Beating the Drum of Discontent: Is Dr. Amoako Baah About to End the Show

Dr. Richard Amoako Baah, bless his tweed smock and professorial spectacles, has declared the New Patriotic Party (NPP) a lost cause, a sort of political Titanic heading straight for an iceberg of incompetence and corruption. And to save us all, he’s launching a lifeboat, or rather, a “New Patriotic Front” (NPF), because apparently, running out of acronyms in Ghana is an unimaginable catastrophe.

You see, according to the esteemed Dr. Baah, the NPP is not merely flailing, it’s beyond redemption. It’s at an unredeemable peak, a place so deep in the abyss of governmental gaffes that even the most skilled PR team couldn’t polish that particular turd.

The reason? A cabal of shadowy figures, presumably wearing expensive Kente cloth and whispering sweet nothings of graft into the ears of impressionable leaders, have taken a stranglehold on the party.

And that’s where the Akan Kwasi Anata Twini comes in. Oh, the Kwasi Anata Twini! A drum so profoundly existential, so imbued with the weight of familial destiny. Beat it, your father dies. Don’t beat it, your mother kicks the bucket. A truly lose-lose scenario, isn’t it?

Dr. Baah, knowing him for his character, is ready to wail on that drum. He’s not just tapping it lightly with a manicured finger; no, he’s planning a full-blown drum solo, a percussive emotional release so intense it will shake the very foundations of Ghanaian politics. He’s going to beat that drum so hard, he’ll need a chiropractor, a therapy session, and possibly a lifetime supply of ibuprofen.

The question, of course, is who are the metaphorical father and mother in this scenario? Is the father the old guard, the founding fathers of the NPP, who will be spiritually vanquished by the rise of the NPF? And is the mother the future of Ghana, doomed to suffer if the NPP continues its corrupt, incompetent ways? The metaphors are so thick you could spread them on bread, preferably made with locally sourced groundnut paste.

So, will the NPF be the saviour Ghana desperately needs? Will Dr. Baah’s drumming skills unleash a new era of prosperity and good governance? Or will it simply be another verse in the same old Eshie Rado Rado song, a slightly different tune played on the same worn-out instrument? Only time, and perhaps a good dose of cynicism, will tell.

In the meantime, let’s all grab some Kelewele, tune in to the news, and watch the drama unfold. Because in Ghana, the only thing more entertaining than politics is trying to figure out which teenage Kukrudite has 27 mansions while simultaneously promising to serve the common man. Or those with millions of foreign cash under the beds of their house helps trying to seek justice. And that, my friends, is a performance worthy of an encore.

Please for your Easter relaxation enjoy Eben Dofo by Amy Newman.

Anthony Obeng Afrane