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A sad beginning of a supposed grammarian, ‘Our adored English Language madam, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, makes me soliloquy all-day wondering whether there still exists anybody in the opposition NDC to match up to the astute intellectual prowess of our current Vice President and the Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, HE Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
Grandma, in an unfashionable characteristic of the intellectual class to run down the untainted reputation of the current Vice President, has pledged never to be a Mate. This was in apparent reference to Dr Bawumia’s ‘rightful’ assertion that his position as the Vice President could best be equated to the duties of a driver’s mate.
Grandma, the outstanding grammarian, had dropped the grammatical definition of the word Mate into the dustbin just to satisfy her newly assigned function of injecting an equal quantum of intellectualism, as witnessed in Dr. Bawumia, in her public delivery.
Whereas she dragged the constitutional instrument establishing the noble Office of the Vice President in the mud, grandma Jane joined the ‘streetist’ chorus by equating herself to the President.
What grandma had forgotten, however, was that even in the background of the very program at which she was taking the swipe was the theme ‘ Outdooring of the NDC 2024 Running MATE’.
Grammatically, to be a Mate is to be a helper or an Assistant. The Constitution, in a deliberate desire to avoid power struggle and ambiguity, is also silent on the functions of the Vice President. Thus, putting same at the mercy of the President. You are therefore a Helper, Assistant, Mate to the President. Yes, you act in his stead, but you do not control him.
This is so glaring that, but for political expediency, grandma Jane, a Professor of English Language, should not have fallen for. But a desire to satisfy the ‘movers and shakers’ of her new role, she has shot herself in the foot with such an awful promise not to be a Mate.
Well, let those closer to our old lady inform her that her obsession for the word Mate, as used by Dr Bawumia, cannot alter the meaning of it. And that, any attempt to tell us that she would not be a mate in an unlikely event of becoming the Vice President, shall be equated to toppling our Constitution.
The Vice President is a Mate, both grammatically and constitutionally. Jane Naana Agyemang must be told. ‘Bawumia was right.’
Shalom!
Agyemang Richard
(The Concerned Patriot)
