I have become addicted to Ghanaweb , more so for the occasional brilliance but mostly for the fun and sheer ignorance displayed . Ghanaians are an intelligent bunch of people and scholarly. What amazes me is the fact that they are gullible. so trusting and a lot of times do not question, probe nor apply their learning .Our education system was meant to produce a lot of Civil servants. We went to school to run away from Farming, and so the best schools did not cater for it , neither did they cater for business studies, technical or vocational courses, nor life skills . You want to be a secretary you go to Ashley’s , not Achimota , Adisadel, St Augustine, Bishop Herman , Mawuli . Mfantsipim, Wesley Girls Danquah-Busia Dinosaur .
It struck me the other day as I sat day dreaming as usual to ask , what would have happened to mother Ghana had Danquah won the election and become Prime Minister? I know this is hypothetical . His philosophy was a rule by the royalty and elite and capitalism. ‘The children of professors must not mix with those of kenkey sellers’ and hence the title ‘ veranda boys’ an euphemism for illiterates or the masses. Capitalism depends on private initiative and controlled by profit .Capitalism is laissez faire,” leave to be” .
They say it is controlled by market forces. But that means to ‘ leave it to be’ answers the scientific law of “entropy” .Any system left in its natural state will go to the state of maximum entropy “ which is chaos . So we did not need direction and some how the capital will flow .and projects will come. Who then would have had the capital as individuals either to be taxed or in the form of credit, to initiate the kind of projects that we saw in the Volta Dam, Adomi Bridge,and the many factories that were started ? There would have been poverty alongside side plenty . Independence would be a word in reality for just a few .
Few schools , few colleges and little infrastructure . What kind of independence or freedom will that have been? Cast your votes every 4- 5 years and then let them get on with the ‘ Chafu. Chafu’ . Our wealthy or owners of capital can be described as ‘big fish in a small pond’ . They cannot compare with the Bill Gates , Soros, The Sultan , De Beers, of this world . We were poor and are still poor and scientific socialistic intervention was and is needed . Theirs was not only poverty of capital but poverty of leadership as well
In 1991 I was at the Ghana Club after a big rally for the NPP and Prof Adu Boahen was the Flag Bearer . After a lot of talk I asked ‘what is your program for Ghana , post Rawlings’ ? Answer ‘ he has been there for too long ‘ Another ‘book long ‘came in and was sure the NPP would win and I asked again, ‘ What will be your priorities? ‘ Oh ,he has been there too long” I kept quiet and sipped my beer . I asked myself what future the country had when even the intelligentsia could not articulate their program?
The following day I was in my favorite spot ‘ Dormi Abra ‘ next to ‘Don’ t Mind your wife’ , they were chop bars and you ate with your fingers , traditional style. The debate turned to politics and as I just sat there doing my own thing ,these youngsters approached and asked who I will vote for? I told them to get lost . They persisted and I asked what will you do after Rawlings , thinking they were NPP . They told me they were for Rawlings and we should help them make farms, dams and build the country . These were veranda boys and they knew what was needed.
I remember how it was that Nkrumah wanted to achieve something, for Ghana. I saw the plans and the models at Finance and economic planning. I worked with them after schooling. But the founders of the NPP were against it and used destruction ,and violence to remove Nkrumah ,kulungugu, Flagstaff, stadium, and lies about communism and socialism . Now I understood why they lost . Smart Ghanaians !969 came Busia , another Prof . The Volta virus was in the minority and excluded . Kotoka had been murdered and Ankrah conveniently disposed off . No one talks about Kotoka , after all he does not belong to the royal clan but was used to do the dirty work . ‘Operation Guitar boy’ , they named it. They closure of Nkrumah’ s projects were now complete .Half finished factories, tractors , fields, schools, left where they were when the coup was announced and the workers sent home with no pay . These were communist and socialist projects and could not be tolerated However the debts had to be paid. Did they worry about how? No. Any other ideas? They called themselves the Progressive Party or’ Party Papa’ There was mass unemployment and society was getting restless . Apollo 568 followed and then ‘No Courts” .The Justice system was also gone with the winds The slogan was ‘ Jobs for our boys’ . To cater for the rest , came the “ Aliens Compliance Order”. Simple, send away anyone perceived not to be Ghanaian out of the country and unemployment will be solved .Nigeria was at war and a lot of those people were born in Ghana. Where was Christianity and neighborliness? Away with Nkrumah and his African Unity . So they were driven out . No lessons from exodus. As Ghana missed their labor ( HUMAN RESOURCE) and the cocoa farms were idle ,so we dropped from No 1 to No 5 and gold mines could not get labor either to dig the gold , and there too we fell ,foreign exchange and incomes fell . Solution , bring in a Harvard Group to advice . Theirs ,devalue the Cedi , institute exchange controls but you can import turkey tails , all others were ‘luxury good items’ including baby food .How many children died we will never know Why should we care ?After all were they royalty or elite? . Now the class structure was taking shape , the haves and have nots . The Prof and his learned colleagues could not figure out the basics in economics that when you have land, you needed to combine it with capital, enterprise and labor to create wealth .They could not see that the Western model they were bent on following had enterprise and accumulated capital realized from slave labor. Capitalism thrives on exploitation and profit. Where is the greatest profit in the shortest term?, retail , buy and sell . (SUL, )Special Unnumbered Licence came in , only the goods were not on the market .We create artificial shortage so we could maximize profits . Kalabule has started in earnest. ‘Not who you know but who knows you ‘, and Victor Owusu calls some people ‘ inward looking” ? Luckily a group of young army officers took Busia out of his confused misery but then came to pass another idiot of Blessed memory ,Kutu Acheampong. He was not accepted as he was not royalty but he hang on pushing things from bad to worse . Busia went back into exile to become an alien again . Talk of the law of Karma
But as it was in the Bible that we saw Egyptians becoming slaves in the Jewish households , so it came to pass that Ghanaians became shoe shine boys in Nigeria and prostitutes in Ivory Coast .Then came 1984 “Ghana must go” . I watched in horror as Ghanaians jumped into the sea from SS Tano river and perished. And then there were Ghanaian stowaways , thrown into the shark infested sea by a Taiwanese vessel off the coast of S Africa . Was it Karma, the law of compensation at work ? Then we hear of Ghanaians dying in Gambia and off the coast of Gabon . They did not forget to carry the piece of cloth the whiteman left us, the Ghana flag , and as they washed ashore their spirits joined Busia and Danquah “ singing halleluya Lord here we come, we were only looking for food and lost our lives” . Please father forgive them. I was helped by a friend called Musa in my shop , He was the best but seemed despondent at times . He was a Muslim .It baffled me for a long time . Those times he will refuse food and just stare . One day he told me of how they had been crossing the desert into Libya . They had been a party of ten . Gradually they perished until it was left with three . Adomako , himself and Mensah(from Anyako) . it was Adomako’s death that left a serious mark on him . They were nearly there but Adomako was convulsing and vomiting. He finally passed away at dawn They had taken turns to carry him on their backs as he was weak. They had covered him with a blanket , prayed over him and then had to leave . May his soul rest in peace. Is this the Volta Virus and trokosi ?
Nana Addo Had Nana won the elections, in which direction was he going to go? Capitaliim is a wounded lion , trying to heal itself . Nkrumah would have said ‘ I told you so’. After Independence, who will become master and who the slave? Should there be another June 4th . Do we learn and apply lessons from the past to our own situations . The slaughter in France, and the Eastern block countries or do we just buy into the propaganda of the West? Did we have a judiaciary system and ordered society? Do we believe that when the Whites came we had no science and were naked walking around? Which house were burnt down by the British in Kumasi or by the Danes in Keta ? Was there trade among us and if not what were the Whites doing on our shores leaving behind the legacy of Coomsons, Smith, Van Lare and Tamakloe(Portuguese} Are we ready to practice capitalism ? If we have people who are wealthy and have the capital and can invest , the question is, where are the investments and the attendant jobs? Why after 50 years we all look to government for our needs and foreign capital for our projects Is this, Volta virus and Trokosi battle, not one over who controls the nations resources? Every war has been over control of resources Trokosi and Juju .
I come from the Volta area perhaps from the village of Dzelu . I do not know about trokosi and juju . It is a complex thing . Are we talking of Herbalism or native doctors and native astrologers? What is the difference between them and the prophets in the Bible and Nostra Damus who predicted the bombing of the twin towers in the era of George Bush? Do we doubt we had doctors and midwives in the era before the Whites? Do we understand the law of positives and negatives and how they operate? The virus is a DNA made up of negatives and positives . Be careful it mutates
Yaa Boahema was named after her great grandparent , after they had prayed to the ancestral spirits using drinks . They then all drank from the same glass and shared food to wish her well . Jesus took wine and prayed over it and drank with his apostles and then broke bread and they shared and ate .” Do this in memory of me “ he said .The institution of communion had been born .Yaa Boahema’s naming ceremony was a communion . On baptism we get named after a saint , a White name, so Joseph , Michael, Sebastian, Mary Christina . Are Saints only Whites or are my ancestors also saints?Is Yaa Boahema’s great grandmother not a saint ?” What ever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven”. Is Abraham in hell because he never met Jesus? What of Moses and the laws he gave ? Moses turned a rod into a snake and the Pharoah’s people did the same? Who was using Juju or trokosi? Why was Jesus out doored on the 8th day and Nii Attah the same? In church I stop and say a silent prayer to the statue of Mary or Jesus or Joseph . Entering my grandfathers house I used to stop and nod to the clay carving or statue at the entrance .His is called idol and my sign is idol worship, which is evil . Which of these is Vodoo? In my Church we have some females all dressed up in White . They are called Nuns . Mother Teresa was one of them . She is now a saint. She devoted her life to God and service of mankind . The trokosi is a female who does the same, but in our African and traditional context , she is evil . In Medieval times it was common practice and the males went into monasteries. They are called by God . I was in class in far away Lesotho when a female student was shaking and in a trance . I was going to stop her from falling but was prevented from doing so . They told me it was “Mafufu nyane” . She was being called by the gods into their service . Limakatso as she was called often experienced these problems . We agreed she should fulfill her calling . She did and the thing went off I wonder the difference between the Nun, trokosi and Limakatso There I also saw the power of prayer . There was severe draught in the Kingdom .The sun beat down on the scorched earth like it had never done before . My fishing pond was dry and water was scarce . Then King did a surprising thing , he declared a day of prayer .At noon we all gathered at the stadium and the prayers were said as the traditional people also chanted their prayers . Come 4.30 p m the rain clouds arrived . It poured for the next four days . What was the link between prayer and vapor rising , condensing and coming down as rain ?
We all ‘tithe’ for progress in life and God’s protection , and we offer sacrifices to our ‘idols’. One is good , the other idol worship or voodoo . The bible in exodus lays them out clearly . In fact Cain killed his brother as God was satisfied with Abel’s sacrifice and blessed him as opposed to that of Cain . I bet that was juju and trokosi. Jesus was the sacrificial lamb for our sins . Do we all remember the man who was going to sacrifice his only son in obedience to God ? Where do we place them ?
There is the parable of the talents . Jesus did not say knowing Latin, or Greek is intelligence . He knew it comes in different forms . English scholars, doctors, mid wives. Carpenters, motor mechanics, engineers, herbalist, pastors . It is this diversity that makes the world so beautiful . As a philosopher, try repairing your chair or making electrical cables or kicking a ball and you will appreciate the skills involved. Jesus himself was a carpenter . Was he stupid?
We know he had problems with the Pharasees and saducees (the ruling Class) Do we have same problems today ?. Can God love some more than others? Let us be careful when we cast aspersions . The belief systems and the reasons why a lot of things are done have been lost though western education. We need to go back and investigate these . Maybe our development salvation lies there We have problems of poverty, disease, ignorance, illiteracy, and now disunity .Let us use our varied talents in pursuit of our developmental process . The melt down in the Western World poses a challenge , It tells us we have been fooled but it creates an opportunity . Africa seize it and develop
Long Live Osagyefo , long live Ghana, African Unity IS A MUST
Kojo Tamakloe
The writer was a volunteer teacher in the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho and Uganda, He facilitated the liberation of S Africa being part of the movement. He is a member of the World known Rosicrucian Order Rosae Crucis ., a non religious order dealing with mystical studies . Readers interested in Mystical studies and the powers within can contact www.amorc.org
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