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Opinions of Wednesday, 31 January 2024

Columnist: Anthony Obeng Afrane

Abakade, a by-election is in the offing

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It is believed that everyone is susceptible to mental illness and that any person can slip into madness at any given point in time.

The President of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo thinks all it may take to trigger the process is a special kind of blow to one's self-image to push someone over the edge of sanity.

When you hear a musician shouting, "I dey mad oh, I dey go crazy", and another one sings, "Ole seka ni wo ye" meaning do you know how mad we are?

And a third person hitting the side of his head with a clenched fist, and shouting, "Abodam" (madness); then, no one should tell you that things are knocking things, and that "they are slipping coming".

Article 94 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana spells out the qualification and eligibility of Members of Parliament. In fact, a section of the article states that a person of an unsound mind cannot be a Member of Parliament and this set me thinking about whether some of our MPs are qualified.

When a certain MP not too long ago, in Parliament threw his hands towards a colleague MP who belongs to his party when that MP attempted to draw his attention ostensibly to the fact that he was spending too much on the subject and that he should be mindful of time constraint, I said to myself, sosket, he is slipping coming.

But as soon as the same person went haywire during a recent internal election and threatened to have one of his contenders beaten up, in the presence of the Police, I said to myself, Abakade! Things are knocking things! A by-election is in the offing.