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Allotey-Jacobs on assassination anvil?
When assassination becomes a political business, then as a modern democratic nation, we are dangerously gravitating towards real hell on earth.
What at all will compel a fully-grown adult brother to kill his fellow brother over disagreement on mere political questions?
What then is the value of our touted democracy; pluralism, free speech, freedom of expression, free press, rule of law, human rights, freedom of association and free and fair elections?
That is, when we cannot agree to disagree on matters related to our own political parties and national political issues? What then is the essence of tolerance in democracy and nation building?
Readers, I am appalled to read on social media that my good friend, Bernard Allotey-Jacobs, is running for cover over alleged assassination attempt on his dear life.
Allotey-Jacobs is now a political household name in Ghana. For the records, he was a former Central Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Recently, Allotey-Jacobs fell out with his political masters in the NDC. First, he was suspended from the party and about two weeks ago, he was knocked out from the NDC, with a dismissal letter.
What saddens my heart is that just about a week ago, he posted this on his social media platform: “If you hear I’m dead, point a finger at the NDC. They sent assassins to kill me in Cape Coast.”
According to Allotey-Jacobs, some faceless NDC members had sent a death-squad after him.
He said, he was alerted by a high-profile member of his party, adding that, it was also confirmed by his friend, Honourable Kennedy Agyapong, Member of Parliament for Assin Central.
Allotey-Jacobs said: “The assassins have been stationed in Cape Coast to search and kill me by any means,” contending that, “the NDC thinks I will reveal their secrets to the public.”
According to him: “The NDC is capable of assassinating me; I trust the NDC in some of these things … I’ve been around for a long time in Ghanaian politics and I know a lot of things.”
In a language not good for the health of our national politics, the Central Regional branch of the NDC has, however, denied Allotey-Jacobs claim that the party is after his life.
But years and years ago, a high profile NDC personality, Dr Obed Asamoah, held a press conference in Accra and announced to the nation that some elements within his party wanted to assassinate him. At that time, there was intense power struggle within the NDC.
Some of us were initially surprised to hear this, but it is said that; when a baby-crocodile suddenly jumps from beneath the pond and publicly announces the death of his mother-crocodile, who can challenge such baby-crocodile?
Readers, which human can courageously descend beneath the pond to ascertain whether what the baby-crocodile is announcing about the mother is true or false?
So, the answer is: You either believe it or disbelieve it. This is because if you descend beneath the pond to ascertain the truth, you may not return alive.
Honourable Kennedy Agyapong has, however, added another twist to Allotey-Jacobs predicament. According to him, Allotey-Jacobs may be killed like the way J. B. Danquah-Adu was assassinated in his own house.
The late J. B. Danquah-Adu was a prominent Member of Parliament, representing the people of Abuakwa North Constituency in the Eastern Region. His assassins have still not been established since he was killed about eight years ago. But two persons were arrested and are presentlly standing trial at an Accra High Court in connection with the MP’s death.
Relating his own experience, Mr Agyapong said, some people attempted to assassinate him in his own house and in the process, they ended up shooting and killing three police men.
He urged Mr Allotey-Jacobs not to joke with the matter at all “because the assassination threat on his life is real” and advised him to hire security guards to protect him.
Allotey-Jacobs, assures that he has reported the matter to the Central Regional Police Command and expects appropriate actions to be taken.
My professional cousins, Kwesi Pratt and Kweku Baako , can produce a tall list of names of people who went missing during the regimes of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).
Such missing individuals were never found. They were believed to have been “captured” like animals and killed by the goons of the AFRC and PNDC regimes and their bodies buried in secret locations.
One may say that those days are gone but why and how was Ahmed Suale recently assassinated in broad daylight in Accra?
Ahmed Suale was an investigative journalist with the renowned Tiger Eye Group. His assassins are still walking free because they have not been arrested yet.
Readers, I think we must start asking very critical questions: What is the motive of the contractors who hire the assassins? And the assassins; have they “registered” their ” businesses” of killings?
How and where are the assassins located, identified and hired by the contractors? And who recruits the “killing contractors” too?
Contact email/WhatsApp of the author: asmahfrankg@gmail.com (0505556179)
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
