“All-Die-Be-Die” Clarion Bests Mills’ State-of-the-Nation Address – Part 3 (Final)

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Had he been as much concerned about the abject level of moral decadence in Ghanaian society, particularly the level of decadence among our youth, President Mills would have used his third “State-of-the-Nation Address” to highlight the damning contribution of the media towards such decadence. He would, for example, have alluded to the recent distasteful publication of the picture of a stark naked teenage boy twiddling with his genitals that appeared on most of the major Ghanaian media websites.

When one clicked on the aforementioned photograph, another appeared in which the same teenager was in the process of inserting his male member into the vaginal orifice of a teen-looking young woman. Viewers and readers would shortly be informed that the young woman has since gotten pregnant.

What we are most concerned with here is less the act of coition engaged in by the two unidentified teenagers, as the fact that such a purely private human act should be so graphically and publicly displayed on the Internet by mature adults going by the label of “professional journalists.” Our concern has much more to do with reports that it has become virtually pedestrian these days, in Ghana, for teenagers to videotape their own acts of coition and openly market it!

The National Media Commission (NMC) has on other similar occasions spoken loudly and laudably to such acts of abject barbarism and even issued advisories. On this recent occasion, however, nothing was heard from the NMC. We wonder what could have either motivated or even induced such deafeningly dreadful silence. Or maybe it was just a matter of advisory fatigue?

Whatever be case, when President Mills touched on the perennial question of the social responsibility of media operatives, it was to singularly and selfishly focus on the relationship between the media and persons in positions of authority or political power. Once again, dear reader, “take a reading”: “Let us all keep one thing in mind; [:?] Just because you have the right to say something does not mean you should. Exercising good judgment is important.”

No levelheaded citizen, of course, would disagree with the President on the foregoing score. Still, the pertinent questions to raise are: Exactly who decides when not to exercise one’s right to saying something that may not sit well with persons in prominent positions of authority like the President himself? And also, on whose terms such exercising of “good judgment” must be conducted, that of the Commander-in-Chief’s?

To any studious auditor of President Mills’ “State-of-the-Nation Address,” the preceding unmistakably sounded like a thinly veiled threat to Ghanaian media operatives, particularly those in the private media sector.

Predictably, one of the weakest moments of his address regarded the President’s policy on education, particularly the elementary school level. In this sector of the nation’s cultural development, Tarkwa-Atta decided to rather superficially focus on his ongoing patently short-sighted and propagandistic distribution of school uniforms and exercise books! Completely missing from the discourse was the state of the curriculum, the quality of instruction or teaching, teacher-education and pupil performance on standardized tests and even the practical relevance and orientation of the “inherited” Ghanaian academy. In other words, rather than more meaningfully focus on curricular content, President Mills rather dismally chose to preen himself before the Ghanaian electorate. In doing so, Tarkwa-Atta appeared to have his goggles trained far more studiously on Election 2012 than having any legitimate desire towards creditably acquitting himself in terms of foresighted statesmanship.
And even where he laudably appeared to somewhat verge on the proactive, the predictable tendency was for him to focus on the ultimately dubious and utterly counterproductive. For instance, the President preferred to link the provision of laptop computers to “science-biased” students of great promise. The logical riposte then becomes: How about equally talented liberal arts-biased students – i.e. our future novelists, thinkers and textbook authors?
You see, it is this kind of regressive thinking that may be uniquely undermining the healthy development of our country.

And so when President Mills mischievously and satirically declares: “Madam Speaker, Ghana will not die; Ghana will live to proclaim the glory of God,” it is definitely not clear which Ghana Tarkwa-Atta is talking about. Perhaps somebody ought to point out to him that a country whose Chief-of-State finds it extremely difficult to demonstrate common courtesy to his equally distinguished ideological opponents and predecessors, who behaves as if our nationhood or statal foundation is coeval with his inauguration and assumption of the presidency, is highly unlikely to prevail remarkably in time and space.

Even as I write, the case of four (4) New Patriotic Party (NPP) supporters savagely decapitated in the Agbogbloshie township of the Accra metropolis continues to deafeningly cry out for justice. And on the latter score must be promptly pointed out that the “Agbogbloshie Four” were allegedly assassinated by members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) – (See Daniel Damptey Danquah’s “Who is Beating War Drums – Mills and the NDC or Nana Akufo-Addo?” Modernghana.com 2/19/11).

We also significantly understand that when Nana Ohene-Ntow, then-General-Secretary of the NPP, raised public awareness and concern on this matter, the Gestapo-esque Bureau of National Investigations impugned his credibility by ignobly subjecting the former Legon lecturer to what amounted to a criminal interrogation.

A more positive highlight of the President’s “State-of-the-Nation Address,” more in terms of moral thrust than substantial practicality, regarded the cosmetic re-designation of the former Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into an Economic and Organized Crimes Office (EOCO). As I read the section pertaining to the foregoing, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, as it strikingly resembled the kind of office that a responsible leader would specially tailor for the prosecution of the Rawlingses, Amedekas and Tsikatas. “Take a reading here”: “As a way of strengthening institutions of state for the fight against corruption and [to] provide the needed teeth to bite, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has been reengineered and [re-?]named the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) with [full] prosecutorial powers.”

Personally, I don’t agree with those who envisage President Mills’ third “State-of-the-Nation Address” in terms of “Big Thinking.” At best, the address highlighted the imperative need for a new type of leader who is statesmanlike, unflappable, confident, creative, inclusive and capable of “Raising Ghana To The Next Level” of a technology-savvy Gateway to the West African sub-region.

On the sticky question of the Constitutional Review Commission, I think the Ghanaian parliament must show that it is worth its nominal designation by scrapping the entire illegal and unconstitutional process that set the same in motion and replacing it with a more democratic, constitutionally mandated version. This is one way to actually raise Ghana to the enviable level of a well-functioning and progressive culture.

The sort of vestigial “strongmanship” that brought the Constitutional Review Commission into existence must be roundly condemned. Likewise, the President’s rather brazen and crude attempt to pressure our Members of Parliament into constituting themselves into “Yes-Men/-Women” for his extra-constitutional attempt to thoroughly vitiate our most sacred document of multi-cultural and multi-national incorporation.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and author of “The Obama Serenades” (Lulu.com, 2011). E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net.
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