Exactly what the doctor ordered

Absolutely no wonder his think-tank has been cited an uncountable number of times for being arguably the best of its kind in the country, as well as being one of the best of its kind on the African continent. This pretty much explains why Mr. Franklin Cudjoe and his colleagues and associates decided to broaden the nominal purview of their IMANI-Ghana policy-monitoring institute into IMANI-Africa.

I have watched the IMANI operatives relentlessly and literally hold the feet of the key operatives of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to the fire, as it were. I have, for instance, watched these young and healthily progressive men – I don’t if they have any women on their staff – boldly and fearlessly take on the Kelny GVG telecommunications monitoring contract with the current government by duking it out in court.

I have also watched them with equal zest and admiration take on the democratically deposed Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and literally make short work of the latter, as it were. And now, I am equally admirably watching the IMANI wonks teach the managers and proprietors of the Midland Savings and Loans Bank an indelible lesson that many of their competitors and industry associates and partners are not apt to forget anytime soon. This time around, Mr. Cudjoe and his IMANI colleagues say that they intend to retain the services of some crackerjack lawyers and make sure that the young nursing mother who was brutally mauled by a police officer, apparently called in for the purpose, recently, receives the fairest monetary compensation that she deserves, as a result of the inexcusably savage ordeal that she suffered at the orders of the manager of the Shiashie, East Legon, branch of the bank.

The good news here is that Mr. Cudjoe and his colleagues intend to possibly sue the Midland Bank operatives out of business, if the latter operatives make the grossly misguided error of attempting to play the lurid game of business as usual. I have already extensively recapped the rather odd events that resulted in the brutal beating of Ms. Patience Osafo, a lactating mother of three, from what we have learned so far, and so do not intend to belabor the same here again. Suffice it to say, at least in passing, that it is high time that some institutional somebody got severely sanctioned to serve as a deterrent to the rest of the key industry players. And, of course, to serve as a deterrent to all such dastardly minded business operatives in the country at large. This was exactly what I suggested in my first column on the subject; that is, the need for the humanity and the human rights of the victim and her breastfeeding baby to be unreservedly respected.

Truth be told: Actually, I do not in any way endorse the policy and/or ideology of suing any predatory corporate establishment out of business. I sincerely don’t think that is the primary objective of the IMANI-Africa think-tank operatives either, except to studiously ensure that Ms. Osafo and her family are properly compensated. Indeed, I had been wondering and praying that somebody advantageously placed in Ghanaian society would reach out and altruistically go to bat for the victim, when the IMANI promise came. Almost as a godsend. And I have every confidence in the will and determination of the IMANI watchdogs to ensure that first-class justice is served Ms. Osafo and her child, especially having experienced the scandalous annoyance of hearing pathological cognitive basket cases like the so-called Counselor Cyril George Carstensen Lutterodt recklessly subject the private life of the victim of such unprovoked assault to ridicule.

It goes without saying that if any individual or corporate entity deserves to be sued out of business, Counselor Lutterodt is one such prime candidate. I was also miffed to no mean measure by a statement alleged to have been released by a prominent Nigerian security operative, in which the latter cavalierly presumed to impugn the caliber and level of civility of Ghanaian society at large. Who has so soon forgotten the barbaric manner in which Senator/Mrs. Ransome-Kuti, mother of famous Afro-Jazz Maestro Fella Ransome-Kuti, met her death at the hands of some Nigerian security agents? Anybody who has spent a remarkable span of time scanning Nigeria’s crime statistics could not take the vainglorious mockery of the critic seriously.

A little over two decades ago, Gen. Colin Luther Powell, then Chairman of the Joint-Chiefs of Staff of the United States’ Military, was widely reported to have said that about the only country in the world whose leadership was more corrupt than that of Nigeria was Pakistan. This observation was made during the tenure of the infamous Gen. Sani Abacha. The mocking Nigerian security capo’s sneer also reminded me of a story once told me by a Nigeria-been-to Ghanaian friend. The story went as follows: A woman who had been savagely assaulted by her Nigerian husband, decided to lodge a complaint with the Ajegunle or Surulere police in the former Nigerian capital of Lagos. As the story further goes, the Sergeant in the Charge Office at the police station waited patiently for this victim of domestic abuse to fully narrate her heart-wrenching story. Then without having written a single word of the complaint down, Sergeant Ogundipe, not his real name, asked the complainant: “Tell me, woman, what did you do to him before your husband landed those dirty slaps on your cheeks?”

Before the victim of assault could answer the foregoing question, the story goes, Sergeant Ogundipe quickly added, “You see, woman, I just finished beating up my wife before coming to work.” All the while, Sergeant Ogundipe had been comfortably and nonchalantly picking his teeth. In other words, as the jaded caveat goes: “Those who live in straw huts ought to be extremely careful before deciding to light a match.”

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