A New Thought

Honouring the Dishonourable

2014-11-18T10:49:00.005-08:00

On that fateful day in March 1957 when the (in)famous speech was made; when the Black man had apparently come of age in the twentieth century; when he was, by dint of Independence, going to show the whole world how capable he was in managing his own affairs, Nkrumah had a somewhat utopian vision for Ghana and Africa’s advancement.

However, the Ghana (and Africa) Nkrumah left behind is littered with events which ran contrary to his philosophy— a situation which has undermined his declaration on the state-managing prowess of the African. Nkrumah may have meant well to challenge the inferiority complex imposed on the black man — an obtrusion exemplified by the many Uncle Toms bedevilling the black race. Perhaps, Nkrumah was a bit gung-ho with his edict; those who call a spade by its right name will deign it right to forgo any pride and express their sadness concerning Nkrumah’s timeless pronouncement with Ghanaians and Africans doing nothing to underscore it.

The vociferous view that Ghana must honour its illustrious children to make her worth dying for has, forlornly, become the proverbial grandest good intention with no good deed. Instead the absolute display of ignoble impunity by Gabriel Barimah and Alfred Vanderpuije merits the heading of this piece while Martin Amidu who deserves the highest honour of the land is left in oblivion.

Amidu and the Looting Brigade

Tenacity, selflessness and the will to fight for what is right may only serve as understatements to describe Martin Amidu. Perhaps, in my three decades in this life, the people who have these qualities to pursue wrongdoing are only seen as the protagonists of fictitious tales and films.

Through Amidu, there has been an unequivocal portrayal of a brave man who is prepared to fight on no matter the concerted efforts at the heart of government to vilify and humiliate him. The various cases he had pursued, single-handedly and with his own resources, to bring to light classic cases of malfeasance, corruption and siphoning of state resources in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government deserve to hit the zenith of Hollywood film-making. If the name Woyome has come to connote corruption and its impeccable rendition by the Supreme Court of Ghana as “create, loot and share” it is all down to Amidu’s dogged determination to ride through the indignity from the NDC government to ensure that the “truth [always] stands”.

Do Ghanaians have to go on a placard-wielding demonstration to demand that Amidu be reinstated and honoured before the government does so? A good start will be Amidu’s reinstatement and vigorous public apologies to appease him, in the same manner that there were public actions and pronouncements to muddy his name. It is melancholic to note the posthumous blighting of the late Professor Mills’ memory for overseeing Amidu’s dismissal. Equally mortifying is the misconception on Wikipedia that Amidu was sacked for “misconduct” — indeed, Ghanaians give a whole new meaning to the word especially when Amidu was able to prove the malfeasance yet, he gets no plaudits; the glory has been reserved for two exceptionally noble characters in the persons of Gabriel Barimah and Alfred Vanderpuije.

Glorious Straw Men Blotting Ghana’s Conscience

Indeed, the apparent pompous outlook and profligacy of the NDC government are shown by most NDC kingpins and perhaps better displayed by Barimah and Vanderpuije. It is disheartening to realise that these two are allowed to run amok in Ghana as the power wielders when their sole achievements have been their tendency to show Ghana as a lawless country where government officials abuse power and look down on the people from whom they are theorised to derive their power.

Gabriel Barimah is on stage, clad in a white pair of trousers, a white shirt and armed with a white handkerchief mopping the beads of perspiration tickling down his shiny forehead. In a disgusting show of arrogance and belittlement of his audience with his gait and words, an obvious fed-up member of the audience responds to Barimah’s witless effusions with the onomatopoeic “tweaa”. Thanks to Barimah, a word which was dying in Ghana has now risen to prominence. Clearly, this man has risen to renown not because of any sterling deed but through his disrespect for Ghanaians.

Offered the chance to retract and apologise to show a few traits of the renaissance man, Barimah became even more obstinate with his behaviour only comparable to a bewildered bull about to face its nemesis-matador. His abject justification of his disgraceful attitude called the reluctant NDC government to action which claimed to have suspended a man who was still in office and still using all the facilities which came with the office of the District Chief Executive a couple of months after his purported dismissal.

As a further proof of the NDC government’s commitment to showing good sense, good behaviour and showing that those in power are really the servant of the people, Gabriel Barimah— despite all his irate behaviour and antagonism to Ghanaians— has been reinstated. His power has been augmented ten-fold for showing no remorse or repentance for his laudable acts. Clearly, those who bring calumny to the state are rewarded while those who fight to safeguard state resources, ensure fairness and justice are, left to rot outside the corridors of power. Talk about honouring the illustrious children to make the country worth dying for!

Then, the second chapter sees the grand entrance— with all the pomp and pageantry of our traditional rulers— of Alfred Oko Vanderpuije. He reminds one of the pompous and bullying Mr Bumble; only that in this case, he wields more power than the Mafioso with a tinge of extreme gangsterism. One man who proved more powerful than the late president Mills changing names of stadia and engaging in base and despicable acts. His omnipotence meant that even when president Mahama assumed office, this humane and exemplary gentleman was still maintained in power. The indomitable commando that is Alfred Vanderpuije graduated from name-changing of national monuments to playing the role of a self-styled bounty hunter charged with the apprehension of so-called make-believe journalists and horn-tooting “trotro" drivers.

The videos of Vanderpuije arresting a trotro driver, asking the police to handcuff him and holding tightly to the bewildered driver would be seen as assault in some other societies. Any Ghanaian who believes in the Rule of Law will be really ashamed of what was captured of the episode. Our conscience is blurred against such abuses and calls into serious doubt our chest-thumping act of claiming Ghana as the hope of Africa and as the shining example of democracy in Africa. If our claim to be a very civilised-cum-democratic country in Africa is taken seriously, then I would not like to know what transpires in totalitarian states where freedom is an expensive commodity.

In sum, the idea that black people are capable of managing their own affairs will make Nkrumah churn in his graves. Ghana needs to start showing that it believes in its own aphorisms: make Ghana worth dying for by employing the sort of poetic justice which would honour Amidu and people of his calibre while dealing decisively with social misfits like Barimah, Vanderpuije and their cohorts. Make Ghana worthy of self-sacrifice by punishing the shameless, bribe-taking security forces; and not a country which takes pleasure in tarnishing the image of her illustrious children. Thus, Ghana has to demonstrate not just grandest good intentions; those excellent intentions should be underpinned with good deeds. And this can commence with government booting Barimah and Vanderpuije out of office for starters.

The Tithing Controversy

2013-12-25T09:31:00.002-08:00

The principle of cheerful giving and its tributary of prosperity preaching seem to have outshone and overtaken salvation—the underlying raison d’etre of Christ’s first coming and the very bedrock of Christianity—salvation! The ever-potent rhetorical thought of the pointlessness of wealth amassing to the detriment of salvation appears to be have been muffled into painful oblivion. The distorted view about tithing bandied about by modern churches is understatedly lamentable. Evidence of sophistry in tithing and seed-sowing offerings has not just reached epic proportions, but has relegated Christ’s mission to the background. Joshua’s plan—tithes—formulated to ensure fairness in ancient Israel has become the cash cow and a subtle ploy of modern charlatans. Basing its authority on Biblical verses, the piece seeks to shed a much-needed light on the topic while seeking to impede the deceits of those “clergy” of whose calling God is oblivious. Underlying Reasons for Tithes Tithes were invented as a solution to assist the Levites who were left out of the “inheritance”—the inheritance being the lands Joshua was dividing among the twelve tribes of Israel. The scriptural basis for tithing appears in Deuteronomy 14:22-29 and the oft cited and clichéd Malachi 3:8-10. In Deuteronomy 14:22-29, it becomes apparent that one’s produce from the field must be tithed and the producer and his family must eat that tithe. The instruction does not give the slightest hint of tithes being the church’s right. Therefore, the Bible’s enjoining that tithes be taken to and eaten in the House of God may be suggested to be symbolic—accentuating one of the dominant themes permeating the Bible. In tithes, the fear of the Lord is cited just as baptism means being born again and the Holy Communion, eating Christ’s flesh and drinking His blood. Consequently, the searing falsehood that puts monetary value on tithes becomes poignantly disconcerting. Despite the indispensability of money in contemporary economics and way of life, the truth is that tithes have nothing to do with money! This is evident in verses 24-26 of Deuteronomy 14 where if one cannot carry their tithe because of distance, they are required to exchange it for money, which should in turn be traded for whatever one desires. Crucially, those who claim there was no money in those days have their answer! However, the desire for pompous lifestyles—as opposed to humble living—has brought about a grand disregard of the scriptures, where so-called pastors lift and cling onto Biblical verses they can falsify facilely to fool many gullible a Christian. Believing that we perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea, 4:6), this article aims to subjugate modern confidence tricksters who exploit the Bible to perpetuate their lavish lifestyles. Levites and Tithes: Veritas vos Liberabit Thus, the Latin phrase prefixed to this section with its anglicised rendition of “The truth shall set you free” informs both the scriptural meaning and a common-sense approach in demystifying tithes. Nowhere in the Bible is it written that tithes are to fund the administration of churches nor the remuneration of the clergy; fattening the latter who appease the needy congregants with the utopian “sugarcandy mountains” reminiscent of the timeless Animal Farm. Tithes were not completely earmarked for the Levites; the Israelites were not to forsake them when enjoying their tithes. The same request not to forsake the Levites was extended to include strangers, orphans and widows. Being a specific means to helping the have-nots, a full inquiry is required to establish why the modern, non-Jew clergy should even ask for tithes with the abundant evidence in the Bible (ibidem and Joshua, 18:7). Modern churches’ unbridled claim to tithes—a birthright of Levites—demands first, the identification of a Levite and the quest to corroborate if the contemporary clergy belongs to that special tribe. Therein lies the greatest disgraceful scam ever devised by humans to outwit their credulous peers! Let the scriptures be cited on how Jesus’ death makes every pastor a Levite and hence Jews of everyone! The Bible is unequivocal on why the Levites should be helped with part of tithes: they have no inheritance/land and not because they do God’s work (see Deuteronomy, 14: 27, 29). The agricultural economy at the time meant that the Levites could not survive without help from fellow Israelites because they had no lands. Since the reason for helping the Levites was not because of the “priesthood of God [being] their inheritance” (ibidem), it beggars belief that modern educated, working pastors demand tithes. And how morally charming the whole phenomenon becomes when a rich pastor fleeces the poor congregants by employing the mistranslated text in Malachi that says those non-tithe-paying people are cursed. Common-sense Theorising about Tithes Tithing is one of the symbolic ways of showing the fear of God—a theme that pervades the entire Bible (Proverbs 9:10; 1:7 and Psalm 111:10). It is patently obvious that the present-day clergy cannot lay claim to being the helpless Levites who, even imbued with the zeal to farm, had no land on which to work. The legitimate question is on whether or not tithes should be paid. The modern pastor is not a Levite and the agricultural economy being almost non-existent coupled with the fact that modern pastors are educated and have the ability to take employment mean that they do not deserve tithes. The Bible posits that at the end of every three years, tithes kept in the storehouse be brought out to feed the Levites (they are redundant now), strangers, orphans and widows. Are there churches following this very humane dictate of the scriptures? In the negative response to this rhetorical question, tithes should be paid directly to the needy in society and to charitable organisations rather than entrusting them to a few sordid people whose selfishness and personal welfare take over any godly considerations. Moreover, in the twenty-first century where tax-collecting governments bill citizens over ten per cent to build roads, schools, hospitals and for supporting welfare funds, no unregulated organisation (including churches) should collect tithes from its members. The average twenty per cent tax each citizen pays is clearly more than the ten the Bible requests. And if tithing means a tenth, what happens when a farmer has nine sheep and not ten? Concluding Comments In summary, the philosophy of coercing people to give and the threat of curses for not paying tithes are quite un-Christian. The Bible is littered with giving from the heart but not grudgingly. Christ Himself made a fitting example of the widow’s mite. The shocking tale of Ananias and Sapphira’s perfidy and its outcome in Acts Chapter 5 is an excellent example why nobody should be forced to give to God. Moreover, if Christian means of Christ, then Christians’ actions must bear a semblance to Christ’s. His excruciating metaphor—camel going through the eye of the needle and the rich entering God’s Kingdom—must not be lost on anyone; for, it underpins humility against opulence, which has become a byword of the modern clergy. In fulfilling the scriptures, He sat on a donkey and not a flying horse. Hence, the sophistry-filled rationales supporting so-called Men of God driving about in flashy cars, acquiring private jets and expending immorally huge sums of money on their birthdays must be rejected flatly. The point is not that blessed people should not help the church financially. But it must be remembered that a penny from the heart is more of a blessing than a cargo of gold given begrudgingly. Using one’s resources to help the needy in society must be encouraged as tithing. The despondent penchant of the modern clergy to “cite scripture for their purpose” (with apologies to Shakespeare) is disturbing. Since ignorance is not strength in God, woe unto those whose witless grasp of the subject of tithes is tantamount to mass deception. Thomas Dickens.

Skulduggery on Professor Mills' Death

2013-09-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

The premature and startling death of Professor Mills in 2012 cannot be ignored until the truth is out. I had to hold my fire on the eve of the first anniversary of the tragedy since the topic was hammered to such a crescendo that my opinion would have been drowned in the countless monotonous effusions on the issue. My innate conviction is that the former president was murdered! This controvertible point does not even acknowledge the incessant rumour-mongering that greeted the Professor’s cessation. The argument borders on the bungling public-relations faux-pas which were highlighted in trying to adduce various reasons for the Professor’s demise. This piece is not conspiratorial; the raison-d’etre of this article only relies on logical-cum-critical inquiry into Professor Mills’ bereavement—a demise which to all intents and purposes was orchestrated – just like the palace coups of yesteryears—for the sake of maintaining the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in power with the hitherto confirmed rumour that the peace-seeking gentleman was planning to resign from Ghana’s presidency. It is an open secret that the late president had a few health concerns and notwithstanding the worn-out metaphors on the abruptness of that preordained blow; Professor Mills’ death was indeed unexpected! In the perplexity following the announcement of his death, Ghanaians were informed that “a massive stroke” was what sent the Professor to his early grave. This reason was then followed by elaborations of how he lifted his hands up into the sky and proclaimed: “Oh God, into your hands do I lay my soul!” The massive-stroke invention would have washed until its embellishment of hand-lifting and loud-voice purported prayer triggered a few critical questions to be posed. For clarity, a stroke is a cerebrovascular accident which results in the rapid loss of brain function culminating in the inability to move one or more limbs, incapability to understand or formulate speech (see Donnan et al, 2008) and so on. These rudimentary details about stroke makes Dr Cadman-Mills’ story (the Professor’s brother who confirmed the hand-raising and the prayer story) sound highly unbelievable and at best a piece of concocted tale told in the Ananse style especially when the stroke suspected to have killed Professor Mills was so severe as to warrant the adjective “massive”. Unless, the Professor was such an archetypal superhuman who defied the symptoms and effects of stroke! That brings into sharp focus the “massive” nature of the stroke which made it imperative for blood to ooze from his nostrils and his earlobes. This, according to the fictitious stories, led to his instantaneous death in another breadth. And yet, this same massive stroke brought to the fore the messenger of death before the Professor who was permitted to make one last speech of committing his soul into the hands of God. I learn that blood oozing from nostrils and ears is symptomatic of poisoning despite ascribing it to cancer—one of the diseases believed to have bedevilled the Professor. Moreover, the unconfirmed reports of the late president dying at the Castle before being rushed to the 37 Military Hospital, the much ado with ambulances; his being rushed to a maternity ward notwithstanding the Military Hospital being equipped with a presidential suite; the non-existence of a hospital record and being shoved from pillar to post all leave much to be desired. Though these rumours may be denied vehemently; the truth shall stand either for posterity or at the “judgement seat of Christ”. As the above thought was being contemplated, Seth Ofori, the late president’s former Press Secretary let slip the truth on Joy FM’s “Newsfile” programme of 28th July 2012. On that programme, Mr Ofori who was arrayed in mourning attire bashfully confirmed that, four days before the Professor’s death; NDC gurus were jostling for the vice-presidential position! It is capital to recall that President Mahama was the vice-president and that the clamouring for that position can only be suggested to affirm the fact that vice-president Mahama was going to be promoted. The aforementioned struggle for power represents the most consummate epitome of villainy with respect to the late president’s death. The whole Ghana and the world had to imbibe the cacophonous “The president is healthier and will hand over in 2017”! In the course of these ostensible deceits, the poor Professor became the unfortunate puppet of some young, overambitious men who suddenly discovered that sycophancy is an indispensable key to unlock every door of opportunity. Thus, against sound medical advice, the poor man was forced to expose his impaired vocal cords; coerced to undertake a heart-tearing trot among other ridiculous machinations. For a learned man of doubtless integrity and incorruptible character to be cuffed and buffeted this way by a bunch of power-hungry criminal-politicians is depressing indeed! Professor Mills has been dead for over a year—may he rest in peace—and we are yet to fathom what caused his demise. All that we know are a collection of lies whose inconsistencies expose them as such. In civilised societies, accidental deaths are subject to autopsies. Compare that with the Ghanaian situation where a whole sitting president dies under very dubious circumstances and nothing is done—even a dead sheep will be treated with dignity! In their frenzy to obscure the truth, the late president has been ennobled by the very people who had a hand in his murder by naming almost every monument in Ghana after him and blasphemously claiming he has replaced the Christ on God’s right-hand side! Until the truth is revealed, some of us will not relent in our efforts to seek justice for a dead man. Why would NDC gurus be fighting over the vice-presidential slot four days before Professor Mills’ death? Was he given a “slow poison” whose potent effects could be felt on the fourth day? Or were those butting for the vice-presidential position soothsayers with the inimitable penchant to foretell Professor Mills’ death? The whole event must incite pity and fear: pity for Professor Mills and fear lest his plight should befall another president! The fact is that the late president was murdered and only bootlicking buffoons may be fooled with spin-doctoring and its attendant conflicting cock and bull tales.

Student Loans: the Plight of Students and Guarantors

2010-10-05T15:02:00.001-07:00

The Ghana Students Loan Trust was established in December 2005 to replace the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) Students Loan Scheme under the Trustee Incorporation Act 106 of 1962 to provide financial resource for the sound management of the Trust and for the benefits of students and to promote national ideals as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution. But my grouse against the scheme emanates from the fact that the transfer of responsibility from SSNIT to the Students Loan Trust Fund has only been the change of name with the same obnoxious terms and conditions which incarcerate both would-be graduates and their long-suffering guarantors, especially if the beneficiary’s parents are not SSNIT contributors—which is the situation of many Ghanaian parents.

The various efforts to set up a loan scheme for students started in 1971 but were abandoned the following year due to the change of government. The scheme was then modified and reintroduced in 1975 but failed as a result of high rates of defaults until the visionary aptitude of Dr Rawlings (Rawlings’ detractors will certainly not be contented with my use of his official title of “doctor” and his being a visionary leader) reinstated it under a Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) Law 276 in January 1988. The fact is I do not mince words to castigate Dr Rawlings but I have also chosen not to be blind to the good he brought to bear upon Ghana unlike those who perceive his every action as devilish. Every student who has had the privilege of university education with the aid of a SSNIT Student Loan should be grateful to the then Chairman Rawlings and his PNDC government.

The purpose of the Student Loan Scheme was to supplement students’ private resources of parental support for food, lodging, transportation costs and other expenses. But no one has really tasked the government on the other similarly momentous issues on the loan apart from its primary aim of helping students secure power (education) and the hoax of brighter futures—one could spend years studying and still remain jobless which is why I think the much-advertised brighter future is only a high-flying deception. The crucial concerns are in the areas of the loan processing, the exorbitant interest rate which can best and benignantly be described as extortionate and the unwary gagging of guarantors who literally sign their lives away in their bid to assist the proverbial “brilliant but needy student”. I am of the view that student finance and funding ought to be properly reviewed, made humane for the men and women who will one day serve or lead Ghana and also made to reflect the much talked-about globalisation.

Ghana has proved to her citizens, Africa and the whole world on how she intends to distinguish herself in the present century. Ghana’s examples of wanting to be the shining black star of sub-Saharan Africa are: the oil find (ironically thanks to Tsatsu Tsikata) and the expectations greater than those of Pip, the West African Gas Pipeline, rumours about electronic voting and an audacious venture at quasi-social housing commencing with the much-maligned and rightly vilified STX Housing agreement whose future is as bleak as the Ghanaian student in his final year. The plethora of arguments against this contract calls for an un-bigoted reconsideration but everything in Ghana is regrettably seen through the unbridled political lenses of the NPP and the NDC.

Politics in Ghana is well structured in a way that exceedingly ham-fisted people are either elected or chosen to lead a gullibly vulnerable people with the shortest of memories. Politicians are effectively selling Ghana with their undisguised mortgaging of our country and her resources—oil, cocoa, gold, etc. They are visibly doing this by taking loans from China and signing housing deals with communist countries whose conditionalities are plagiarised from the devil’s own book of lending ethics! I heard the NDC propaganda theorist in the stature of Mr Allotey Jacobs (what a name!) animatedly proclaiming how Professor Atta-Mills was bringing a total of $13 billion from China as if that money were a Christmas gift. The experts claim that Ghana needs $1.2 billion to fix her ceaseless water problems. Will it therefore not be the right thing for a social democratic government in the calibre of the NDC to fix our water predicament before undertaking such an imprudent housing deal? The inevitable actuality of the housing deal being a huge drain on an already unfortunate water crisis should the STX Housing deal be rectified and finally signed does not seem to have dawned on the Mills-led NDC government.

Sometimes certain declarations are like stating the obvious but if the apparent is overlooked, I would then like to reiterate it to the discomfiture of those who take the decisions that affect all of us. Ghana ought to note that her future, her ambitious resolve to be a middle-income country all depend on her human resource—to wit, her citizens. These people must be motivated and incentivised to inculcate in them patriotism, the willingness to sacrifice and contribute their quota to the development of their motherland. At this point, some level-headed person is thinking what happened to the desire to ask what one can do for their country and not what their country can do for them as advocated by J F Kennedy. Well you are right; but that was said in the US in the 60s and not in Ghana. Make no mistake: only a handful of people in the world today have nationalism imbued in them for them to want to ask this very imperative question.

The criterion for qualification for a student loan is students enrolled and pursuing approved courses in tertiary institutions in Ghana. Until 2002 when the Government of Ghana included students from the emerging and ever-increasing private universities, the loans were meant for students in public universities and polytechnics. The application process, apart from pursuing a so-called approved course (I am yet to learn of an unapproved course), entails an applicant finding three guarantors to sign or thumbprint. If anybody has taken the trouble to look at the interest rate charged on student loans, they would have been misled into reading a fallacious statement to the effect that the “Government of Ghana pays the remaining portion of the interest on the loan which is the difference between the average Treasury Bill rate for the year and the student’s portion”—whatever that means. But in the same text, one will notice a paradoxical statement: that “the indebtedness of each borrower shall be the principal loan and the student’s portion of the interest on the loan”.

It is pretty lucid that the powers that be must be told that changing the name and the administrator (I learnt it is now liaised with the Ghana Education Trust Fund) of the Student Loan Scheme without seeking to address the countless inconveniences and outmoded conditions is tantamount to clothing a chimpanzee in a three-piece suit and expecting it to deliver a speech! There is nothing in a name here unless extremely humane and significant changes are applied to reflect the Ghanaian student’s situation. Amendments are required in the areas of interest rates charged on these loans, the unnecessary heavy-handed hounding of guarantors and the haunting of unwaged students to reimburse their loans—students who may certainly complete their studies and scrounge around for non-existent jobs. What justice does the government think of when it starts charging interest on monies students expended to help prepare them for a job market which is plagued by the incurably cancerous whom-you-know syndrome? And when these ultimate graduates have no jobs after four years of studies and so no means of earning a living, how are they expected to set aside a disposable income to repay a national debt?

Nonetheless, it must be reiterated that the current predicament of the guarantor of a student loan in Ghana is deplorable. Guarantors are retched by a culture which coerces them to do what is beyond them; and they are further intimidated and bullied by the Government of Ghana if graduates are unable to settle their loans. Take this scenario for example: a poor “koko” seller whose ward happens to be one of the numerous “brilliant but needy students” makes the required grades to pursue further studies at the university. Our noble woman then goes to see three men who qualify as guarantors to help our brilliant protagonist to pursue further studies to become a lawyer, a doctor, etc, in order to recompense his mother in future. Do any of us—knowing the obnoxious terms and conditions of student loans—advise these honourable men not to help?

Therein lies the dilemma of the guarantor! Even if these guarantors are aware of the hazards of guaranteeing such a loan, our societal accepted constitution will not allow this. Anybody, who looks at the conditions and decides not to endorse a student loan as a matter of principle may have been prudent; but, in the tenets of Ghanaian custom, such a person may have carved a niche for him/herself as the most callous and inconsiderate fool to have roamed this earth. Thus, to gain the general approbation of society these government-workers are implicitly coerced into signing their lives and pensions away—but that is only the beginning of their calamitous and outrageous woes! Sometimes, the reluctance with which they sign is evident in the trembling of their hands, the quivering of their lips and the contortions of their countenances. These scandalous afflictions are only cut short if by the good hand of Providence, some graduates into whose hands they lay their pensions and lives find jobs which are lucrative enough to empower them to pay off their loans. Or if these graduates join the long train of the incessant mass exodus to Europe and the US in search of pastures green enough to make sense of the grass possessing that most sought-after colour on the other side.

In effect, guarantors thus become the inescapable victims of government insensitivity, the towering unemployment situation in Ghana and its knock-on effects of defaulted loans. This means that a student’s inability—I will not say reluctance when it is clear they do not have the means to furnish their loans—to adhere to the somewhat draconian terms and conditions imposed by the Government of Ghana subjects a guarantor to the most atrocious persecution anyone can fathom with the highest stretch of the imagination. The bullying, as we are all aware of, takes the form of the forfeiture of pension/retirement benefits until such a time when a loan is settled. The only crime committed by guarantors is by working to build and contributing to the welfare of a country which rewards them with tremendous impertinence. Their problem is that they decided to be nationalistic and followed the culture of their community by going the extra mile of helping Ghana’s workforce by signing loans for students who will replace them on retirement.

The repercussions of the horrendous terms and conditions of student loans have the propensity to breed corruption among graduates who find jobs, in their precipitation to diminish their ever-augmenting student loan debt by adopting the shortest route of bribery. It also contributes to human capital flight or brain drain; with those who are unfortunate to find gainful employment in Ghana. Without any fear of contradiction, I can say that a graduate who completes their studies with a 2000 Ghanaian cedis debt already hanging on their neck with possibly no chance of finding a job in Ghana is highly likely to join the bandwagon of planes and ships—lawfully or criminally— bound for the US or Europe in search of the eldorado of greener pastures.

I recently chanced upon an incredible but depressing tale of a graduate who was arraigned before court for not settling his SSNIT student loan in full. This action was necessitated by the deceased’s relatives trying to retrieve and usurp the dead man’s pension entitlement—the crucial moment of wanting to benefit from the death of a forgotten relation who had little sympathy while alive. It was at this juncture that it dawned on the expectant and anxious family members who had already budgeted superfluously for the deceased’s pension that the money will be released upon the settlement of an outstanding student loan which stood at 1,678.19 Ghanaian cedis.

This pathetic non-fiction was the quandary of a graduate who refused to be lured by the great enticement of seeking white-collar jobs and greener pastures in Europe and the US. On the flip side, a course mate of his who had recently returned from Europe and was exuding the pomp and pageantry (flashy trainers, an expensive watch, a nicely-cut buggy jeans with blings a la Snoop Dogg) of a been-to was in town. Throwing his weight about in a clear unsolicited exhibition of his newly-acquired affluence, his mate proclaimed to him with some gusto that he had settled his student loan with just £700! This did not seem a lot until the conversion into cedis confirmed it was more than twice the 6 million old cedis he borrowed. What an easy way of enticing people to become economic migrants even at the peril of their lives and disinclination to become illegal migrants!

In the West, student loans are charitably flexible. The UK charges 4.4 percent on student loans and it is 4.5 percent in the US whereas in Ghana, the interest charged is ludicrously set at 12 percent! The US and the UK are developed countries with a behemoth job market which absorbs their graduates. The even-handedness with which student loans are administered in the West removes the stigma of debt from graduates as they have to be working and earning certain salaries before commencing repayments. In the UK, my research shows that a graduate has to earn £288 per week, £1250 per month or £15000 annually before deductions are made for student loan repayments. Of course I do know these are advanced countries but Zimbabwe charges just 5.06 percent on student loans.

The UK is now asking for highly-skilled migrants so it is unambiguous the West desires the crème de la crème of Ghana’s workforce. The days of factory work, warehouse work, apple-picking or tomato-picking which were reserved for migrants from Africa are over—the Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians and their counterparts from Eastern Europe have been drafted in to do these jobs. Our politicians should walk the talk and forget their frenzied and ne’er-do-well promises on electoral campaign platforms. The slogan should be jobs, jobs and jobs! Forget IMF and World Bank loans whose ruthless conditionalities forbid the employment of people in the public sector—thank you Professor Atta-Mills for being thoughtful and benevolent!

The Student Loan Scheme has unfortunately been prioritised as a money-making endeavour by government. The copious private universities are doing their fair share in the mass production of jobless graduates who inexplicably contract more debts to pursue Master’s degrees with no job experience. My take on this is: if government were to make it its policy not to charge any interest until a graduate was employed, it would be cajoled into creating jobs for these graduates without having to involve guarantors with cut-throat conditions. And whoever assumed that education in Ghana is subsidised must think again. What with borrowing 600 cedis and paying back 1,754 cedis in five years! One will not be exaggerating to state that the Government of Ghana is unquestionably making money at the expense of unemployed graduates and sitting on pensioners’ monies for the non payment of student loans.

It must be noted that I am not in any way proposing that government should dole out these monies and never expect them to be reimbursed. But I am requesting that opportunities should be made available to these graduates so that they can work and start paying off their loans. After all, student loans in the US and Europe are not free. It is about time the Government of Ghana reviewed the Student Loan Scheme and cut out the need for guarantors. Students and graduates who are undoubtedly the future leaders of Ghana should be treated with some respect and not like some common lowly scoundrels who may disappear with Ghana’s money which is why the need for guarantors to serve as scapegoats arises.

Dr Aidoo's Demonic Glossolalia, Rev Skosana HIV-Positive Christ

2010-09-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

Dr Anthony Aidoo, the Vice Chancellor of the Ideological Institute of Political Incorrectness and Acute Uncouthness, has thrown the whole of Ghana into another furore mounting his foul-mouthed behaviour onto another notch. Unlike in the past when his ill-mannered conduct has touched just the New Patriotic Party and hence garnering the support of the National Democratic Congress and its henchmen, this time; he has pulled off the reprehensible blunder of taking on Christendom, a group with which Professor Mills, his superior, wants to be associated—the raison d'être of Prophet T B Joshua being employed full time at the Castle much to the exasperation of Dr Rawlings.

Dr Aidoo may not have been the only person to damn the art and act of “speaking in tongues”. But perhaps, the good doctor has become a despicable article of loathing because his reputation precedes him. It is a branded reality that Dr Aidoo, the undeniable king of loose talks, wild vituperations and severe bad manners, always calls into unspeakable probing, his standing as an academician and as a former minister of state to the chagrin of even his so-called associates. Glossolalia or speaking in tongues—if you like— has become an extremely contentious issue in Christianity. But Dr Aidoo’s description of tongues-speakers as lunatics and Lucifer-adorers has hit below the belt. Yet, we have also witnessed the uncanny situation of a group of men and women seen at night on various pitches mimicking sounds like the animal kingdom was in disarray: they were croaking, neighing, bleating, mooing, etc with all the fervour they could convene. Without impropriety and prejudice, we would want to believe that this group was exercising their vocal cords in accordance with the dictates of the Holy Spirit!

Nevertheless, as the whole of Ghana descends mercilessly upon Dr Aidoo—and justifiably so, we would like to draw further attention to one Reverend Xola Skosana from South Africa. What the dickens does this Reverend have to do with Dr Anthony Aidoo? Well, we can say on authority that if he were in Ghana, he would be hanged for making various libellous remarks about Jesus Christ, the Saviour. In the frenzy and grit to please HIV-AIDS activists, Reverend Skosana affirms—we cannot say upon which empirical evidence he made his pronouncement—that the Christ was HIV positive. Many hard-core Christians have described Reverend Skosana’s declaration as blasphemous. On the subject of so-called men of God behaving like the Antichrist, we will share a few thoughts later. But we believe that his utterance is likely to earn him a well-deserved summons before the World Council of Churches in the same way that Galileo faced the wrath of the Roman Inquisition.

From our research and surveys from various Christian groupings, we gather the courage to remark that glossolalia is indeed a very litigious matter in Christianity. We have spoken to the Mormons (some people call them the Morons), the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Catholics and the Pentecostals, and have found a lot of contradictory views on the topic of glossolalia. It is therefore obvious from our research and survey that if the good doctor had dressed his language with a few metaphors, there would have been no need for the acerbic discussions which have attended his rants to the effect that glossolaliasts are people either teetering on the brink of psychosis or are at worst, devil-worshippers. We do not condone his foul language but we mean to say that he could have expressed his differing opinions on the topic without condescending to diatribes and a blatant call of tongues-believers to a slanging match. The problem with Dr Anthony Aidoo, as we are all aware, is his incapacity to adhere to the simplest rule of political correctness. But in his usual gaffes, Dr Aidoo has incensed most Christians—especially the Pentecostals by trivialising their tongues-speaking feat, a notion which is almost the bedrock of their faith.

Glossolalia, which is the flowing vocalisation of speech-like syllables, has been thought of by a lot of people as meaningless but others believe it as a holy language. The Azusa Revival of 1906 and the subsequent growth of the Pentecostal Movement brought glossolalia into prominence. In the search for the likely causes of speaking in tongues, the first person to throw glossolalia into disrepute was one George Cutten in 1927 who claimed tongues-speakers were people with low mental abilities. Of course, his assertion was and is still widely debunked. Many scholars have suggested hypnosis as the cause of glossolalia whereas other experiments have demonstrated that it is a learned behaviour. For example, an experiment of 60 undergraduates in the US found that 20 percent succeeded in speaking in tongues after merely listening to a one-minute sample while 70 percent accomplished it after training. It is essentially on the third point of glossolalia being a learned behaviour that will be the core of our argument.

The issue of speaking in tongues has brought to the fore two main schools of thought. The first group believes that glossolalia is still in existence; that it ought to be a miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit, contending that it must be xenoglossia—that is speaking in tongues must be authentic and untaught. However, the second school of thought, normally known as Cessationists, maintains that all charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased in early Christian history; and therefore speaking in tongues as practised today is simply the utterances of futile syllables. To them, it is neither xenoglossia nor miraculous but rather a learned behaviour and possibly self-induced. They clarify their position further by saying that “tongues” in the New Testament is indeed xenoglossia—a miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit through which the speaker could communicate in languages not previously known.

We pause here to recount a story—we cannot confirm its veracity—of a European evangelist who went to Northern Ghana to preach the gospel. During the preaching, he realised to his mortification that anything he said threw his audience into guffaws. Of course he had an interpreter. This continued for about thirty minutes so he paused, prayed to the Almighty God and when he had finished, what proceeded left everyone in awe of the power of the omnipotent God: he was speaking the local language of the area! If this anecdote holds any water, it goes to support the claim that “tongues” should be a language or languages previously unknown by the speaker. In the nutshell, the belief that “tongues” should be a language that someone or a group of people are able to understand is very strong. However, it is not that clear-cut.

We could not possibly come to a logical conclusion on this subject without calling on the Holy Writ which chronicles the origin of this most divisive theme in Christendom. We are going to have to crave your indulgence, dear reader, to look at the scriptures we will quote. We would not like to turn this write-up into a sermon. Contrary to popular belief, the first hint of speaking in a different tongue is found in the Old Testament: Isaiah 28:11. However at this moment, and in line with what has dominated the debate on this subject, we will be drawing our conclusions and understanding from the books of Acts and the first book of Corinthians of the Holy Bible.

First, the Acts of the Apostles is the first book that talks extensively of the gift of tongues-speaking. The book of Acts 2:1-11 talks about the momentous events on the day of Pentecost which gave birth to glossolalia. From the biblical account, tongues of fire settled on the apostles who were then filled with the Holy Spirit and started speaking with different tongues. From the account, there were different people from different nations all living in Jerusalem. The wonderful aspect of the whole phenomenon was that these people came together as they could hear their own various languages being spoken by the apostles. The Bible makes it clear that those were languages not previously known. The same book clarifies in Acts 10:46 that some men who received the Holy Spirit spoke “with tongues magnifying God”. This same episode happens again in Acts 19:6 when John lays his hands on some disciples who also speak with tongues. But the events of Acts 10 and 19 do not talk about “tongues” which people could comprehend. In this respect then, “tongues” can be a living language or a strange one to magnify God.

Paul’s first letter to the church of Corinth is also inundated with various philosophical arguments concerning spiritual gifts, of which speaking with different tongues is mentioned. Prominent among the quotes are 1 Corinthians chapters 12 to 14. In chapter 14:39, Paul tells the church not to “forbid the speaking in tongues”. In chapter 14:9, Paul controversially intimates that “tongues” should be easily understood else it becomes pointless. In the aforesaid chapters, he also talks about the fact that tongues should be recognised and that there should be an interpreter to explain them. We can surmise that he was saying there has to be a rationale for glossolalia in the church. Most importantly, the rhetorical question of 1 Corinthians 14:6 should be considered by all manner of Christians: “… what good would I do you unless I spoke to you either with a revelation or with knowledge or with a prophecy or with a teaching?”

From the two books of the Bible we have read, the truth about speaking in tongues has never been this glaring unless we are being very thick or we just cannot make any proper deductions from the biblical texts. The first point is that glossolalia occurs when the Holy Spirit fills someone. From Acts, the language (or tongues) the possessed person speaks must be a language that is known but it can also be unknown as it is indeed an angelic language. The next point is that it does not have to be a learned behaviour as has become the wont of a lot of charismatic or Pentecostal Christians. Paul even downplays its importance in his letter to the Corinthians vis-à-vis the other spiritual gifts such as prophecy and healing.

In all this, there is one thing which scares us. The Bible makes it clear that every sin is pardonable but sinning against the Holy Spirit is not forgivable. We wonder how many Christians have really pondered about this. God will forgive adultery, murder, idol-worshipping and all the other so-called deadly sins if offenders ask for forgiveness but there will be no reprieve for someone who sins against the Holy Spirit. Well, we would need Bible scholars to tell us which actions constitute sinning against the Holy Spirit; but in our own imagination, anybody who starts speaking some strange language at church purporting that it is coming from the Holy Spirit will only be lying against the Holy Spirit if the bewildering words they spit out are from their own thoughts! The question we are yet to find an answer to regards the plaudits which can initiate or terminate tongues-speaking: if the Holy Spirit intends to impart a message to the flock of God, can hand-clapping start or stop it? Yet, what we see in churches these days is a pastor explicitly encouraging the congregation to speak in tongues with the clap of his hands and the same clap stops the tongues-speakers.

We now turn the spotlight on Reverend Skosana. Christianity is being bastardised by a lot of factors: bad-mouthing, rampant and proven sexual molestation and immorality among the clergy, extortion of the congregation in the name of God by way of miracles and blasphemy. There are a lot of problems plaguing Christianity at this moment, which is why many are now turning away from the churches; Christianity is dwindling in numbers while atheism is on the ascendancy! The problem is that there is now nothing like unction by which the Lord God used to choose people to lead his flock. Now, it seems many leaders of the church look at the comforts of life they can gain by becoming clergymen and then call and anoint themselves. Reverend Skosana use of a very bad analogy to express the fact that God accepts all manner of persons makes us wonder if the Lord really called him. For like we see with the people He calls, the Lord empowers His anointed and teaches them what to say. We have our examples in Moses and Samuel. Is it any wonder that the Bible proclaims that judgement will start in the house of God?! Some self-appointed men of God will perform miracles and ask for money as if Christ ever set such an example for His followers to imitate.

It is sad that we are going to have to end this writing by talking about politicians. But could we possibly desist from doing so when the whole uproar was began by a man who is the epitome of all that is base and despicable? Dr Aidoo’s academic credentials have always been questioned. But his inclusion in the current NDC set-up with his ridiculous and redundant title of Policy Monitoring and Evaluation at the Castle shows the blinkered view—literally— of the Mills Administration. I have always thought the four virtues of wisdom, fortitude, justice and temperance will be the most important factors to consider in giving positions to people. It may sound harsh but this is the reason why we would question the visionary aptitude of Professor Mills and his “viziers”. Else how could they have advised the good professor to thrust Dr Anthony Aidoo into a responsible position? And oh yes we read politics into this condemnable utterance of Dr Aidoo! For, if Dr Aidoo were the architect of some heroic deeds, the NDC would be claiming the credit; so let them suffer the indignity. Messrs Ablakwa and Quashigah would have been trumpeting Professor Mills’ far-sighted prowess and how he foresaw the hidden diamond in Dr Aidoo which had to be unearthed and polished!

We are wondering if Egya Atta took the pains to verify why Dr Aidoo is one of the most loathed politicians in Ghana. Dr Aidoo has proved to be incorrigibly crude yet he occupies an enviable position in the higher echelons of the National Democratic Congress serving as the appraiser of ministers’ performances. Our politicians and a few media toadies have taken it upon themselves to divert attention from various pressing issues just as the Caesars used gladiatorial games to divert the populace’s awareness from hunger, mismanagement and diseases. We have all been guilty in writing about this but those who gave Dr Aidoo the power and charged him with reviewing the work of other ministers are those doing a great disservice to Mother Ghana. The tedious sermonising of a few dried men in Parliament and in politics, together with their we-care-about-our-bellies journalists who will justify the untenable are the brute barbarians bent upon a merciless destruction of Ghana, with Dr Aidoo infecting his NDC members like putrid fever.

Reverend Skosana is indeed a byword of those false prophets in the world today. They may perform miracles and sway a lot of blind Christians but the final word is God’s. Many Christians should not forget that it was not only the staff of Moses that transformed into a snake: the devil has got the power to duplicate what God does! For Dr Anthony Aidoo, it is striking what he does. This man has been given the filthy freedom of representing the NDC in official circles and insulting with careless abandon. Professor Mills, wanting us to believe him as a decent politician should at least surround himself with respectable people. Dr Aidoo is like a wild animal: he cannot act or be tamed; he will tear his master into pieces if he is angry. Such a person must be caged! The debate on glossolalia will never wane. Our research showed that the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons and the Adventists all refuse it while the charismatic and Pentecostals hold it in the highest of regards. We would really appreciate the learned men of the Bible solving this problem and persuading all of us on this subject.

NDC's Rookies and Trivial Politics

2010-08-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

Professor John Evan Atta Mills’ decision to introduce young bloods into the ministerial arrangements of his government soon after he was sworn into office as president was fittingly received with mixed feelings. Many lauded him for his thoughtfulness in becoming a pacesetter; many wondered (especially the die-hard NDC fanatics) why unfamiliar and apathetic rookies were picked above them. Many of us have been monitoring the performances, the comportments and overzealous attitudes employed by Messrs Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Richard Quashigah, James Agyenim-Boateng and Miss Hannah Bissiw in dealing with national issues and wonder if they have ever taken the trouble to mull over their plights should another political party win the 2012 Elections. The politics of retaliation coupled with its culture of vindictive pursuit of perceived corrupt practices of people in power should tutor these rookies to tread cautiously in Ghana’s political minefield. And the way the NDC’s top hierarchy have dominated the airwaves with what can be humanely described as balderdash after the NPP Congress has become a cause for grave apprehension for well-meaning Ghanaians.

I have already been labelled as a New Patriotic Party advocate in an article I wrote and when another one appeared, I became a pure National Democratic Congress kingpin. Funny ridiculous! In my way of doing things, I will plead with people who cannot face up to the truth to stop reading as I do not want to be the source of somebody’s cardiac arrest. However, if anyone should read this article and decide to brand me with any unprintable and offensive lexicon known in the English Language, they are welcome to exercise their full, inalienable and undeniable freedom of speech. I would like to implore those who may appreciate the truth in this article not to wage any ethnocentric war of insult. It will not do anyone any good. Let people pour their venomous insults on me hiding behind fictitious names but the day of reckoning is not that far away—and I speak of 2012!

Once upon a time, the NPP found itself in power with so much goodwill of the people of Ghana that, they were deluded into thinking there was no dog chance the NDC would come back to power! As to whether the NPP’s hubris (hamartia) of entertaining such a thought proved fruitful is there for politicians, various opinion leaders and historians to apportion countless reasons why the NPP is now in opposition. We are in 2010 and various views have been duly expressed by both the pro- and anti-NPP concerning NPP’s demise in the 2008 General Elections. Many stalwart NPP apologists have been beside themselves with rage and compunction to have toiled only for the NDC to unjustly benefit from the fruits of their labour—they allude to the oil money. If the hand of the clock could be turned back, the NPP would be righting all the wrongs they did instead of pretending everything was right when indeed, it was quite obvious that there were internal wranglings, imposition of candidates on certain constituencies and turning a deaf ear to momentous whinges.

Fast forward and forget the flashback. We are in 2010 and the NDC is in power! The events leading up to the villainous “Swedru Declaration,” the bloodstained manifesto with its numerous voodoo interpretations and other fatal reasons which cost the NDC the 2000 Elections united with a vertiginous height of arrogance and the refusal by any stretch of the imagination that any political party at all can lose elections—flaws which booted the NDC out of power in 2000 have resurfaced in 2010. Ola Rotimi had better checked the Yoruba proverb that: “When the frog in front falls into a pit, the rest take caution”. For, the NPP became too comfortable in their perch in power that they were deafened by the same errors which caused the NDC Election 2000. One would have thought that the NDC government that won the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in 2008 would have first all of learnt from its false step prior to the year 2000 and its immediate predecessor’s downfall in Election 2008. One would be wrong since the status quo persists!

Let us now examine the rookies of the NDC. The four individuals mentioned in this piece have—because of their hubristic attitudes and pronouncements—incurred the wrath of majority of Ghanaians that we have all been inundated with various articles and comments as to why Miss Bissiw, Messrs Ablakwa, Agyenim-Boateng and Quashigah are not fit to hold public offices. Some of these comments may be borne out of malice but a good number may be out of a genuine disquiet looking at how these distinguished (the word is used ironically) individuals have been spewing out cheap talks due to the their drunkenness with propaganda and their resolve to belittle the intelligence of the Ghanaian electorate. These people may be young and untried but the fact that the entire NDC and its big shots have decided to engage in self-indulgent politics and to insult our integrity must be properly analysed. I believe the NDC was elected to come and better our lots and execute effectively the “A Better Ghana” agenda which our poor ears are accustomed to.

Ghanaians have been sitting on a lethal time bomb which was waiting to detonate until the recent NPP Congress which saw the overwhelming pledge reposed in Nana Akuffo-Addo. In less than an hour, the NDC unleashed Honourable Richard Quashigah to initiate his usual propaganda chatter for which he has gained notoriety. It will be essential to bring Mr Quashigah on Planet Earth that his party is no more in opposition; and that Ghanaians have voted for the NDC to rule for a four-year term and realise the paradisiacal promises of making Gold Coast a better Ghana. Mr Quashigah did not disappoint as he went on to trivialise the NPP’s non-violent Congress because ex-president Kufuor had pronounced Nana Akuffo-Addo the winner in NDC’s Ghana before the Electoral Commissioner’s formal announcement. This was notwithstanding the fact that all the other contestants had conceded defeat which in effect, made the EC’s declaration ceremonial and redundant. His conundrum was the NPP’s supposedly inability to “religiously follow the dictates of election rules”. I do not condone Mr Kufuor’s misdemeanour however, the EC was just going to state the obvious so this was not an issue to make the headlines.

The demoralising thing here is the NDC’s diversionary tactics of doing misinformation which normally befits a party in opposition. This would not have been that serious but the fact that they have also added an infantile but jovial attitude to running the country makes me wonder as to whether we should not have the celebrated Bob Okalla and his legion of joke-tellers as president and ministers of Ghana. The pro-NDC newspapers decided to insult the intelligence of Ghanaians by fabricating a story which the fictitious Ananse will be proud to recount to the effect that there were wild jubilations at the seat of government and NDC party headquarters when Nana Akuffo-Addo managed to scoop an overpowering 77.92 percent of the Delegates’ votes! Quite incredibly, the NDC claims they would have been very anxious had Mr Allan Kyerematen won the elections! Dear reader, is this not tantamount to proposing what tactics an opponent can use in a duel against you?! I thought we voted for serious-minded politicians to build Mother Ghana and not people ready to engage in primary school political theories. The NDC was divided prior to the NPP Congress on which candidate of Nana Akuffo-Addo or Mr Kyerematen they wanted Professor Mills (is it really going to be Professor Mills?) to confront in the 2012 General Elections. This aptly caps the humour in the so-called mass excitement at Akuffo-Addo’s election.

The NDC really respects their chronological way of doing things; they were effectively building their rebuttals of what transpired at the NPP Congress and their mockery of Ghanaians to a crescendo. I need a copy of the NDC manifesto for Election 2008 to see if they had added, as an afterthought: “We will ensure that former president Kufuor is extremely vilified should he ever dare castigate the NDC”. The NDC has been lying in wait for something to do when Mr Kufuor launched a scathing attack on the Mills Administration; accusing it of the mismanagement of the Economy, “incarnate” corruption and the threatened atmosphere of freedom with the relegation to the background of the Rule of Law by the hitherto legendary foot soldiers.

The swiftness with which the NDC turned on Mr Kufuor on his “sacrilegious” remarks only follows the chronological order which they pursue in dealing with their opponents. Another conscript honourable minister who has been used mischievously for saying things that the substantive Minister of Information would not normally summon the courage to utter was dispatched. Honourable Ablakwa, the usual scapegoat and suspect swung into action and with the same venomous comments he had once observed on ex-president Rawlings, he repeated the propaganda effectively peddled in 2008 that Kufuor had exploited state funds to renovate his private residence; that he had abused his position to buy a hotel for his son and presented other points to buttress his point on Kufuor’s so-called sordid corruption record. In all this, what saddened me was that the allegations had been cleared by the CHRAJ (Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice). Yet, it had been trumpeted repeatedly and given a semblance of truth. But what was more disheartening was Mr Ablakwa’s admonition to Mr Kufuor to desist from making unprovoked attacks on the Mills Administration. This was nicely captured in a Myjoyonline news headline of 09/08/2010 entitled “Ex-President Kufuor to watch his mouth”.

There are a few points I would permit myself to make here before I proceed. I should like to know if the indecorous reproach to ex-president Kufuor cannot be construed as an attempt to gag his freedom of speech which supports his (Mr Kufuor’s) claim of the threatened atmosphere of freedom. Then, we should also question Mr Ablakwa’s action of being uncouth to Mr Kufuor, an act which is un-Ghanaian towards a man who can father him. And we need to query the aggressive nature of the NDC towards Mr Kufuor if they kept mute over Mr Rawlings’ calling some of the NDC members as greedy bastards, adding he was not going to sit down for people to extend their corrupt practices. Mr Rawlings told the cadres in 2009 at Prempeh Assembly Hall to go to the castle and ask that man who only listens to Prophet T.B. Joshua when asked which people he was alluding to. Perhaps, Mr Rawlings was provoked and hence his rants were expected. Oh Ghana!

Nevertheless, when the rookies of NDC have finished setting the agenda did their gurus go to town! The scene opened with Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, NDC’s General Secretary affectionately known by his military accolade of General Mosquito. He blurted out a catalogue of his own views of the squalid realities of Kufuor’s Administration, enumerating instances of Kufuor’s excellent corruption record among other flamboyant accusations. His conclusion leaves an indelible impression on my memory when as the official mouthpiece of the NDC, he says: “We are waiting for President Kufuor to come back and we will deliver our next set of arsenals”. In the same vein, Honourable Enoch Teye Mensah joins in the whole caboodle. Like unwanted spare tyres used only when needed, NDC foot soldiers are called upon by Mr E T Mensah and charged with the admirable task of propagating Miss Gizele Yajzi’s confessions. I commiserate with these foot soldiers who are badly threatened and condemned when they seize toilets and lock up NHIS offices but are the first to be called upon to do the NDC’s dirty work!

I cannot possibly conclude this article by leaving out Honourable Hannah Bissiw. I do not know her personally but I believe she is a lady. Her abysmal performance on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo programme on 03/08/2010 painted the picture we normally see of village girls—I say this without impropriety. Apparently, she was not happy with Miss Ursula Owusu’s vivid portrayal of the NDC’s alleged distortion of facts, its insensitivity to the plight of the people of Swedru when economic activities were hampered by a collapsed bridge after a flood and rebuking them for taking undue credit of the throw-the-police-into-frenzy Single Spine Pay Policy. Kwami Sefa-Kayi had to intervene but the resolute Hannah Bissiw will not be deterred. Minus the piece of cloth usually tied at the waist of village girls, the little multi-coloured blouse, the chewing-stick and the irritating chewing-gum, Miss Bissiw was the very byword of these girls ready for a verbal brawl with sharpened lips as they say in Ghana via the politics of insult.

In conclusion, these are a few instances of the trivial politics and the act of the rookies we are witnessing in Ghana. I am asking politicians to learn the difference between propaganda when in opposition and working to realise campaign promises once in government. I believe that if a government performs very well and fulfils its promises while in power, electorates do not really need convincing. I would also like to remind these young politicians to remember that they are Ghanaians and should not discard our timeless traditions of displaying reverence towards the elderly. These politicians should ask what their fates will be should another political party replace the NDC in 2012 or 2016. Will Okudzeto love to go through the same plight of Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng? History is not just written to recount past events but as measures from which to learn lessons. Could Mr Ablakwa have said the same loutish stuffs when Mr Rawlings descended on Professor Mills and others calling them greedy bastards and corrupt? Why is he now showing his manliness towards Mr Kufuor? It is quite clear that the foot soldiers and former cadres would have asked for his blood or simply hounded him out of the deputy information ministerial position which has given him the audacity to insult Kufuor and others. Finally, these young men and women may have attended Dr Anthony Aidoo’s Ideological School of lose talks and acute foul language but can they face the consequences of utter disrespect and vituperations in future when they are out of power?

Legalising "Galamsey" in Ghana

2010-08-15T23:53:00.000-07:00

It is both ignoble and depressing to note that one cannot comment on any issue—economical or environmental—without stepping on political toes. But how can one dissuade himself from talking politics when politicians only mount on stage and blurt out promises in the most negligent manner? The spate and upsurge of illegal mining, known in Ghanaian parlance as “Galamsey” is both distasteful and monstrously immoral. And to learn that it became an electoral pledge during the frenzy of the 2008 elections only confirms that the only thing politicians cannot do is to change sexes of humankind! For, promising to allow galamseying in Ghana, a country already suffering from the obnoxious effects of this canker, is tantamount to promising orderliness in an already chaotic hell.

The clandestine activities of galamsey bring in its wake economic, environmental, human, health and social problems to the society and the country as a whole. Looking at these problems and the overall costs of galamsey, it is quite incredible to see politicians adding it to their catalogue of electioneering promises on campaign platforms. This leads to the conclusion that politics is all about winning power at all costs; just promise anything that will bring power. If anything said on political platforms is meant to help politicians gain votes, then we are in trouble. For instance, if a politician goes to a community which has gained notoriety for anything criminal, all that he has to do is to promise to legalise it to win the votes of that community. By this analogy, a politician who goes to another community known for armed robbery only has to promise to make it legal!

Now, let us examine what really pushes people into the dangerous service of galamsey. Social injustice is the first reason that forces people into such a deadly venture. I am not going to develop this point as the fact that there exist a countless number of towns and villages with no employment at all. All the major companies look at the regional capitals and the capital city when they are setting up. As a result, jobs are concentrated in the capital cities so people in the hinterlands are meant to find in galamseying a gainful employer no matter how abhorrent this employer is. In addition to this social injustice is the problem of general genuine jobseekers. Look at the streets of the major cities of Ghana if you happen not to know the meaning of unemployment. Therefore, the scale of unemployment (for not everybody is ready to sell dog chains on the streets) pushes genuine job seekers into illegal mining.

However, mention must be made of the apparent accusations being levelled against mining companies in certain gold-rich communities like Obuasi, Prestea and Bogoso. Some galamseyers argue that their lands have been appropriated by mining companies and as they cannot farm, they must eat and hence, venturing into illegal mining: a case of a hungry man being an angry man. But some mining companies have taken upon themselves the policy of corporate social responsibility by which they are helping people go into agriculture as we see in the Western and Ashanti regions. This policy, as laudable as it is, has failed as more and more people are digging their own graves in collapsed tunnels. The simple rationale being that illegal miners do not see agricultural projects and ventures as a way of making money as farming in Ghana is unfortunately seen as an occupation for the poor.

Having looked at the causes of illegal mining, let us now look at some of the effects of this electioneering campaign assurance. The first point to consider is the human cost of galamseying. A lot of lives have been lost through illegal mining. As aforesaid, many people have been buried in the earth due to collapsed tunnels. These are tunnels normally dug using primitive methods and are normally, weakly supported by woods. Such tunnels which abound in mining communities can be defined as certain death but for the sake of living comfortably in this world, life is rendered worthless by the galamseyer as he may never return from “work”. In the Judgement Day when the sea gives up its dead so will the earth give up its buried illegal miners.

Furthermore, there is the health risk part of illegal mining to list. Basically, some of these illegal miners are illiterates. Consequently, they unknowingly use hazardous methods to process their gold. Mercury, the chemical used to process gold, is poisonous yet; these miners handle it as if it were some piece of cake. It is quite perturbing to see these miners inhaling the vapour of mercury from archaic boiling pots to purify their gold. The painful truth about mercury is that, like fire, it is a good servant to help purify gold, but it can be a bad master with lots of health problems. When discarded into streams, mercury builds up in fish consumed by locals. Mercury in humans can cause kidney problems, arthritis, loss of memory, miscarriages and psychotic reactions.

Moreover, one cannot turn a blind eye on the environmental vulnerability of illegal mining in the community and the country. Bulldozing the topsoil and trees, removing entire slopes, destroying streams and polluting groundwater are some of the environmental problems associated with illegal mining. We know that not every part of Ghana has access to potable water so what happens when these streams and rivers—which serve as drinking water in mining communities-- are polluted, when trees are haphazardly felled, when the land to be cultivated is devastated?

Briefly, we can talk about the economic hazards which outweigh the money these miners get. The trees felled will have to be replanted under very slow, expensive, time-consuming and tedious afforestation programmes. Illegal mining destroys tarred roads as some of the miners inadvertently dig their tunnels into road networks. These roads normally need millions or billions of cedis to repair. The cost cannot be estimated.

In July 2009, I went to the Western Region and I had the shock of my life! Obviously due to the immoral talks engendered by election fever, “legalised” galamsey was being practised in the full glare of Ghanaians. Galamsey (a Ghanaian lexical item for illegal mining) which used to be a covert operation was being practised in broad daylight! Some unpatriotic Ghanaians and their Chinese condoners were felling trees, removing the topsoil and digging with the most modern of digging equipments in search of gold. Taken aback, I tried to wake up from my nightmare! In all my life, I have seen illegal miners at work but with their primitive shovels and pickaxes, they could not cause much harm to the environment. There were Chinese men calling the shots with their conniving Ghanaian counterparts robbing Mother Ghana.

I do not say this because I have anything against the Chinese; I believe the world should be a one big continent with no boundaries. But can you imagine a Ghanaian replicating this same thing in China?—felling Chinese trees, digging up Chinese topsoil to get Chinese gold? Could someone tell me how many decades of imprisonment this Ghanaian is likely to get if by a stroke of good fortune, he escapes the gallows? I have read recently about Chinese men being arraigned before court for indulging in galamsey but the painful truth is that some very prominent politicians did promise Ghanaians the chance to excavate all over Ghana for our gold no matter the means they employ. And truth to tell, I do not see how a group of Chinese men could be destroying Ghana’s vegetation for gold if they were not authorised by some faceless politician!

I have been monitoring the progress of a lot of countries in Africa and the world. Ghana may not be rich but when one sits and considers the fact that anything which is buried into a Ghanaian soil germinates, we have nothing to do but to thank God with all our hearts. Maybe, we take this for granted because the grass is greener on the other side. But if the people of Chad, Niger, Mali, etc, had our kind of vegetation, they would perhaps have considered themselves in seventh heaven. The question we all ought to ask ourselves and our leaders is: are we ready, in our insensitive effusions, to turn Ghana into any of the aforementioned countries?

It is rather appalling that a thing or an action which exudes the propensity to obliterate Ghana to the detriment of future generations should be uttered on political campaign platforms and be given absolute approbation by followers of a political party with the goal of satisfying a few people in the short term. By human nature, we are all bound to look at our selfish interest first but, have we thought about what posterity will think of us or say when they come to realise that Ghana once had thousands of miles of forests, forest reserves and an uncountable water bodies but has become a desert because politicians promised to make it so.

Finally, illegal mining should be seen as a national problem and must be given the attention it deserves. Politicians should be brave to take bold decisions to save the country for future generations and not sacrifice what is good on the altar of political expediency. Having said that, I must also say that some people’s livelihoods depend upon galamsey. Taking it away from them is equal to condemning them to eternal starvation. Such an action, if not well thought out, could bring crimes with them—prominent among them is armed robbery. Thus, the problem of illegal mining and miners should be debated upon in Parliament. Mining companies should be encouraged to employ and train former galamseyers and give them jobs and not just disregard them as unemployable because they have no qualifications. And we should all be weary when politicians start with promises; we should think for ourselves: can they achieve what they are promising or do their promises make sense?

The Un-Apotheosis of Holders of MA, PhD, LLM, MSc, et al

2010-08-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

Giving credence to the truism of giving credit where it is due, I will endeavour to state that the self-acclaimed professors and our learned folks who flaunt their knowledge in general, and on the Queen’s English on various Ghanaian websites are prolific writers. The subtly humorous way of expressing the aforesaid adage is its Ghanaian rendition of praising the skunk for its formidable speed despite its repulsive odour! Following various opinions and contributions on our cherished websites, I must acknowledge that I am really envious of our learned fellows with their ideas and wealth of diction together with the lengthy suffixes of university degrees which follow their chosen pseudonyms and right names. However, in this piece, I will grapple with the abhorrent consensus that holders of the highest university degrees represent the crust of astute custodians of wisdom.

This write-up is dedicated to our most learned man who writes on Ghanaweb and Myjoyonline. I am somewhat exhilarated that the learned men are refuting the assertion that the educated few are cultured and custodian of sagacity due to the pernicious placards they have been posting on Ghanaian websites! It is a fact that Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe has come under incessant assaults both on his ideology and on his style of writing. A lady commenting on an article written by the Professor writes: “Please, write simple English”. With his ideas, it is clearly obvious that everyone has an opinion; but, nowhere is this saying prominent and truer than in Ghana and among Ghanaians! Then, his style of writing has been scrutinised by both the learned and the dubitably learned. As to why the ridiculously dumb mischievously pretend to be scholarly and flummox their brains with grammar against the compelling advice of Tony Lumpkin in Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, I am yet to unravel the mystery! But in spite of the flaws in humans and hence Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) “… to err is human…” Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe has yet to find empathy with most readers. This blatant neglect of Alexander Pope’s philosophy by many Ghanaians stems from Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe not being just any commonplace person but a fully-fledged university lecturer of the English Language!

As humans, we may not essentially sanction everything we read; most people may not essentially share our views and opinions, but this must not prevent us from respecting people in general. I do regard my superiors without fail because I am foremost an African and I believe that the best tradition must always go on unlike the barbaric human sacrifice, the nauseous decapitation of people to escort a king to the other world and an equally inhumane facial scarifications. Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe is really being mistreated by many readers on Ghanaian websites. The fact that he still writes about Ghana for Ghanaian readers makes me think that he is indeed a brave man! This remark stems from the aggression he has been sustaining and enduring (some people have even delved into the etymology of the first of his compound name and maintain that it is not Akan). Since many people are incisive in their own eyes, anybody who writes and expresses an opinion is bound, in one way or the other, to receive this sort of treatment. I am not into politics but if a political subject is worth commenting on for the general benefit of society, then I will not waver to do so. But the verbal injury on this man perhaps ought to teach him to examine his life. I know he may not intend to please anyone but he wants to be read which is why he writes on public forums and so behaving like the ostrich when tirades are rained on his person and his qualifications everyday is pathetic.

For Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe, what is disturbing is the fact that he is incessantly being attacked by both sympathisers of the NDC and the NPP—the two dominant political parties in Ghana. In a country which is ideologically entrenched and divided politically; where every incident is dissected along NDC and NPP lines, it becomes equally disconcerting when one is continuously maligned by members of his own party as if a divided house can stand! He recently had a slanging match with an NPP sympathiser and a regular contributor to Ghanaweb and Myjoyonline known by the name of Akilu Sayibu. Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe is loathed by Nkrumaists as he seizes the least opportunity to write derogatory articles about the enigmatic Dr Kwame Nkrumah; he is detested by the NDC due to his detestation of JJ Rawlings and is accumulating enemies even within his beloved NPP. But with his persistent diatribes on prominent members of a political party whose ideologies he claims to share leaves a sour taste in the mouth of most followers of the NPP. I always thought there existed a civil way of resolving misunderstandings with friends and opponents instead of resorting to articles loaded to the muzzle with vitriolic bombs. By criminally engaging in vilified name-calling of Dr Osei-Akoto and others to the extent of calling the other four potential flagbearers of the NPP the “Rascal Four” is a bit sickening to say the least.

However in all this, my whinge against Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, PhD, is his impenitent and perpetual fomenting and rekindling of ethnic debasement of some tribes in Ghana. It is extremely appalling that Professor-of-English Okoampa-Ahoofe has encouraged AGersis, Laryeah, Sarpong, etc, to rekindle and feed the flames of ethnicity which would have been clinically construed for racism in the West by these same writers who live in Europe and the US. It is quite horrendous that these people, who domicile in London, New York, Texas, and so on do not care a hoot about the repercussions of the articles they post on Myjoyonline and Ghanaweb; that the divisive ideas propounded in their write-ups can result in an ethnically-motivated rumpus whereas they live in peace and comfort in the US and the UK. I mean to ask my brothers and sisters who are always eager to play the tribal card to recoil from this mentality of earlier centuries. As a country which is struggling in these modern times with very dwindling fortunes, the last thing we need is the inflaming of ethnocentric passions by consistently debasing other tribes with prejudicial comments with impunity.

Africans have been fighting first as a united country and then as a united continent but we have become the Ghanaian adage of the forest. Far away, one could be deceived that all the trees are united until they get closer to realise that every tree is on its own. It does not amount to any Utopian view to request for a United Ghana—a United Africa is rather dreamlike and elusive! Many Ghanaians clamour for a United Ghana where all Ghanaians will speak with the same voice, respect each other as one people with the same fortune and destiny and fight for the progress of one another. If we are able to achieve this daunting but possible aim, we will be the best country in Africa if not in the world. Ghana was once compared to South Korea and Malaysia in terms of wealth; we will be peerless this time when it comes to unity—this is feasible and not Utopian! But how can we do this when our so-called enlightened men come together, not for progress and unity but for an inexplicable longing for retrogression and disarray? Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe and his likes—I have read a few on Ghanaweb and elsewhere—are destroying the morale of Ghanaians including punching gratuitous holes in the fabric which should bind us together.

I call on every right-thinking individual to condemn people like Professor Okoampa-Ahoofe, A Gersis, Laryeah, Lonto Boy, Justice Sarpong, etc and their practice of sowing seeds of disunity among Ghanaians without any reserve. The fact that such people hold PhDs, MAs, MScs, and so on should not hold us to sway. They may be enlightened but if they are not showing any good value for years of pursuance of higher education, then we should avoid them, their company and their venomous writings. Due to our peaceful nature, a lot of people have become complacent and are downplaying the Rwandan Genocide and the Liberian War as unfathomable events as far as Ghana is concerned. That is wanton optimism! We will be very wary were we all pessimists thinking that any impossible calamity can happen in our country. That way, we will definitely ensure that any cracks that have got the propensity to sink the country will be mended instantaneously.

I have already questioned our education system. Ghana seems to be producing so-called intellectuals whose logic is nicely expressed on paper but quite contradictory in reality. Else how can we allow the Okoampa-Ahoofes and people of their mentality to be debasing other tribes, displaying insolence towards people in authority and treating them like articles of repugnance?! And these are the learned men; the men full of knowledge that they should be empowered to pass it on to ostensibly empty heads! Must our education—an edification we are proud to brag about—not teach us to be tolerant, understanding, loving and at least rational? I call upon everyone that we should foremost see ourselves as Ghanaians and think along the following line: my brother is wrong in stealing; should I say stealing is a virtue because it is committed by my brother? If this simple contemplation is accurate, then what do we say about the rampant propagating of tribal hatred and demeaning of other ethnic groups by people from our various tribes as if there is anything to be gained from doing so?

It is about time we told those discordant elements within and without Ghana the truth about the deleterious effects of their ill-defined actions. It is high time we forged ahead in unity as a country so that voting along tribal lines, discriminating and stereotyping of other people can be a thing of the past. The time is right for our MSc, PhD, MA, LLM and DPhil holders whom we believe have attained a state of apotheosis to show us that education, being the key to success and inner liberation, has transformed them into gods. And if people who are meant to help us see the light (enlightened people) decide to conduct us into the very abyss of blinding darkness through a disobliging and disgusting mischief, then we should snub them! If anyone writes anything with a negative ethnocentric tone, we should all come out and condemn that person; we should not seek to do a pointless retaliatory exercise which will only exacerbate the situation in the long run.

To sum up, I should like all of us to ponder on the lyrics of Lucky Dube’s “Trinity” song. Deducing from that immortal song with its reconciliatory and gospel-like message, I will also say that our forefathers may have fought one another for domination, supremacy and wealth acquisition. In so doing, many may have been enslaved with minion tribes relegated to the background. The wounds of the past atrocities were not allowed to heal when the obnoxious slavery and inhuman colonial rule took over with its indelible effect of divide-and-rule. Fifty-three years after Independence, divide-and-rule which should have been thrown into the sea is still alive to our detriment as a country! Our generation should prove to the old one that we were wrong about each other just as Lucky Dube highlights the mistaken prejudices of both blacks and whites in his song. We have allowed the intellectuals in our society to attain the level of apotheosis by paying them the highest homage in the land. These few learned people with their litany of college certificates and degrees should desist from taking us back to the pre-colonial days. What is the worth of our edification if it only trains us to master a foreign language to the damage of ours and forces us to perpetuate ethnocentrism and ethnic cleansing?

JUDGING GAY PEOPLE

2010-07-24T02:56:00.000-07:00

The ardent followers of religion have always maintained that their guides—mainly the Bible and the Qu'ran—teach humility and compassion. These very holy books teach against judging others and about a dreaded day of reckoning where each of us will be held accountable for our stewardship on this earth, including the judgement we pass on others we view as unholy and infidel. The norm is that religious people are meant to live righteously, love their neighbours including their fearful foes and eschew hatred in all its shapes and forms. The Supreme Being has the final say as to who is deserving of His blissful eternal Kingdom! But must perceived righteousness serve as the basis for judging others and even lead to homophobic sentiments?

Contrarily to the contents of the holy books, some religious people seem to have conceived—quite against the Word of God—that some sins are greater than others. A lot suppose murder a bigger sin than adultery! It is extremely preposterous on the part of any religious connoisseur to apportion certain marks to certain sins without having access to God’s marking scheme. We would want to know who has seen God's plans; we equally want them to tell us how many points one loses for which sin. If nobody possesses God's thoughts on what sort of justice will be meted out for a particular transgression, then we would want to civilly wonder why many self-righteous folks are quite ready to judge others on marriage, religion and sexuality.

In fact, we should foremost stress the fact that we do not condone any sins in this world. We do appreciate our own ceaseless indiscretion for which we always ask the Holy Father for clemency. By now Jehovah, the Almighty Father, looks at us and notes how recalcitrant we are because of our penchant for sinning even when we have asked for pardon and vowed not to sin again only to return to the same sin for which we have asked for exculpation. If the Biblical contention that whoever falters at one point of the commandments breaks them all is anything to go by (See James 2:10), then we all have a long way to go! Like Jesus Christ asked those erudite Pharisees who were inclined to stone the adulteress if they were sanctimonious, we also ask modern-day religious fanatics who preach revulsion to do a self-appraisal before casting the first stone at gays.

Homosexuality is an eye sore. There is nothing as appalling as a man, without mincing words, sticking his manhood into the hairy and unsightly anus (a stinking place specifically created for the excretion of faeces) of another man and trying to derive pleasure from this abominable exercise! Such people need both spiritual and medical help for anything abnormal can be alleviated. In all fairness, homosexuality is very disgusting as men with this inexplicable peculiarity finish by having to wear pampers just like babies for the rest of their miserable lives as the stinking solids have nothing to hold them back due to the aberrant use of their anal organs and the "unnatural" objects inserted into them. If the dressing of ladies in this 21st Century which bares all to the extent of bringing down the Solomons of this world does nothing to gays but forces them to want to ravish flat-chested men through the backdoor, then we believe it would not be a mark of atrocity to ask that their mental faculties be verified!

Although there is something amiss with gays, however, when it comes to passing judgement as to what God will do to homosexuals, we need to ask what the Word of God says about judging others. The Bible—unless we read a different book—admonishes us against judging others for not only do we pretend to do God's work for Him; but we also give God the benchmark with which to judge us. It is always blatant that we tend to use very high standards (based on an assumed moral high ground) which we may never reach were we scrutinised in the same way when judging others. Why then do people—mere mortals to boot—try to presuppose the craftsmanship of God when their earthly righteousness is questionable and seen as filthy rags before God Almighty? And why do we elevate our level of criticism of others if we cannot pass the test were we put through the same system?

Over the decades, marriage has become a most important judging implement in the hands of many. A lot of ink has been poured on paper in arguments in favour of the fact that the institution of marriage was established by God when He put the first couple into the Garden of Eden. In essence, we are all descendants of Adam and Eve irrespective of our colour, race and creed. It is for this reason that we are quite bewildered to see people judging others based on their ethnicity, colour and race. There have been white supremacists in Europe and North America who have committed atrocities due to their detestation of inter-racial marriages. The British National Party, for instance, overtly abhors mixed marriages. There are similarly black people who hate people from their ethnic groups and countries from marrying black people from other ethnic groups and countries. How sad and pathetic!

There are so many controversial subjects; nonetheless, there has never been a matter more contentious that has dominated the latter parts of the 20th Century and is gaining notoriety for judgement and disrepute in the 21st Century than homosexuality. We have observed the posture assumed by heterosexuals when talking about homosexuality. And that stance is concerned with looking down upon gays as infidels who are ordained for certain destruction in the Biblical lake of fire. By so doing, these straight people do see themselves as superior beings who are very upright in the sight of God and can thus pronounce judgements on sexual sinners—they forget fornication and adultery are likewise sexual sins— who prefer anal satisfaction rather than vaginal bliss. But on what grounds do these straight people censure gays? They embark on that extraneous venture by quoting from the Holy Bible and the Holy Qu'ran!

Talking about religions, let us examine what Islam thinks about homosexuality. The Hadith indubitably condemns homosexuality by stating categorically that: "When a man mounts another man, the throne of Allah shakes". In the Bible, there are instances to substantiate why Christians condemn gays. After all, for this crime, God wiped out a whole city! Remember the people of Sodom and Gomorrah? In the New Testament, Paul's letter to the Romans actually sees same-sex relationships as God's punishment for humankind's reluctance to honour Him (God), our futile thoughts and idolatry (Romans 1:21-27). In this respect, people who proudly assume the title of Christians and Muslims must not become gays.

We hasten to place on record that the authenticity of the Hadith has been disputed by certain factions in the Islamic world. While the traditional orthodox Muslims assert the Hadith literature contains the bona fide sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, liberal Muslims have always doubted its validity. Talking about the accuracy of the Bible, it must also be affirmed that we have had different interpretations of the Bible because of the divisions in Christendom. The Roman Catholics think differently; the Jehovah's Witnesses see themselves as God's chosen people on the narrow path to inherit His eternal Kingdom whereas everybody else is on the broad way to everlasting damnation in Hell's flowing lake of fire! The Seventh-Day Adventists will beg to differ and the very numerous and still mushrooming Pentecostal and Charismatic churches will sway with what they read from the Bible that they are the real deal. In the end, there is so much rigmarole created by Muslims and Christians that, Darwinism is blooming to the discontentment and detriment of the so-called religions which claim to possess the key to life eternal. Indeed, Christianity and Islam covert-all-at-all-cost policy makes Buddhism, Hinduism and Atheism quite appealing because of their peaceful doctrines.

Moreover, the discrepancies which are evident in the two main religions in the world do not take anything away from Christianity and Islam. These two religions are divided by so many doctrines. Both maintain they are on the right path and that the other is wrong. This is the level affairs have been upheld until the imposing menace by homosexuality to obliterate the very fundamentals of their credence: faith for which some are prepared to die. Homosexuality and its concomitant homophobic outlook have become a common ground for the unanimity of Christians and Muslims! The recent furore in certain parts of Africa and the unremitting moralising of abhorrence towards gays have brought about violence which is the consequential effect of populism employed by politicians and most prominently by the clergy of both Christianity and Islam. In Malawi and Uganda, the topsy-turvy mass organisation to kill gays has been given loud affirmation by politicians after it was discovered that some men who moved in twos (we could not call them couples) were planning to tie the knot! In truth, if any of the homophobic morons had murdered any of the arse-wrecking guys, they would undeniably have escaped justice—they may never have even been arraigned before court!

Nevertheless, in Europe, the Anglican Church is ordaining Gay Bishops! Only the Christians and Muslims in Africa seem to be speaking with one accord. Homosexuality is therefore bound to create more divisions in Christendom that, in less than a decade there will likely be a church known by the sobriquet of "Gay for Christ International Church of God"! The great arsey-versey situation in the world at this moment is absolutely created by the fidus Archates of Christianity and Islam. Wanting to know the truth, we recently spoke to an even-tempered Muslim. From our conversation, one of the lessons drawn from Islam is that the Holy Qu'ran’s treatise about thieves having their hands chopped off, adulterers and homosexuals being stoned to death is not to be taken literally. According Afzar Ali, the rules and commandments and their mortally draconian retribution are meant to deter rather than sending sinners to early graves to be judged by the Creator. The point of the chastisement is irrelevant; the notion of the punishment should be enough to serve as a restraint to all and sundry. The commandments are comparable to knowing the effects of fire: if one knows it burns then one would not touch it!

This is where we pause to ponder. First, both the Bible and the Qu'ran argue quite convincingly that none of us was born a criminal. Ergo, if we find thieves, fraudsters, murderers, lesbians and gays in the world today, it is because the system is at fault. The blemish with the system means that we come into this world all innocent until immoral traits creep upon us and make us murderers, idolaters, homosexuals and so on. From the believer's point of view, the fellow with any tendencies towards homosexuality should seek spiritual remedy. Thus, we should offer prayers for gays that God takes away the unnatural feeling towards a fellow man from them. Those who do not have any trust in the spiritual must adopt a more holistic approach by seeking psychological and medical guidance.

What about Gay Bishops or Pastors then? Well, we may want to reiterate Paul’s philosophical musings to the Romans: God has given up people engaging in idolatry, swimming in frivolities and dishonouring Him to uncleanness to debase their bodies by engaging in deviant sexual acts. Learning from the Holy Writ, we can surmise that gays have no place in the House of God let alone lead His flock. In all honesty, gays should not be loathed but they ought to play by the rules of the game of religion. If they want to be Muslims or Christians, then they need to follow the commandments spelt out in the Bible and the Qu'ran. A fortiori, we can use a lame analogy of the game of football to buttress our point. An infringement is given against one's team if one handles the ball. But if one happens to be a mere spectator, this rule is definitely not binding. Thus, how can a gay become a Christian/Muslim and a bishop when they do not obey the decrees in the Bible or the Qu’ran?—an abuse of the rules of the game!

In the end, homosexuals need prayers, psychological directions and medical aids to help do away with their dissenting sexual desires. Gays should not be Christians/Muslims let alone become leaders of the church/mosque. They should have privileges but not the right to adopt. Elton John may be affluent enough to give a child a better life but is he a role model for an innocent child? And if everyone took it into their heads to be gays, who will give birth to children for Sir Elton John to adopt? Believing that homosexuality must be detested and not gays, we strongly revile without reserve any attempts to make the whole world a homophobic place for gays. Killing a homosexual will not exonerate the killer from the commandment which condemns murder. Homosexuality is both a sinful and perverted deviation from the norm but, like the other sins; they are habits we acquire due to lack of proper guidance and education. Christians who adopt holier-than-thou attitudes and judge gays should take the counsel of God to Ezekiel: namely; you tell the sinner to turn away from their sins. If you do not, then God will ask you for their blood if they perish. But you are not to judge!

Thomas Dickens

African Fathers and Father's Day

2010-06-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

We have noticed a great deal of ludicrous men who have taken the title of a "father" quite unjustly upon themselves. These men excite hilarity as their only pride is in the position and not the concomitant duties and responsibilities that come with fatherhood. We could effectively liken them to the condition of enjoying the pomp and pageantry of a position and not doing diddly-squat about the duties of the role. They are comical since they do disregard the reality that paternity is a long journey whose path is strewn with never-ending demands for commitment, love and responsibility. Now that the hubbub of the emergent Father's Day has come and gone, let us shed some light on fathers—we will concentrate on African fathers in this write-up—and find out if a lot of people who thump their chests and arrogate to themselves the meaningless class or new-found status as a father deserve the patriarchal appellation at all—if they have any right to taint the budding Father’s Day.

It is miserable to remark that many people who have become fathers are mere sperm donors in the end. And most unfortunately, this horrendous description is not a preserve of just African fathers but fathers wherever they are found. With most African men, the pregnancy with a girl may have been a sheer accident, out of wedlock and an unfathomable pleasure-seeking spree which went awry. Most of these men stumbled upon fatherhood because, in addition to their wives and fiancées; many of them allowed themselves to be fascinated by the adventure of sexual escapades which would have surpassed those of Tiger Woods, were they as popular as him to warrant some intrusive journalists into their private lives, monitoring their every move and recording their nocturnal libido activities.

Consequently, many a man has had children out of wedlock because of some of the reasons of accidental one-night stands, bizarre satyriasis and the sheer desire and fun to acquire concubines. Professor Mills has recently come under public scrutiny about a so-called out-of-wedlock child. Rawlings, and almost every public figure, including ex-president Kufuor, has been accused in a similar fashion. In Europe and the US, it has always happened when very prominent people in society have— on impulse and out of adventure and the desire to fall prey to their concupiscent urge—made unwanted babies with very credulous mothers. It must also be said that sometimes, some of the mothers have served open invitations to men who are ready to enjoy their “booties” and pour their seeds into any holes without thinking about the consequences of their actions. These irresponsible men for whom giddiness is both a watchword and an undeviating motto, forget that the seeds they plant in the bosom of these women—whether they were lured or they sought adventure— can and will gestate one day to expose their underhand sexual affairs.

However, many of these men who become or want to be known as fathers refuse to grow up and accept liability for their nebulous actions. It must be recorded that we are not in any way claiming to be perfect; but we understand that when errors are made, the floundering people should hold their hands up rather than taking some ridiculously immoral stances by feigning knowledge for their actions—an attitude which is quite prevalent in many fathers. Therefore as aforementioned, we find it incomprehensible when sperm-sprinkling idiots evade their responsibilities when what they have sown has grown to expose their hidden activities. This normally arises from the acrimony and mortification their secret accomplishments convey; which is why they only express anger, brainless regrets and then, they cap it by rejecting the offspring which emanates from their three-minute pleasures. Does anyone wonder why there are so many fatherless children in this world and particularly Africa? With the exception of those who become orphans because their conscientious, loving and doting fathers die early, many fathers utterly and blatantly refuse to accept their out-of-wedlock children. How many times have we not heard people intimating that some prominent person is their father who refused to care for them? The lurid insensitivity which some of these fortuitous fathers display at law courts to prove that they are not answerable to pregnancies is quite repugnant! In most cases, Nature has always demonstrated it does not connive by giving the man in question a baby which is anything but his photocopy!

But the irony of the whole situation is when these men come back to lay some tenuous claims to these progeny who were once outcasts. This happens when they detect that; the hopeless bastard they brought into the world has—by a freak and unnatural twist of Providence—prospered. There have been many examples of semi-orphans and fatherless children who have been blessed to the utmost infamy and derision of their fathers that; the once proud men who did not want to know anything about the so-called illegitimate children have been diffidently forced to go back and ask for reprieve. There was the recent media hype concerning Michael Essien and his apparent neglect of his father. Rumours abound regarding the fact that his father decided to use his money wisely on alcohol and the fairer sex. This is just information being churned out by the rumour mill and as such, we may only know the truth from the two horses’ own mouths but we cannot downplay the recurrence of numerous real-life stories a la the Essien saga which support our contention.

Besides, many of these fathers have always belittled the girls they have impregnated by accident. This is why they express the rather senseless resentment, the gibberish regret and then refusal of their own blood. Parents of some of these fathers will normally want to disown their children for engaging in illicit sexual activities with girls who could be better described as riff-raffs par excellence. The fear for this sort of denunciation coerces them into making every effort to deny responsibility for the pregnancy even when it has been proven beyond all misgivings. Some of them will idiotically placate themselves by not looking after the child they bring into this world because they feel superior to the girls they impregnated. To them, having any sort of affiliation (sexual connection especially) with such a woman is an affront to their high-class standards. But as men, we must realise that if one is a graduate and decides to have fun with some poor groundnut seller, the graduate either brings himself to the level of the poor girl or elevates the girl to his status. Thus, he should definitely acknowledge whatever happens after the sexual pleasure whether there be an unwanted baby or not.

The African father has an extreme obsession with many things but with his wife and children. The things which preoccupy the minds of African men are the lottery (how they can win cheap money), palm wine in public places coupled with the dexterous game of draughts, football, almighty politics and most unfortunately women—in spite of the fact that they may have two or more wives already and with a countless number of girlfriends. The African father is both interesting and humorous. Pay a visit to the palm-wine selling place and you could be addicted to the place at once! Usually, the palm wine selling place is a wall-less dirty hut roofed with thatch which possesses a synthetically invincible stench of palm wine. Going hand-in-hand with that intoxicating liquid which also produces the most potent liquor known by the alias of "akpeteshi" and many other droll monikers is the game of draughts. It is always said that chiefs should not play this game and we all know why. Some fathers can spend the whole day playing this game, quaffing the potent whitish liquor which is extracted from the palm tree while casting outrageous insinuations and innuendos, very effective insults and contemptible revelations of offensive secrets. When you happen to have skeletons in your cupboard, do not go playing this game as the keys to those cupboards are kept with members of this all-important drinking-cum-gaming committee.

The next fixation of African men is the different workings and permutations of the National Gambling Machinery, to wit, the lottery. Most of them are as conversant with this game as they are with the palms of their hands. The mental sharpness of the African man denotes his mathematical prowess when it comes to predicting the lotto—a feat which only Nature can explain! Just in case they are not at work, not watching football, drinking the indefatigable palm wine or bickering about politics, these fathers are speculating on the possible outcome of the lotto numbers. The lottery paper makes me think that Ghanaian fathers should be invited to the World Mathematics Association, if any such group exists. Even the most illiterate of African men can sit, work out and possibly forecast the right numbers. They could write their own Mathematics books based on the National Lottery. From where they are able to get the formulae, only their Intelligent Quotient can tell but it works! We may safely intimate that most of them have got the IQ of Colin Powell when it comes to this gambling game.

Not belabouring the point on women, we will take on the next passion of African men. And it is sports! Football is almost the epicentre of African fathers’ lives. Ask them about football and they can give you very accurate information about the inception of the World Cup, all the different Leagues in the world, the names of all the best players in the world including those who have won the FIFA World Player of the Year Award, the numerous winners of the Golden Boot Award including players' biographies. They can tell you about the number of kilometers per hour Pele's shot travelled in a World Cup match and the size of Ronaldo's boots. Yet, these fathers are in a continent where half of the men do not know their daughters’ birthdays or their wedding anniversaries. We can state on authority that the behaviour of these men is not dictated by the lack of brilliance. The simple grounds for our argument stems from the fact that these men can recite the Bible by heart, tell with impressive precision the width of the River Nile, enumerate all the capital cities and population of every country in the world; not forgetting their expert knowledge about presidents of the United States from Washington to Obama. But, we lament the social disconnection from their mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and in some cases even from their fellow men.

Dejectedly, men in general do not know what to do with children. Scores of African men have the vigour and the sexual drive to father an entire village of children, but they seldom know how to raise those children. Showing up at their children’s Graduation Day, Sports Day or even taking their children to the hospital is regarded as a frivolous expedition. African fathers inherit this character trait from their parents and progenitors. They have no idea what it means to be hugged or loved by their own fathers and so they accept this as part of their tradition which must not be toyed with under any circumstances. This is why we would like to question African men’s insatiable craving for education. An African man has more university degrees than an American, European or Japanese by foraging and combing the world for the best type of edification. They have detached themselves from social networks and relocated thousands of miles away in pursuit of education. But, the real question is what has that education done for Africa? Some men in Africa have a dozen degrees; scores of diplomas, a shedload of certificates and multiple PhDs. However, education for most African men has become an inopportune tool for daunting others and transforming them into braggarts rather than giving them an inner emancipation. One of the reasons why the Nobel Prize has fewer Africans and more Europeans and Americans is that Africans are still doing their theses while the others are in the laboratory and on the ground practising what they have learnt.

At this juncture, we would like to request for the highest esteem for womanhood. We do not want to accept the erroneous impression that, asking one’s wife how her day was is more cumbersome than asking her if dinner is ready. Many are the men who demand respect but forget that respect actually thrives on the law of reciprocity. The only time most men show respect to their wives is when they are in the presence of their wives’ relatives. They are very good at name-calling as long as those words are not sweetheart, sweetie, love, sugar, baby or honey. In effect, they treat women like slaves. Therefore, we will entreat African fathers to learn to communicate with their wives, children and neighbours. Speaking only when angry is what results in yelling. And being able to say sorry to only an officer of the law is never a civilized way of being a man. For lack of respect, some men compel their wives to work until their faces wrinkle; until their hands blister; until they have no desire to look beautiful to anyone. And when they have succeeded in achieving their nefarious endeavour, they turn around to hound a very lazy gold-digger whose unmistakable splendour stems from her doing no work at all.

Nevertheless, this article is not an indictment on all African men. Africa has produced some fine men, great scholars and parents who have contributed to the welfare of society. We can enthusiastically mention Nkrumah, Danquah, Mandela, Annan, Lumumba, Kenyatta, Soyinka, Achebe, Toure, Boigny, etc. These men have liberated Africa from its historic shackles; they have fought imperial powers that colonised not only the continent, but the African mind. We express our profound and heartfelt gratitude to these men. We are appealing to African men to put away their extreme views of politics away a bit and monitor how the proponents and inventors of Democracy conduct politics. If the passion African men put in their football and politics is the same zeal they put in their women, they would be the yardstick for measuring other men. Human rights in Africa are just another academic work. Children across Africa are still child soldiers, street children and “child parents”. All this while, African leaders—majority of whom are men—fly around in luxury, disconnected from society, content with the misuse of power with impunity. Systems in Africa abuse women and children but celebrate mediocre men who are otherwise called politicians. These same systems ridicule men who appear like women only because these men care and are connected with their gentle side.

We do not intend to malign or attack anyone; we only mean to open a dialogue that African men have shelved for decades. We would like to remind these men that times have changed and it is time they addressed this area of their lives. The ceaseless cries of women have regrettably been deafened by the bouncing echoes of the successes of these men. Or is it really success? Fathers' Day should be celebrated but it should only be in honour of those who fulfill their fatherly duties so that it can also gain the same eminence like the hitherto debauched Valentine's Day. We are not offering any suggestions on how to become a good father as we believe African men know the right thing but lack the courage. Consequently, we want to encourage them. We have a philosophy that every boy or man can be a dad but it takes a great man to attain the level of fatherhood. We do not dispute that such men do exist but the trouble is they are the exception rather than the rule. This explains why we are optimistic this article will spark a discourse that will positively affect the next generation so that they are better than the current one.

Who is Man's Worst Enemy?

2010-06-13T05:56:00.000-07:00

The pros and cons of the argument as to whom or what should be perceived as man’s worst enemy have raged on for centuries and there is still no end in sight. Many are the great thinkers who have propounded their theories backed by very authentic illustrations supporting their thoughts on this subject. Those motivated by the Christian faith have held the belief that His Majesty Lucifer is man’s worst enemy. Other thinkers have maintained it is greed--Radix malorun est cupiditas: to wit, greed is the root of all evils. Some have blamed pride, others women. I once read that a man’s greatest weapon is his mind but, his worst enemy is his mouth. In my view, however, after an extensive, profound, careful observation of man, I can state that man’s sexual desire is certainly his most powerful and deadly enemy.

This issue has been well documented and the argument could now be rekindled agreeing or differing with our adored truth-seekers. Money has proved a very worthy customer when talking about man’s bitterest enemy; so has greed which has driven others to kill for money. The devil has also done his best in terms of proving he is man’s worst enemy: he denied Adam the earthly Paradise through deception and as triumphant as the devil has been, he has been constantly held culpable when he has not even thought of a particular sin. However, one cannot discount women when it comes to the search of man’s worst enemy looking at the seeds of discord they normally sow between the best of friends to make them the worst of foes to the disintegration of families, making brothers perpetual adversaries.

First of all, the idea that our sexual volition is our mortal enemy can be traced to the origin of the Garden of Eden. Although the Bible intimates that the downfall of Adam and his subsequent expulsion from the Terrestrial Paradise was the consequence of his eating of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, some religious enthusiasts have always maintained that the story is metaphorical. In reality, these pious men attribute the loss of the Eden garden as being the consequence of a sexual intercourse between the very first couple —an event which the Bible blatantly refuses to expatiate on. It thus, means that our enmity with our sexual drive dates back from Adam.

For those who shore up the notion that women are the source of man’s misfortunes may also have a point. After all, they can back it up with the figurative tale of the Garden of Eden as Eve was the pulling power who led Adam and mankind into eternal damnation if indeed mankind lost the Garden through coitus. They normally point out that it is women who whet men’s sexual appetite. What with women westernising themselves these days with some of them showing their boobs and other sumptuous bodily parts in public which indeed should be displayed in hidden places! The desperate attempt by some women to feel and look sexy with its concomitant obscene way of dressing that bears all is always potent to knock every man off his feet (including very religious men). Nonetheless, our sexual craving can be metaphorically likened to car or a horse—it can be controlled. It is when we refuse to control it—when we succumb to its never-diminishing influence-- that it veers us off the right path.

Yet, man has always been incapable, since time immemorial, to properly and constructively conduct his sexual yearning. This case has been since the beginning: Adam could not control it; nor could the blessed David be in command of his eroticism as he took the wife of one his generals and shortly after cleverly organised his death.The wisest Solomon, in spite of his astuteness, had a ridiculous number of wives and concubines. There are an uncountable number of examples of men who have all crumbled in the face of this mighty tyrannical antagonist—their sexual urge. Certain men of God have experienced the same fate as Adam due to their sexual inclination but some of these godly characters justify their sexual sins by the same Bible by which they revile all vices—a case which makes sense of the Shakespearean axiom that the devil can cite scripture for his purpose. In the end, these religious men wallow in the vice they are meant to admonish us against.

It is worthy to note how our lust has haunted and continue to nag us in all spheres of life. By this insatiable sexual pleasure, some men in responsible positions have lost their sense of impartiality. What do you think of the Managing Director who employs his staff, especially the women, with the sexual relations he can have with them at the back of his mind? This seems to be the new phenomenon in many countries. Can you consider the teacher who grades his female students not because of the content of their work but by the content of their ravishing corporal parts?! Most of us have been witnesses to this problem but have had to cast silly innuendos against these offending tutors.

It was exactly his sexual longing which brought about the fatal end of president-dictator Sani Abacha. His detractors were looking for the most potent way of eliminating him, having failed through a coup d’etat and poisoning. Having cudgelled their brains for years and finding no easy way out, they happened to try the simplest of all solutions in the end to eliminate Sani Abacha: to bring some of the most gorgeous ladies from India to seduce him and then poison him. Under the tutelage of his sexual gratification, Abacha was immediately behaving like the proverbial billy goat who smiles only after inhaling the urine of the nanny goat. Thus, the downfall and the resulting death of Abacha came easily after a few minutes but his death is blamed on a heart attack!

A headline story “Sex Scandal Rocks Presbyterian Church” was carried on Peace FM’s website on the 19th of May about an alleged sexual transgression involving one Doris Sobre, a female administrator and some leading members of the Presbyterian Church. Prominent among the suspected sexual offenders was the District Pastor, Reverend Kissiedu Ayi whose main defence was captured in the platitude “… mere fabrications by a faction in the church…” to tarnish his reputation. The next day, the ramifications of the same headline story had reached a crescendo where the administrator whose sexual escapades brought about the furore was given the sack. The Bible cannot be mistaken when it declares judgement will start in the house of God. For, if the men who are to conduct the Lord’s sheep into His Holy pen decide to lead them to the lair of a pack of hungry lions, then we are doomed. It is quite unequivocal that these men of God are watching and benefiting instead of watching and praying. What is quite baffling is when Reverend Ayi blames his predicament on a “faction” in the church who wants to cast a slur on his good name. Why must there be a faction in the church? – a place which is meant to be a sanctuary and a refuge to the afflicted; a place of worship and a place of togetherness and one accord all in the name of God.

George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm that: “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others”. We all know that we are not all equal before the law but nobody thought it will be so glaring and ludicrous when two people commit the same felony.

Captain George Mfodjoh (Retired) and a man whose alias is Kumasi Rambo engaged themselves in some unsavoury sexual bouts of epic proportions. The former is a law-maker in Ghana’s Parliament charged by his constituency to make laws to punish bad people of which rapists are not exempt. The latter is your normal well-built neighbourhood bully who acts as he pleases. The law-maker finds himself in a sexual mood. He checks around and sees a poor girl; he pounces on this girl, seizes her by the neck, and with a pistol to her head drives her home and assaults her sexually without using a condom—after all this is not a heinous crime since he is a legislator. Kumasi Rambo on the other hand catches a poor girl running to catch a bus and in a brutal manner like we normally witness in Hollywood films, drags this girl begrudgingly to a drinking-bar in front of everybody, grabs a condom from nowhere like a magician and in broad daylight quenches his sexual flame by acting a pornographic film before scary but attentive people reeling between awe and pleasure.

The remarkable thing was while the Rambo was disgraced (of course he blamed the devil for his libido), arrested, charged and finally sentenced to 30 years imprisonment using the laws made by the Captain and his colleagues, the captain was exempted from the incongruous court system which wanted to trial him. The Rambo was a menace and a social misfit who was a great encumbrance to society and so he deserves his 30 years imprisonment. But the Captain is needed in parliament to ensure good laws are enacted so that confounded scoundrels like Rambo can be removed from our neighbourhoods. It is gratifying to realise that colleague legislators of Honourable Mfodjoh acted to allow good sense to prevail. How could any judge worth his salt sit on a preposterous case like that with the purpose of finding the honourable man guilty because he has entered uninvited the legs of a riff-raff who is required by law to open her legs for the facile entrance of prominent people like the Member of Parliament for Ho Central? The collusion by colleague MPs beggars belief, but the fact is that the laws of Ghana are made to punish people like truck-pushers, farmers, masons, carpenters and the common man and not an MP!

In the end, a study of man can really show that maybe Satan, woman, greed and money are his enemies but they are not as deadly as his sexual volition. Envy, enmity, incompetence, mediocrity and injustice are the vices which co-exist with our libido. And if man believes in God and His Holy Scriptures, it is definitely this uncontrollable sexual inclination which will conduct all of us to hell if there be one. And no matter how convincing our outward holiness is, it is these secret sexual immoralities in private places that “will come before the judgement seat of Christ”! For, if God is a just God—and we know He is—and He did not spare the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, do we think He will pardon those of us who have had the benefit of learning from the downfall of these people?

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

2010-06-08T03:43:00.000-07:00

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

The 1979 Revolt: a Candid Opinion

2010-06-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

The widely acknowledged adage that opinions are like noses seems credible and true. But nowhere is this saying truer than when it comes to the June 4 Uprisings. The tabloids were littered with various media reportages with headline revisits mainly from pundits in the Ghanaian political background. As usual, the internet and websites with Ghanaian connexions were not spared the blighting bills and pernicious placards called articles with various divergent views on the Revolution. Comments posted by readers normally and miserably either had an Umbrella prefixed to them or had an Elephant transmitting them. I would like to begin by issuing a very uncompromising admonition to those dawdler brains who serve as the means of letting the Elephant out of the zoo or the forest and likewise to those daft ones who are always eager to expose the rather dirty Umbrella in public.

This article seeks to bring about a very sombre reflection—devoid of party politics—upon the momentous events of May and June 1979—incidents which from where one stands, have made or marred Ghana. I invite discerning readers to rid themselves of party politics and make a dispassionate assessment of the incipient events which led to the unrests of 4th June 1979. Once again, I would like to admonish readers that this piece is not meant for the dogmatists of the anti-dogmatists who may represent the twilight of dubiety and whose logic often becloud the effulgence of their intellectual superiority. I have not the slightest resolve to give any dog chance to questionable characters, who united with the requisite modicum of humbug of hypocrisy and perhaps sycophancy, are always ready to descend into the humdrum comments about the 1979 Revolution. I will entreat you to stop reading if you happen to fall into this category.

Honestly, nobody can deliberate on and do ample justice to the 1979 Insurrection without considering all the other coups d’etat, from Ghana’s first of 24^th February 1966 to the palace coup which replaced the Supreme Military Council 1 with Supreme Military Council 2 after converting itself from the National Redemption Council. The first coup led by General JA Ankrah ended the reign of Dr Nkrumah and possibly his illustrious life. Any coup which topples a legitimate government must be condemned in no hesitant terms—no matter the wrongs of the democratic government. But we cannot behave like the ostrich when it comes to expressing our views. Dr Nkrumah is arguably one of the greatest sons Ghana has ever had but factually, his blunders of turning Ghana into a one-party state, the precariously clandestine activities of the Youth Wing of the CPP, the rather obnoxious Preventive Detention Act of 1958 which sent Dr J B Danquah into a premature grave among others unfortunately fertilised the grounds for his elimination.

The conspiracy theorists have constantly blamed Dr Nkrumah’s demise on the West, especially the US. However, the heroic worship and adoration Dr Nkrumah experienced in his early days as a leader degenerated until he came to represent an antagonist instead of an African hero. This was mainly due to some of the reasons enumerated in the preceding paragraph. Again, his downfall mirrored the discrepancy between his election promises of democracy and liberty and the reality of life under his leadership. For instance, the PDA of 1958 gave the Police absolute powers which led to tyranny. Therefore, even if the US had a hand in his overthrow, Dr Nkrumah more or less contributed to his own downfall like a tragic character. The general mood of Ghanaians especially when Dr Nkrumah declared himself “President for Life” in 1964 was that of despair. In a tribute to Dr Nkrumah, Lt. Gen Afrifa summed up the mood of Ghanaians thus: “Nkrumah could have become a great man. He started well, led the independence movement and became, on behalf of Ghana, the symbol of emergent Africa. Somewhere down the line, however, he became ambitious, built a cult of personality and ruthlessly used the powers invested by his own constitution. He developed a strange love for absolute power”. A lot of Nkrumaists will take this with a pinch of salt but looking at events in those days will persuade everybody that, what Afrifa said holds a bit of water. But can anyone comment on the 1979 Insurgency forgetting that; events which brought Dr Rawlings into the political limelight began as far back as 1960 when Lord Listowel left the shores of Ghana with Her Majesty’s representatives?

Sadly, however, the 1966 coup did not conclude the military’s unsolicited intervention and subsequent involvement in Ghanaian politics. Perhaps, if the military had conceded that democracy was the way forward for Ghana, Flt Lt Rawlings would never had ventured into politics. Somehow the military found faults with the democratic government of Dr Busia and Edward Akuffo-Addo as untenable. Consequently, a second coup in Ghana’s political history surfaced. Well, the National Liberation Council could not liberate Ghanaians nor could the National Redemption Council redeem anyone. But I can say on authority that if any coup—of course all coups are illegal—legitimised the appearance of Dr Rawlings and made the 1979 Mutiny inevitable, it was undoubtedly the SMC and the despicable military government of Gen Ignatius Kutu Acheampong! What with the corrupt practices which engulfed the whole country, bad economic management, “Kalabule” and the much-touted sex-for-car policy this man and his government instituted! The mass poverty, injustice and the extreme and indescribable abuse of office only justified the uprising of 4^th June 1979. Indeed there is not a single military government which is not tainted with widespread encouragement and endorsement of corruption.

It must be understood that I am not in any way justifying the wrongs and perceived transgressions of Dr Rawlings. The point of this piece is about the 1979 Uprising and not Dr Rawlings’ whole political life. I know someone who lived in the 70s and loathed Rawlings with all his heart, soul and spirit. One day, however, he conceded that the coming of Dr Rawlings was both invigorating and expected. Thus, to do a proper appraisal of Dr Rawlings and his eternal June 4 Movement, without any iota of bigotry, one must have lived in the 70s or must have been given very accurate and unprejudiced facts by somebody who lived in that decade. For a sworn nemesis of Dr Rawlings like Kwaku Baako to reiterate even in 2010 his enduring support for the 1979 Revolt and going on to describe it as “unavoidable” should get all of us thinking. Unlike the usual apologists, I would like all of us to mull over the upheavals of 1979 in terms of both its gains and its regrettable excesses and not just one of them.

By deposing Nkrumah and Busia in 1966 and 1972 respectively, the perpetrators benefited immensely. Most of the leaders of those coups and their members promoted themselves in a twinkle of an eye. Most changed ranks with the flick of a finger; from being colonels to Lieutenant Generals and Generals. Looking at various blatant acts of both encouraged and sanctioned corrupt practices including self-enrichment, it is quite right to say that perhaps, all those who were executed deserved their fate. The heat of the moment must also be considered when discussing June 4 which shaped the country’s political landscape. A few people got so stinking rich that, they could hardly tell whose magnificent munificence brought them the wealth. Some owned expensive properties because of their affiliations to the NLC, the NRC and its metamorphosed SMC. Above all, it can be argued that the Revolution brought about the nation’s awareness to its social responsibilities. A lot of people must have been thinking what awaited anyone who raped the country: probity and accountability was going to catch up with everyone.

All said and done, it will be a travesty of justice and a mockery of common sense if the fatal and regrettable overindulgences of the 1979 Insurrection are ignored. In the same vein of talking about things impartially, the disrespect of our cultural set-up where the elderly were remorselessly whipped in public and made to do tediously back-breaking exercises, women stripped naked and publicly horsewhipped in-between their legs, the confiscation of assets of industrious people, the devastation of businesses and so on must be sadly mentioned. However, heaping all the blames on Dr Rawlings is unjustified. Psychologically, whenever there is a mob action or justice, cowards normally undertake very brave and daring acts. Do a flashback of school or university demonstrations and you will realise how some very calm people took the law into their own hands.

The final point is about the relevance of the June 4 Rebellion. Not to take anything away from the achievements of this crucial episode in Ghana’s history, it can be argued that the unrest of June 1979 was a bit uncalled for. The fact is that the country was being prepared for general elections following the massive rejection of the Union Government proposal by Acheampong meant to perpetuate the military in power. Though the referendum was rigged, Acheampong and his followers had to give in to the vehement will of the people. So contrarily to popular perception, it could be inferred that the June 4 Disturbances was not the sine qua non of democracy to Ghana. The consequent 1981 coup went against the pledge of the AFRC that June 4 was to end all coups. Unfortunately for Rawlings—and I must add that perhaps his worst resolution though he will not overtly admit it—he decided to topple Dr Limann’s government—a government he had helped put in place. This is because it is quite evident that; had he been patient, there is no doubt Rawlings would have won the next elections hands down, hugely owing to his popularity after his court speech and June 4.

In the final analysis, the most important question of all is as to whether the events of the 1979 Mutiny should be celebrated. The justification or denunciation of the 1979 Revolution has always been viewed from a political standpoint. Some have described the events as “morbid” due to the melancholic sentiments the Revolution evokes. It is quite comprehensible considering the lives which were lost. Upon a sober reflection, I feel those who milked the country dry—though deserved their fate— should have been imprisoned instead of facing the firing squad. For Dr Rawlings, it was a relief from incarceration and a possible death sentence. Consequently, if he celebrates, it should be understood. Dr Rawlings was ably nicknamed “Junior Jesus” but his detractors have changed it to “Junior Judas”. Even if he has become the despised Judas, it has to be noted that one of the disciples had to betray the Christ to bring perpetual damnation upon himself before mankind could have salvation. If Judas had not done it, it could have been Peter or John. Any balanced argument concerning June 1979 should take stock of the good, the bad and the ugly sides. Seeking to justify all the accomplishments at all cost will be a mockery and the same goes for anyone who damns every part of it.

To sum up, the relevance of June 4 1979 should not be discarded; neither should it also be given the flamboyant festivities we are accustomed to. It should however be marked as a National Consciousness Day; a day where we empathise with people who went to prison unlawfully; when we sympathise with those who lost relatives and their property and those who had to go to exile. Ghanaians should remember the public humiliations due to the inhuman treatments which were meted out to people in the frenzy of the moment when people were fed up with all the suppressed anger emanating from the corruption, poverty, hunger, etc called for the blood to flow. Ghanaians should understand that governments will be elected via the ballot box and may be toppled by the power of the thumb and not the barrel of the gun. It is clear what we know of Dr Rawlings: you can love him for his charisma and oratory or detest him for being an enigma. Dr Nkrumah’s overthrow was greeted with a universal approbation but he is now celebrated posthumously. No matter one’s animosity—sometimes Rawlings does invite antipathy for himself— he will be the devil for many and the messiah for many more. Never again will Ghana repeat the excruciating but somewhat indispensable events of June 1979!

Thomas Dickens (yesiah2003@yahoo.com).

Customer Service and Treating Customers Fairly

2010-06-06T07:37:00.000-07:00

The universal conventions that “Customer is King” and “Customer is always right” are mere clichés Ghanaian ears are accustomed to. However, these statements are so lacking in essence to the Ghanaian that one can liken them to the Paternoster being recited by a class one pupil. The wretched state of customer servicing in Ghana should be brought forth to the public domain so that the slumbering people in authority get their acts together to bring some sanity into how businesses, companies and public bodies treat customers.

Being a double-edged sword, customer service is both the bane of every business and its backbone. If well managed, it can bring in customers and if not it can hound out clients. In Ghana , though, this most vital ingredient is deficient in the meal of every aspect of Ghanaian businesses and public offices. In developed economies, customer service is given such an emphasis that almost every advertisement is inundated with talks of a company's exceptional customer service. And these talks are rendered plausible by visual signs— a matter of backing words with actions. In Ghana , most advertisements only stress the ingeniously humorous side— which is gratifying as I have watched the Cargo Gin Bitters advert on Youtube several times.

Primarily, the most important facts about improving customer service is treating customers fairly and with respect, acknowledging their complaints and resolving them in a satisfactory manner, being helpful to them and going the extra mile for them. We seldom see this in Ghana because of the domination which exists in the Ghanaian market. If Ghanaians had the embarrassment of riches that exists in some developed countries, companies will be paying more attention to their customers. If they know that word of mouth and verbal recommendations can give them a bad reputation and chase away their clients and even reduce their customer base, companies would take better care of their customers. For the same customer recommendations and positive word of mouth can also increase a company's customer base, boost sales and a company's profits and share—the cheapest way of advertisement.

Believe it or not, we are all customers though it is not quite obvious in certain situations. Going to the hospital, visiting a government department like the Ministries, going to a school or visiting a university make one a customer and so the most important constituents of customer service must be on display in all these places. Companies and public organisations ought to instill the fact that customer service is the lifeblood of any business into their employees. Employers and government departments should use this maxim as their anthems and drum it into the reluctant and obstinate ears of their employees until they can recite it in their dreams. For, a company cannot be profitable for long if the customers who troop to its stores during the sales period do not return after the sales. Companies and businesses should form relationships with their customers—relationships clients recognise and pursue.

Regrettably, the lengthy waiting times at these places with nobody acknowledging the presence of stranded customers leave much to be desired. The situation is quite sickening in government offices. People who are paid by the taxpayer should be quite supportive when the taxpayer who has employed them comes asking them to work. Ironically, people working in these places see people who walk into their offices like vomit which must be discarded. Such buffoons see themselves as doing people a favour instead of realising that they are only fulfilling their job roles. I can thump my chest and state, without fear of contradiction, that customer service is non-existent in Ghana let alone treating customers fairly. Many companies have "Goods sold out are not returnable" printed on their receipts and invoices. I find this thoughtlessly callous. To think that this is not the practice in the countries from which most of these companies and individuals originate and import their goods; and for them to squat and take the piss like this in Ghana because Ghanaians are endangered species is extremely regrettable. This means that the TV, the stereo or the washing machine you are purchasing cannot be returned if it happens to be defective. What a fastidious way of protecting the consumer!

The next place where respect for customers is absent is the SSNIT. The derision and insolence with which pensioners are received at these offices can only be described in superlatives. I once went to the SSNIT office in Gulf House, Shiashie. Before you enter the reception, there is a notice which advises one to lodge a complaint if one is dissatisfied with the service received. In most countries, such a notice will mean that you can expect nothing but an outstanding service from such a place. But the dastard disrespect and humiliation that await anyone who enters these premises cannot be properly illustrated. There was nothing like a warm welcome when I entered the reception—the receptionists whom I later learnt were National Service persons cared less about who entered let alone find out one's mission. They looked up briefly and showed me a bench with very hostile countenances as if they were forced to come to work. One of them was occupied with her manicure while the other was on her mobile phone talking to you know whom. Welcome to the wonderful world of customer service in Ghana !

What was remarkable was; not only were these ladies not ready to serve the people who were waiting to be seen but we were all to face a rather bad-tempered middle-aged woman whose name was given as Aunt Maggie. The lack of respect with which this woman spoke to pensioners whose only crime— forget about their shabby outlook—was contributing their hard-earned cedis into the coffers of a nonperforming organisation—a deed which has put some many people including Aunt Maggie into gainful employment— incensed me almost into swearing some nasty imprecations at that woman and the young ladies. Unable to control my emotions any longer, I intervened and told the woman I was going to report the incident to her boss. Hearing this, hell broke lose and before her so-called superior, Aunt Maggie galloped into rage and was quite disposed to commit assault and battery to the bewilderment of everyone save her boss whose only benignant clarification was that the indomitable Aunt Maggie had a bad temperament.

Far worst services to people going to the hospitals cannot be suitably described. With the exception of doctors who are sympathetic and respectful to their patients most nurses see themselves as doing the patient a favour. They normally talk to patients as if they are talking to hopeless prisoners about to be hanged. Like the magistrates in the villages who expect sheep, goats, foodstuffs or even bags of cocoa to adjudicate cases in the right manner, so do these tender-hearted nurses expect encomiums as incentives so that they could do their jobs! The same situation exists in the banking industry. Customer advisors hardly see customers as people who save their moneys with the bank but as time wasters. I once confronted a customer advisor at Standard Chartered Bank in Ghana after much frustration in other public places that when I found that she knew nothing about my request for an International Bank Account Number (IBAN) and a SWIFT code, I had no strength to insist or lodge a meaningless grievance— all such complaints end up in the dustbin once the complainant leaves the premises of the company. Of course I do not expect employees to know everything but where there is lack of knowledge, it is not a crime to ask or go and find out. The people who need our pity are cocoa farmers who are normally cuffed and buffeted in banks before they can get the money from their labour.

Foreign High Commissions and Embassies are very courteous in their countries of origin but the same cannot be said about the ones in Ghana and Africa. If in doubt, ask our leave-these-shores-at-all-cost brothers and sisters who go to them for visas. They seem to have realised that it will amount to some form of prejudice if they themselves abuse us. After all, why must they respect us if we have no iota of deference for ourselves? Ergo, they have mischievously subcontracted our own indoctrinated and whitewashed brothers to do their dirty work and dump us on the rubbish heap! You start queuing at dawn, and then you face the midday sweltering sun only for a dark-faced Ghanaian to teach you the meaning of impudence in both its connotative and denotative meanings. An action which is likely to be a headline story is normally given both a muted mouth and a blind eye in Ghana.

Again on the culprits on poor customer service in Ghana are the profitable Telecommunications companies of which MTN is the prime offender. Before MTN took over, Spacefon metamorphosed into Areeba and raked billion of dollars from the Ghanaian market. But if ever there is a lucrative company capable of giving heart attacks, it is definitely MTN. Being the one-eyed business in the market of the blind, MTN enjoys next to monopoly which Vodafone, in spite of its enormous input, is yet to rival. They normally keep you on the phone for half an hour when you question why your credit is decreasing when you have not made any telephone calls only for the incompetent advisor to come out with the usual blatant lie that the computer is playing up or that the data are yet to be updated. You call back after an hour and the same lie is repeated to your absolute astonishment. You obviously get excited at the explanation only for the customer service advisor to rub it in thus: "Why don't you let it go as it is just one cedi and twenty pesewas you have lost?"

What about Ghanaian High Commissions abroad? We have all read about the pitiable service that our brothers and sisters who have travelled abroad get when they go to these places for help which they are entitled to by law. There is always the erroneous notion that Ghanaians who work in High Commissions will be exceptional at customer service and dealing with people with their exposure to foreign excellence in this field. But the reality when you go to these places will be taken for exaggerated accounts. For readers who are in Europe, the US or Canada, you have you own experiences to buttress this point. Einstein once said that “doing things the same way and expecting different results is insanity”. I trust Ghana needs a Watchdog like the UK has the Financial Services Authority and the Financial Ombudsman to oversee public bodies like banks, hospitals, the SSNIT, schools and universities and so on. Such a body will be charged with ensuring that firms treat customers fairly; that products and services meet customers' needs; that customers are always given clear and excellent information throughout the sales process; that all advice given are correct and suitable; that every product lives up to expectations and finally, that customers feel comfortable if they wish to change products at a later date or complain.

There is an unflinching need to have this Watchdog to administer the day-to-day activities of all companies and public organisations which deal with people. It is needless to say that such a body should comprise of men and women of the highest integrity. This group will be responsible for taking complaints, investigating them and acting on them to ensure that customers are treated fairly and like a king if indeed that conviction holds any water. They should, in addition, be emboldened and mandated to issue fines to companies-- no matter a company's size and influence-- to deter other companies which may want to follow their bad example. Such actions should also be given prominence in the both the print and audio-visual media. What an execrable effect such step can have on a company's reputation!

Then, there should be a branch of this body (Watchdog) which will be dealing solely with complaints against public bodies already mentioned. If ever there was a body like this, the enormous difference it will bring into Ghana will be felt everywhere as Passport offices, hospitals, school administrations will mind how they treat people. When a company has been fined and given bad publicity, they may want to go into image repair and redemption by mending its ways. The fact that companies enjoy quasi-monopoly in Ghana must not constitute taking people who keep them alive for granted. This sort of laissez-faire attitude which has yoked the whole country should be checked so that Ghana does not lag behind for eternity. For, if an investor should come to Ghana and see this apologetic state of affairs, he is likely to rethink how to invest his money.

If this is properly adhered to, it will stem the tide of abuse of office and its simultaneous effect of blatant corruption. Under the guise of doing you a favour, certain corrupt people have developed very subtle ways of asking for bribes in an indiscreet manner. Namely, they tell you that to get your passport or your birth certificate promptly, you will have to see the boss. The boss, due to the consistent way he has been asking for and taking these inducements, exhibits no shame when he sees you. He comes out and in a jovial I-don't-mean-it sort of way, tells you to pay your dues—which dues and why you should pay them is a mystery to every good sense. Not yielding to his demands means it will take a long time before you get something which should take less than a week to obtain. The fellow normally submits with a bashful look, dips his hand into his pocket and produces a few notes which brighten the countenance of the corrupt boss. These notes work like a catalyst and in a few hours, something which was going to take not less than six months appears within two or three hours.

Did someone mention the Ghana Standards Board? Such a toothless bulldog; a byword of mediocrity, incompetence and high-handed bureaucracy constituted of a bunch of ridiculous men whose only obsession is getting paid for busying themselves with big talks and no action. These people have effectively turned Ghana into a dumping ground for perished foreign goods. The Koala Supermarket incident comes to mind when it was found that Ghanaians were being sold expired goods. If Koala sells outdated goods to the populace, what about the rather unconstrained corner-shops? By their relentless ineptitude, Ghana is flooded with SQNY for SONY, EILA for FILA, ADIBAS for ADIDAS and PHILIBS instead of PHILIPS to name a few. What standards is this eminent bunch of indifferent group checking?

In conclusion, good customer service is what steers any business. Doing a little bit more for customers will bring about customer fidelity. Customer loyalty generally increases a company’s customer base as satisfied customers advertise by word of mouth and recommendations. People who work in customer service should remember how pathetic they look if they are only courteous and reverent to paler skins or western accents. Ghanaians should no longer accept poor customer service as a norm. Those who work in government offices should stop the paltry bribes and remember that; the poor, dismally dressed man whom they disregard and frown upon is the same man who has given them jobs and put them into the air-conditioned rooms they call offices.

Thomas Dickens (yesiah2003@yahoo.com)

Adulterating Ghana's Education System

2010-06-06T03:45:00.000-07:00

The cliché that education is the key to success is undoubtedly one maxim seriously understood in Ghana. Anyone who doubts this may want to go the length and breath of Ghana to see how many private schools ably given the sobriquets of Academy or Preparatory schools there are. It must be given to understand that I trust Education is a country’s breath of life without which any such nation—civilised or primitive-- is doomed. My problem at the moment is against the mercenary taskmasters who are bent upon destroying education in Ghana and I feel it is only right to raise a strident advocacy against the numerous charlatans, worst and despicable than Squeers and all the Yorkshire schoolmasters put together.

I once saw an educator with the following written on a T-Shirt he was wearing: “All professionals can boast but, the teacher taught them all!” If this dictum should be trusted, then I have some qualms about the unchecked mushrooming of basic schools in Ghana. I am focusing on the primary school education in Ghana as a form of giving credit to the Biblical truism of teaching the child the way he should go so that he does not depart from it when he grows up. It is therefore—in my view-- of paramount importance that early childhood edification is conducted in an apposite manner as it is what possesses the potential of forming good or bad citizens. The massive disregard of education, especially in the hinterlands, where children are taught next to nothing; with some of them unable to write their own names (shocking, isn’t it?) after school, with proprietors charging exorbitant fees, should be a concern to every well-meaning Ghanaian.

Ghana is essentially littered with very pricey private schools, with some having circus-like school uniforms. What should preoccupy us is certainly the rationale for setting up these schools and not the fancy dress uniforms the poor pupils are made to wear like some forlorn prisoners. The first guess is that the originators of these schools are only interested in conducting savages into a modern terrain of civilisation. But, a second deeper look is all it takes to realise that forming good citizens or future leaders is the last thing on the list of these founders-- if it happens to be there at all among their very many motives. The point is that: if the doctor is held responsible if his operation of a patient goes wrong; if the economist is charged if he messes up the finances of a country; if the architect is blamed if the house he designs is defective and the mechanic is slapped with legally-motivated compensatory claims when the car he builds is
substandard; what then happens to the swindler who tutors these professionals if he happens to be woefully inadequate with the knowledge he claims to possess to want to impart?

I hate to mention this but despondently, the monstrous neglect of education as a way of forming good citizens and so-called future leaders has brought in its wake the quite superfluous production of schools by some people who see education as their short cut to riches! The prominent private schools, I will say without fear or favour, seem to have taken it into their heads that churning the best of grades out of their pupils is the best form of education without any intention of developing their mental faculty to its full capacity. I have come across a lot of people whose grades pit them against the likes of Einstein, Newton, Aristotle and Plato, to mention a few but whose level or reasoning is like that of a naked man on the street who accuses everybody of being crazy. A lot of "intelligent" people cannot even think on their feet; consequently, any problem whose solution is outside their textbooks always leaves them dumbfounded, fumbling for ideas.
Dejectedly, this is the type of education many preparatory schools or academies are inculcating into our younger brothers and sisters in this 21st Century.

For this reason, I must reiterate that while the description of the education system in Ghana as derelict, dilapidated and ramshackle may be considered offensive; I must apologise to use them as they are only an understatement with regards to the gruesome neglect of these schools and must not be seen as the writer's penchant for exaggeration. It is poignantly distressing to observe that men who have proven their unfitness for any occupation in life are free, without examination or qualification, to open a school anywhere; although the preparation for the functions they undertake, is required in the surgeon who assists to bring a child into the world, or might one day assist perhaps, to send him out of it—in the chemist whose prescription can chase away a nagging illness or rather jeopardise a rather healthy person into an early grave.

Nevertheless, the irresponsibility of some parents and their helpless children make these petty school owners the millionaires who should be accorded the highest form of respect in the land. Many are the parents whose main priority is how many “A” grades their wards can make while in a particular academy. Most importantly, these Shylock school founders know what colourfully embellished language to use on radio advertisements to get these grade chasers to part with their moneys and abet their chosen pedagogues to distort the brains of their children for eternity. Is it any wonder that we are always being taken for a ride by a few politicians whose impeccable resort to sophistry, as distasteful as it is, is mistaken for the astuteness of Solomon? But since majority of Ghanaians are ready to believe some of these half-educated politicians and what they expound to them—and with scores of people refusing to think for themselves-- the devil is certainly
bound to have all the best tunes. This is why when a fairly balanced opinion is expressed, sympathisers of some political parties and some disgusting "tribalists" route for abuses simply because of an inexplicably extreme form of bigotry or brutish logic due to the stagnation of their brains caused by the nebulous education system being talked about.

With financial gains as the reason for opening schools, these school proprietors are just traders in the avarice. These ignorant, sordid, brutal men, to whom a few considerate persons would entrust the board and lodging of a dog, form the worthy cornerstone of a structure, which, for absurdity and a magnificent high-handed laissez-aller abandon, has rarely been exceeded in this world! I do not need to mention the reasons why boarding houses of such schools have become a den for criminality, a lair for drug abusers and a practising brothel for future prostitution and prostitutes. Has anyone mulled over our education system producing graduates with no jobs to occupy them? Well, it appears that is the raison d'être of some graduates using the school system as a springboard to future “better” jobs. How pathetic! That many troop into the Police Service with its paradoxical motto of “Service with Integrity”, the Immigration and the Customs Excise and
Preventive Services as a means of enriching themselves in the shortest possible time in occupation.

Let anyone come out and say what a nation we expect of Ghana for posterity when pedagogic moral moulders trade grades for sexual favours from their female students. These people who are fit for teaching pigs relegate pedagogy to the background and end up polluting innocent children both morally and academically. With their dodgy money-making managers at the helm of affairs, the most vital preoccupation of some of these teachers who need to school themselves on how to pass on knowledge to others only force children to fill their heads with irrelevant nonsensical understanding. Children are thus forced to “chew the cud” as they have to commit so many unimportant stuffs to memory and become the bleating sheep of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Perhaps, it is apt to paraphrase Montaigne's contention that a well-formed head is better than a full head!

Need I quote Alexander Pope?: “A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again”. We are all happy to quote this saying to impress our intellectual prowess on others but do we know where exactly this Pierian Spring is, let alone attempt to sip it lightly or gulp it down voraciously? A Ghanaian professor will normally have his name written proudly followed by a long paragraph of his degrees. Much as I respect these learned folks and envy what they have achieved, I am quite baffled that they have very little or nothing to show for their degrees. Edison, Fleming, Einstein, etc, boasted in what they achieved after years of researches and not their university degrees. We have thousands of scientists yet, we still import cars and common drugs from China; we are yet to develop a potent antidote against malaria. We have thousands of
journalists however, most of them are bedfellows of politicians, who disguise the truth of which they are meant to be a watchdog; we have very brilliant economists yet, our economy is so badly broken that the name for it is now “ecomini”; we have thousands of musicians still, most of the songs we hear are sampled from other countries. The list can go on and on but how wretched we look if this is all that we have to show for our 53 years of Independence.

Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the aphorism that there is an exception to every rule as I am not seeking to entangle myself in the web of a fallacious generalisation argument. It is therefore noteworthy to say that there are very excellent pedagogues out there. Each of us can give names of these excellent teachers without whom we could have landed on the moral and academic rubbish heap where most youngsters are being dumped now. What I do know of good teachers is that they choose the profession for the love of it and not as a means of fulfilling a gap year to better jobs! I have overheard some graduates who go into teaching with the devilish thought that they will teach until they find a good job. Such is how the mercenary taskmasters as aforementioned, are bastardising the noble teaching profession.

Maybe it is about time we reminded ourselves that knowing all the classical Greek literature, the entire psychology books, every bit of the philosophy books and being able to recite the whole of Shakespeare do not make an intelligent person. What are our deductions from these books? We have read, re-read and memorised the Bible umpteen times but we always leave ourselves open for impostors with crooked reasoning and arguments to mislead us. Men who should be titled “Men of Lies/Darkness” have always entered our homes and led us on to believe that they represent Light. How many times have we not seen or heard two people pretending to be part of the same religion but interpret the same literature differently for their own whims?

Bringing this article to an end, I must reiterate a point I have made earlier: we hear sometimes of an action of damages against the unqualified medical practitioner, who has deformed a broken limb in pretending to heal it. But, what about the hundreds of thousands of minds that have been forever malformed by the incapable pettifoggers who have pretended to form them? I am not against the abundance of private schools in Ghana. All that I am requesting is that the Ghana Education Service adopts very stringent measures to ensure that the fellow who stands before twenty to thirty children with the aim of moulding their mental faculties is both of the highest integrity and pertinent at the shaping of these young brains.

Thomas Dickens (yesiah2003@yahoo.com).