Open letter to Counsellor Lutterodt

Dear Counsellor Lutterodt, I write to inform you of receipt of your highly publicised and well-circulated excerpts, both in writing and videos. I must say you should, just like the rest of us in this generation, be very thankful for social media for the extent to which one's message can travel; even farther than a journey to the moon.

Ordinarily, I would not have written you this letter. This is because of the possible fear of people seeing my sense of objectivity tainted because of the social milieu from which I am writing this letter. However, just when this thought came to mind then, it also occurred to me I also have a responsibility as once a student of sociology to add to the pool of contributions directed at the betterment of our society. For this reason, I write.

Mr Lutterodt, I see the title counsellor prefixing your name. To some, this title is self- acclaimed. Whatever it is, I do not want to delve into whether it is true or otherwise.I would not want to strip you of your title so I call you counsellor Lutterodt.As a counsellor, your title commands authority which has a lot of influence in our society including its people.

Counsellor Lutterodt, many are the things said by you that have come to me, but for the avoidance of doubt, in this my letter I have chosen to comment on this, "when a National Service Person guy proposes to marry a woman, that lady should report him to the nearest Police Station."

Let me be quick to inform you that I am a National Service Person serving my nation diligently like the rest of my colleague National Service Personnel.

Counsellor Lutterodt, to the above pronouncement attributed to you, I would like to put a rhetorical question to you. 'Why must the lady report to the Police?'.The last time I checked our marital laws, there is nowhere it is illegal for a National Service Person to propose to a lady which warrants his arrest. So Mr Counsellor, why this counsel to our ladies?

I have observed your consistent admonition to men to be hardworking and stop the lazy attitudes or tendencies that have the potency to render them irresponsible fathers in the home. That, I unreservedly agree with you. That nevertheless, I regret at the same time, your consistent counselling of our ladies to look for 'Already-Made-Man' to marry at all cost; thereby encouraging laziness and the spirit of lack of support from women to men in their marriage relationship. For the avoidance of doubt, in one of your pronouncements, you blatantly put it which supports what I am saying, 'Women should never contribute to the upkeep of the house. If the chop money is not enough to buy salt, cook without salt'.

Clearly, it is in your usual consistency that you see a National Service Person like myself, unfit to propose to marry a lady because he is not an Already-Made -Man.Your continuous disregard to caution but rather your straightjacket approach gives some of us the cause to worry about the kind of counselling you are giving to our ladies.That, a tertiary education graduate cannot propose to marry a lady? Proposing to marry a lady is not the marriage ceremony or marriage. People have proposed while in school, planned and worked towards that and it has worked for them.So why can't a National Service Person who has even finished school also propose to a lady that both will be willing to plan and work towards the realisation of their marriage? Of course! he should.

Let me paraphrase a profound statement one of our Political Science Lecturers, Dr Evans Aggrey Darkoh at University of Ghana said to us in our first lecture of level 100. Permit me to put it in a quotation; "if you have not taken people you have met and/or have in your life serious, please do for those here in the university.Most of these 'big' people we look up to in all things in our country once met in the university; the university is a potential place for anything" Among other things, he added that the University is a 'big market', a popular cliché.There are real life stories in our society of people who started from the tertiary, during National Service, after National Service and they have successfully made it which prove this.Indeed after tertiary education is too far a journey for a lady to be dilly-dallying all in anticipation of Mr Already-Made.

Counsellor Lutterodt, is it not expedient we start cautioning our ladies at a point when a lot of ladies have waited for Mr Already-Made and rubbished proposals of people like your mention of National Service Personnel seen as unready but later got disappointed because their wait is taking forever? Some have visited and continue to visit charlatan pastors who take advantage of their gullibility and do all kinds of things with/at them.Then they find out later with regret why they didn't start with the people they rejected their proposals who are now successful.For how long should our ladies suffer HAD I KNOWN because they were following some counselling like yours? Of course, they don't deserve this!

Counsellor Lutterodt, I wish to conclude my letter here. In concluding, I would kindly request of you to be magnanimous in your counselling, a virtue worth adopting. Again, some of your controvertible counselling particularly for ladies which will succeed in continuously making them victims of HAD I KNOWN should be discouraged. Our ladies have suffered far too long for deciding to wait for Mr Already-Made, who, either took forever to come or came and was a disappointment. Let us save our ladies from this at all cost business whose consequential effect on our society is not funny anymore.Yes! Counsellor Lutterodt, it is no more funny!

Thank you.

William Latsey

National Service Person

Accra.

williamlatsey@gmail.com