By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
I never liked the man as Ghana’s Deputy Sports Minister; and when he was relieved of his post in the aftermath of the Black Stars’ 2014 Brazil World Cup debacle and was named Deputy Asante Regional Minister, I found the latter appointment to be even more distasteful. It was almost as if President John Mahama was deliberately thumbing his nose at Asantes, in one of those sinister “Yenntie” moments.
You see, the Asante Region is the immutable stronghold of Ghana’s main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). And here we were saddled with a man who had clearly and publicly indicated that there was little love lost between himself and the people of the country’s most populous region. I even wrote at the time remarking that Mr. Joseph Yammin’s temperament did not make him a good fit for the Asante Region. I had no idea than – and I am still for the most part in the dark – about the relationship between Mr. Yammin and Dr. Samuel K. Sarpong, the substantive Asante Regional Minister then, and the man whose arch-lieutenant the Fulani-looking Mr. Yammin was going to be. Not that it mattered anyhow; for it did not.
What bothered me then was the fact that as Deputy Sports Minister to Mr. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, the former Mahama Presidential Campaign Manager and post-Brazil fired cabinet appointee, Mr. Yammin had presumed to cavalierly pick a fight with the at once most respected, well-liked and influential Asante-born politician and presently statesman, former President John Agyekum-Kufuor. Mr. Yammin had indicated that only a handful of Ghanaian soccer fans affiliated with the New Patriotic Party would be allowed to board the government-chartered plan to fly to Brazil and cheerlead our senior national soccer team, the Black Stars.
Mr. Yammin’s vindictive rationale was that during his watch as Ghana’s president, Mr. Kufuor had also allowed a piddling number of supporters of the National Democratic Congress to attend the World Cup tournament in Germany. The rest of Ghana’s 2014 Brazil World Cup Story, as they say, is the kind of historical narrative that still gives most of us goose bumps. In short, the man who just got canned from his post as Deputy Asante Regional Minister is not only insufferably vindictive and grossly politically unrefined, Mr. Yammin is also incorrigibly divisive and ought not to have been appointed to any significant post in government, to begin with, let alone to be named to a deputy cabinet portfolio.
But that it took President Mahama so long to come around to recognizing the fact that Mr. Yammin did not belong in his government, tells more about the leadership and administrative competence of Mr. Rawlings’ former Communications Minister (See “Mahama Sacks Ash. Reg. Minister Sarpong and Deputy Yammin” Ghanaweb.com 3/4/15). The substantive Asante Regional Minister, Dr. Samuel Sarpong, of course, has also, reportedly, been given the boot. This follows violent factional hostilities at the ministerial headquarters between the followers of Dr. Sarpong and the National Democratic Congress’ Asante Regional Chairman, we are told.
it also well appears that Mr. Yammin must have been on the side of the NDC party boss. Whatever the true details of the matter may be, what is important to note here is that it takes a while; and then the rotten apples have to be permanently culled from the edible and healthy ones.
Source: By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]
