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Opinions of Saturday, 9 October 2010

Columnist: Owusu-Ansah, Kofi

Strange Things Happen Only In Ghana, Rojo Mettle Nunoo

The time has come for Ghana to perceive their cabinet ministers as nobodies’
and they should not be hallowed worshipped as we do. In the developed
countries, even Prime Ministers are not regarded as of any importance let
alone a cabinet minister who has not been elected. Our constitution allows
us to elect a president and the members of parliament and they are entrusted
with the mandate to look after our interests. The president, because he is
not omnipresent, causes cabinet ministers to be appointed to assist him or
her to run the affairs of the nation smoothly. In Ghana, any fool at all,
who at the behest of the president, once given the opportunity to serve
their country, would choose messianic attitude where there would like to be
treated as if they are our god. The Deputy Minister for Health, Rojo Mettle
Nunoo like the other fools before him, chose to go from one FM Station to
another just to rain insults on hardworking striking midwives and nurses
calling them all sort of names.



Why has power corrupted the Ghanaian so much that they have jettisoned
common sense and talk only from their stomachs? In any developed country
like the UK, Italy, Spain, the US, just to mention but a few, this foolish
deputy minister would be skinned alive for the words he spoke on the FM
stations about the nurses’ strike. Where has common sense gone to? When I
was in the primary school, my class teacher used to tell us that, “At least
everybody born of woman on this earth possesses COMMON SENSE”. He said,
proper sense is an intellectual ability which God gave to a very few of us
and in most cases, it is defined as wisdom.

I expected this Mettle Nunoo to show common sense since he could not be
classified among those with proper sense. This guy has no business being
appointed as a deputy minister and I would like to advice him to sit down in
his office and find solutions to nurses’ problems, and should not be using
the FM stations rather as his office and stop churning out garbage and
propaganda and come to the real world where ministers of state face problems
head-on and solve them. A Deputy Minister’s job description is not hopping
from one FM Station to the other to insult the very people he is supposed to
be seeking their welfare and interests.

Nation building needs men and women with common sense. Men and women who
would not take advantage of the plight of hardworking citizens who have not
been paid what is due to them and are protesting. If a deputy health
minister can’t bridle his mouth but would rain insults at people who are
demanding what the Constitution of Ghana guarantees should be given to them,
then we are really lost as a nation and I ask where are we going?.



This gentleman does not deserve the position he is occupying and I am really
hurt by his attitude towards the strikers and I would like to ask him a
personal question: How do you want these junior nurses to feed? If your
paymaster,President Atta Mills has not paid you for the past seven months
were you going to shut up? People like you are not good to hold any public
office so you should not behave like a fool but be glad that you live in
Ghana where we don’t hold public officers to account for their behaviour,
attitude towards those they are to serve, how they perform and the
commitment they bring to the public office they occupy. We need sensitive,
dedicated, respectful, “educated” and well drilled human beings who are not
robots and as such can have human feelings for people who are denied the
right to live and enjoy the fruits of their hard work through remuneration,
emoluments and other entitlement universally given to any public worker.
Just as Rojo Mettle Nunoo you are paid monthly from the consolidated funds,
so should these ones too be paid living wage. You are a disgrace to the
portfolio you hold, you are not fit to hold any public office because you
lack common sense and sensitivity.



Source: Kofi Owusu-Ansah