Case for a Mango Revolution in Ghana

Supreme Court Rules in Favour of Jake – Case for a Mango Revolution in Ghana

The much awaited verdict on Jacob Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey’s fire acquisition of the state bungalow he once occupied as minister of tourism and (de) modernization of the capital city has been delivered by Ghana’s Supreme Court.

The judgement which was deferred from the original May 9, 2012 date (to May 22, 2012) was probably not delivered on May 9, 2012 palpably because of the significance of that date to Ghanaians at large and also to Obetsebi-Lamptey on the one hand because of his ignominious role in the stadium disaster affair.

The verdict and the carefully crafted tone of the judgement were to be expected. The judgement was expected because the panel consisted largely of members of the bench who were given helicopter promotions to the Supreme Court to serve a certain interest. Ever since Akufo Addo (presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party) made the state lose a case between the state and Tsatsu Tsikata, Ghana’s bench has been turned into a vampire court. At least two of the judges who sat on this case were promoted to the highest court by ex-President Kufuor to help reverse (or in his own words overturn) an earlier defeat verdict in his favour to get Tsikata jailed.

Is it not rather intriguing for one of the trial judges, Justice S.A. Brobbey (JSC) to have cautioned in his statement that “Ghanaians should not see the verdict as support for the practice whereby public officers exploit their official positions for private gain”?

In fact, we thank God that Justice Brobbey in particular did not deliver his voodoo verdict in Venezuela. His own statement is an indictment on all his years of legal practice.

There are a few questions for the judges. Was the house in question put on sale and was the process open and competitive? Was Obetsebi-Lamptey’s bid the most competitive?

These types of under-water judgements from the Ghanaian courts are becoming one too many for the ordinary people.

As a Ghanaian, I have come to believe that this democracy thing is being implemented in the reverse mode. Our forebears fought against colonialism and actually got rid of the colonialists but unfortunately like a Ghanaian academic once said, the vestiges of colonialism have become even more debilitating than the colonialists themselves.

When Nkrumah talked about neo-colonialism, I don’t believe that it’s all about imperialist elements sitting in the metropolitan countries and setting the prices for our raw materials and pulling strings to ensure that we forever remain ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’.

The neo-colonialism we are faced with is the vampire elites. The likes of Obetsebi-Lamptey and the many others who think like him and are aided by a corrupt judiciary which constantly delivers judgements tainted by greed, corruption, vampire or crony capitalism, and courts where judgements go to the highest bidder are the real neo-colonialists we need to get rid of.

Political vagabonds have replaced the imperialists! They pillage everything including even the bed spreads they use – Ebenezer Sekyi-Huges former speaker of Ghana’s rubber stamp parliament is an example. Our leaders don’t steal a few cedis, the steal the entire treasury. That is the reason why at every change of government, you are likely to hear the new government accusing their predecessor of having emptied the kitty.

Sub-saharan Africa is yet to experience its own brand of revolution and for countries like Ghana, if our state institutions keep on with this mass intellectual looting and open brigandry we are either going to experience a revolution or civil war or both. Not the kind of civil war or revolution those political ‘riff-raffs’ in Accra have been calling for.

Maybe, this judgement is another pointer to those youths who constantly charge on to the streets in Accra at the slightest instigation of privileged elites like Obetsebi-Lamptey that when the dust settles, they will go back to the streets while Obetsebi-Lamptey and his cohorts will return to their safe houses at Ridge.

In fact, I believe, this verdict is another good item for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to engage in some nonsensical equalisation of scores. Please pause for a moment – pull the brakes! This is no victory for democracy as the NPP guys are expected to say and to the NDC (government), please be sober in your commentaries on this particular ruling.

Sometime ago Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, ex-minister for (dis)information was at his misbehaving best and said those Ghanaians who were complaining that they did not experience Kufuor’s paradise on earth should go and “eat konkonte, mango, and drink gutter (dirty) water”.

Oh, reader, Obetsebi-Lamptey has bought or has been given a fiat by the ever-jaundiced Supreme Court – this is the earthly Supreme Court from which even some military vagabonds can come and exact the more painful form of ‘judgement’! Jake has bought the Number 2 Mango Line at Ridge in Accra but at least the last time I was in Ghana although many of the prime areas (government owned lands) have been sold out for cheap the politicians have forgotten to sell off one prime land – the Teshie Military Shooting Range. Interesting, huh!

Well, for the unemployed University Graduates Association of Ghana, this ruling might just be your rallying call for a ‘Mango Revolution’ in Ghana. You have finally got employment at last. The LOOT has got to end somewhere!

Source: Kojo Owusu-Mbire

Email: owusumbire@gmail.com