Editorial: Mr. President, Whilst You Were Away

Mr. President, welcome back from the Peoples’ Republic of China, better known as Communist China, South Korea and Japan. You did not tell us you would be going to Japan though, but welcome back nevertheless.

Whilst you were away, the argument persisted as to why you travel so much. Some thought it was to run away from the heat and your non-performance in the country. Others thought otherwise, that you simply love junketing from one country to another sight-seeing, bird-watching and nothing doing. Yet others argued that maybe the per diem and the "feel good" treatment given you outside as the State President of a sovereign country as opposed to the scant regard and irrelevance back home is the reason.

But why bother, Mr. President – when has a prophet ever had respect and honour in his own home, country or backyard? If you doubt it, check how even your wife refuses to call you Mr. President.

Yet in the argument, some cynics suggest that in any case and contrary to popular expectation, you are not missed even in your long sojourns outside the country. If that were true, then it would be a matter for great regret for the vote which got you into power would have been in vain.

Of course, we cannot discount the view of your core supporters who see your absence as a safety valve preventing you from self-destructing by way of your unguarded and misguided verbal interventions on the political scene.

They quickly refer to your recent comment on the cocaine scandal in which you and your party are the prime suspects, and the Jerry Rawlings alleged phoney coup d’etat.

They say the first was myopic but the latter was irresponsible and un-Presidential to the extent that you unnecessarily disturbed the peace of our people with an unfounded and alarmist story.

The more moderate views believe that even if an iota of truth existed in the allegations, it was for the security agencies to handle and not for you to mischievously throw them up on a political platform. Now that you have introduced partisanship into it, the credibility of the story becomes suspect and dishonourable.

For those who do not see your relevance when you are around, we argue that at least you have time for those funeral delegations and the officious parting meeting with the outgoing Ambassador and envoy of no relevance. Mr. President, again the dust you kicked up on the coup scare had not settled. We are afraid you may have to douse the embers on your arrival. What you probably put out as a propaganda gimmick has unfortunately been swallowed by some of your party hawks on the lunatic fringe as the gospel truth and they have recalled and rehearsed the bloody "Plan B" assault on Radio Gold, Jerry Rawlings and the perceived enemies of the NPP and your good self.

Those you classified as "sasabonsam" and the axis of evil are now being targeted.

Just to remind you, Mr. President, your world has dramatically changed within the last one week with the mid-term elections in the USA. President George W, Bush Jnr, the rod you relied on so much, is now a broken reed. As the US Senate and the House of Representatives crumbled to the Democrats, George Bush has urgently done the sensible.

He has immediately removed the hard, warrior face of the Republican Party and the USA. He has dropped his war-failure Donald Rumsfield of the Iraq infamy and the dreaded USA Permanent Representative to the UN, the moustachioed Mr. Bolton. The latter, an inflexible war-monger, simply terrorised the UN. Our own Kofi Annan had to live with this latter-day terror.

As President Bush tactically withdraws his hard-nosed elements, so must you learn to run your last lap in office in the last two years with less of the intolerance, indifference, impunity of your Ministers, the brazen "maye a, maye" attitude to a more accommodating, conciliatory, bi-partisan and a more human faced approach to politics.

Many say today that the church leaders and civic society who are silently refusing to openly condemn you and your Ministers will readily contribute to the "what went wrong" playback after your tenure. Do not necessarily be taken in by them. For the judges who have been silenced with state lands and a paltry ¢5 million each, do not be deceived.

Mr. President, many think that your business is to kill the coup scare mongering since it is not in the best interest of the country’s health, economy, tourism and image, but it may lead to consequences which you alone may have to bear responsibility for in the future.

Just as the Ya na’s murder wreath is hung around your neck, so will any irresponsible action affecting ex-President Rawlings be your burden even if committed by persons unauthorised by you or unknown to you. Your leadership words make a difference. "Panyin due mante, mante".

Mr. President, also in your absence the DFP finally landed. They say you helped finance it. Made up of disenchanted elements from various parties but mainly the NDC, one wonders whether the party was formed mainly to fight Jerry Rawlings as a person or to win the 2008 elections. It looks like Dr. Obed Asamoah simply feels satisfied that he has at long last had his back against Jerry Rawlings. It is doubtful whether he personally has a problem with the NDC as a party.

Of course many were not impressed with the hogwash and nonsensical effusions unleashed as their commandments during their inauguration. A one-purpose party like the DFP can neither survive nor be of relevance in the political jungle. Mr. President, uncannily, many people believe that Dr. Obed Asamoah and the DFP have some substantial financial support from your party or its agents. In any case, the first negative sounds were that crowds bussed to the inauguration found themselves stranded and wondering what kind of party they had landed in. Mr. President, again in your absence, your Minister Albert Kan-Dapaah played a foolish gimmick on the people. For photo-ops, he formally "received" the report of the 5-member committee of inquiry into the Dansoman and Kotobabi police shooting incidents.

Excellency, we advise that you have those two reports published immediately and without delay. Amanfoo are simply irritated that these two reports were handed to the same Minister about three months ago only for him to "officially" receive them on Monday November 7, 2006. What nonsense is this, they ask. What are all these games for?

Mr. President, the NAGRAT issue has been concluded in the courts. The judge found that the NAGRAT strike was illegal but realising that he could not compel the teachers to go back to the classroom to teach, he directed them to go back and teach according to their conscience.

Hurray! But wait a minute. The Attorney General will advise that under our Constitution, no one can be compelled to act against his or her conscience. Therefore, technically, the teachers can refuse to teach the students and no court can penalise them for their default. The judge’s order may therefore constitute a "definitional stop", a "brutum fulmen".

But, Mr. President, there is some small illogicality. They claim that the Minister of Education refuses to meet NAGRAT since they are neither recognised nor do they have a bargaining right. Fine, so should a house burn because the people around are not licensed fire fighters?

During hot wars, Generals meet elsewhere to find out the rules of engagement and possible settlement.

The State of Palestine was not recognised by the State of Israel but representatives of Palestine and Israel met in various place including Norway to hammer out peace road map. So why does our lawyer Minister hold on legalistically to politically state business? "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath", so says the Master.

As our children sit in schools without tutors, the wholly legalistic position of the Minister of Education is baffling and confusing. Mr. President, the GES/NAGRAT crisis is contentious. It is common knowledge that the decision of your Government to de-link the nurse from the GUSS and therefore from the Consultative Forum has created this faux pas. You may have some little help from the judiciary, but the question is: what do you intend doing with the Civil Service with or without the wily Smart Chigabatia?

If the Civil Service fly off the handle as they have been threatening, or become angry or excited, then your Government will be in great trouble. The leadership of the Civil Service and the TUC may be "foolable" or gullible but the rank and file are awake and alive. We hear also that the Judiciary itself is on the alert. They have asked us to tell you that if you think you have fooled them with the ¢5 million per judge that you recently doled out to them, then you are gravely mistaken.

Mr. President, many have had cause to caution about Minister Kwamena Bartels at the sensitive Ministry of Information and National Orientation. Indeed that Ministry is a make or break Ministry which creates and projects an image for the Government. Just as President Bush is withdrawing the hard, non-middle-of-the-road Ministers and agents, so is it imperative that more neutral and balanced officials are projected to recreate and re-craft the image of the NPP Government and the party.

The world and your terminal term are ending. What is the legacy you wish to leave behind – a fractious, war-torn country, the likes of Liberia, Sierra Leone, etc?

Just as you received the authority of a one united, democratic state on January 7, 2001, so must you hand over same to your successor when your tenure ends the year after the next. Do not let official and agent with their own private agenda dictate your future. They would not be held responsible. You will be. For many who heard Kwamena Bartels at the press conference responding to the Jerry Rawlings boom, they were of the opinion that you failed to take note of the Akan proverb that it is the sensible person who is sent to deliver a message and not the one with the long legs or verbal diarrhoea. What was required at the time was a level-headed approach to douse the crisis and not the added incendiary fire intended to throw the whole country into a furnace. But Mr. President is it hard luck or is it in your stars? The last time you came back from the USA with the US$574 million MCA money, you were met at the Airport with "cocaine, cocaine, cocaine".

Of course, you were not amused and you stated so in so many words including looking for blameless scapegoats like Rojo Mettle-Nunoo.

See, after a successful trip to China, South Korea and we understand your gate-crashing visit to Japan, what are you to be met with at the Airport but – Number 3.3! Many in Ghana who want to taunt you have ordered the Number 3.3 jersey – some in red, gold and green colour with "JAK" written at the back. Why? Mr. President, you may have to consider deporting these Transparency International people. They claim Ghana under your watch received a 3.3 score out of 10 on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) scale, 0.2 points below the 3.5 score of 2005 and an indication that your zero tolerance for corruption is receding further and further into oblivion.

Mr. President, we wonder why some people seek to embarrass you with this annual ritual. Probably they need to be reminded that you are no more under the Zero Tolerance for Corruption mantra. After all, you introduced it so you can revoke it if it turns too burdensome.

"Which country has ever eradicated corruption – tell me – London, Japan, Beijing, Korea? Is corruption not as old as Adam? Nkwaseasem ara kwa. All this corruption, corruption talk is about perception. When they see a contractor pay 25% of the contract money upfront as we do these days to the party as party contribution or donation as claimed by Haruna Esseku not to the Party Headquarters but to the Castle, then they assume that that is corruption. What twisted logic? Donation or payment to the NPP for job given is not corruption. It is simply graft.

Mr. President, many of the NPP believe that Dr. Busia was wrong when he posited that "don’t receive gifts; they are bribes". He was a naïve, sociology Professor, wasn’t he? Enter John Agyekum Kufuor, the hard-bone politician.

Reconciliation? — Forget It!

THOSE who know all about the tragic story of the Bui Hydro-Electric Dam project, will wonder why members of the Government should be seen jumping sky-high for securing a loan from China to complete the whole enterprise.

For the construction of the dam was on full course, when the forebears of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr K. A. Busia and his men, as part of the 1966 coup agenda, advised the military junta to expel the Russians, who were then engaged on the project.

Indeed, the on-going hydro-power enterprise was one of the many Russian projects, which was being constructed, almost for free, but, which were made to go rotten, because, they offended the sensibilities of the CIA-driven Government, as well as its advisers, led by Dr K. A. Busia.

Notable among these abandoned projects was the Kwabenya Atomic Energy Project, which apart from its many expected benefits, could have provided the electricity needs for Accra and Tema, at little cost.

Others included the Tarkwa Gold Refinery Project, the Prefab Concrete Project, which was to have provided the needed materials for the construction of chains of houses, in a matter of weeks and the Food Silvo, which were to store and preserve our local crops to ensure a stable market prices, for the benefit of both the farmer and the consumer.

It is this destructive coup, which stopped all projects, which could have lifted Ghana up in the realms of industrialization that some specimen of human beings in this country claim to be most progress and faultless.

The unfortunate born-idiots can argue better!

Strangely too, it is these defenders of the 1966 destructive coup, who are quick to point to Malaysia and other Aesian countries, as having made remarkable progress, under good governance and behave as if there were crude stoppages by imperialist forces, backed by their local agent-collaborators. Mother Ghana is still shedding tears for that beastly act which halted her smooth path to industrialization, with the newly-built city of Tema, producing all that it takes to make a nation thrive in prosperity.

Today, take a second look at such men, who blindfolded the country and made it grope in darkness for years, because the CIA willed it so.

And, today, listen to the ‘Bartelistic’ tantrumic effusions enemies of progress and one will only have to pray fro the forgiveness "of our sins".

For, instead of celebrating a Golden Jubilee, with nothing to show apart from laurels gained from cocaine trade and the mad rush for property by the "chosen few", the industrial city of Tema alone, would have served as a fitting showpiece to fulfill the vision seen by Kwame Nkrumah "across the parapet".

The brave sons f the land, who fought for Independence, the "Prison Graduates", who sang patriotic songs, while in jail, could not have toiled in vain, if there had not been that stab in the back, by our fellow citizens, when Ghana was sin top gear, towards its economic emancipation.

Those were the days when the slogan, "Work and Happiness" was not an empty one, but that which goaded on the working class and their natural allies, the farmers (not the absentee ones) to work from dawn to dusk and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

The resumption of work on the Bui Dam may be a piece of good news, alright. But, only to the younger generation.

For, certainly, those who know what happened to that project, will look askance at the story and curse the architects and operatives of the 1966 coup. Recently, the Minister of Misinformation was counting the dead in a past military action.

Let that man go and ask the number of defenceless Ghanaian slain in Flagstaff alone in 1966.

Let this man justify the murder, in cold blood, of a Deputy Minister and his family, who were on their way to a church for a morning devotion.

The behaviour of this man, who contributed to the collapse of a bank has exposed the Government, once again, about the real intentions of that time-wasting Reconciliation Commission. It had one target, in mind. It misfired. After all, who has reconciled whom?

For matters are worse than ever before. And, the only hope lies in a change of Administration in 2008.Until then, it is aluta continua!