working tour of the President, in spite of the expected PR hype accompanying it, would have passed without political incident but for the foul-mouth of President Mills�s spokesperson. If Koku Anyidoho has got away with invectives against senior political players in the country since he assumed office as the face of the President, it is because his boss does not find anything wrong with that. In fact, the president relishes such insults and threats since, after all, they reflect his stance: The rarity of disclaimers from the presidency, following such foul remarks, stand out clearly as apt evidence of the president�s moral shortcoming. Unprovoked and pointless, Koku Anyidoho has threatened, on behalf of his boss, to deal with the flag-bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the party to which about the half the population of the country belongs. He said, �We would show Nana Akufo Addo where power lies� and if this is not a national security threat, we do not know what else is. The question which comes to mind is what the buffoon exactly means by �we�. Does his boss intend using the state�s coercive powers to intimidate the opposition in a country where multiparty democracy is the political order? It is unfortunate that President Mills intends, as his boy is saying, to throw the country that was handed over to him in whole into pieces. Threatening the leader of the largest opposition party in the country is tantamount to unleashing confusion, a situation we would not allow the President and his team to bestow upon the only country we can point at as ours. We are astonished if not shocked at the manner in which the man who represents the visage of the President continues to ignore political decorum and exhibit wanton hatred for the man who leads the largest opposition party, in a manner which leaves much to be desired. Anyidoho�s expression of hatred for former President Kufuor on air, especially the infamous �I don�t want to see his face� nonsense, is still fresh in our memories. As for his tongue-lashing of Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah over what he called �his cheap PhD�, it is surprising that such a man full of hubris would continue to represent the face of the President of the Republic of Ghana. If a financial institution where he once laboured deemed it fit to show him the exit, they were driven by a genuine cause. The presidential spokesperson, who edits a newspaper from the confines of the Castle, has not spared women in his daily litany of vituperation. They have suffered humiliation of his unprintable description of their bodies in the most obscene fashions we are hard-pushed to repeat in this commentary. Such smelly and uncouth conduct bespeaks the quality of upbringing Anyidoho went through in his formative years in life. The fact is that Koku Anyidoho is only blowing hot air because the Ghana Armed Forces and the Police are state institutions which will outlive the tenure of President Mills�s stint at the presidency. If Koku Anyidoho thinks he can assume the command of the security agencies when elections are due, because he and his ilk succeeded in recruiting thugs into those entities, he has lost it. Ultimate power lies with the people of Ghana and not a buffoon besotted by the glare of transient state power. How foolish!