Ghanaian Politics and personal insults

“Na who cause am?”

By: Dr. Michael Baffoe, Winnipeg-MB

President, John Evans Atta Mills has expressed “amazement and strong worry” about what he sees as a deepening culture of insults that has tainted Ghanaian politics to the detriment of national development. According to the President, he is “bewildered by the tremendous waste of precious time by politicians who engage in abusive exchanges in the media instead of focusing on issues of national interest which affect the ordinary person”.

President Mills made the statements at the inauguration of the renovated Accra-Tema rail line on Thursday, October 28, 2010. He said the use of insults by politicians corrupts the young generation and could constitute a disaster for societal development. He admonished that the focus should be on developing the country and improving the living standards for Ghanaians by providing good health care delivery, reducing poverty and enhancing education.

Good and sensible talk and advice from the supposed Father of the nation!!

But the big question is: Where has President Mills been living all this while? Has he been on the same planet with us? Since when did President Mills realize that insults had taken over the psyche and political culture of the nation’s politics and that it has negative effect, not only on national development, but has the potential of corrupting the younger generation?

I wish to pose a simple question to President Mills. If Ghanaian politics has been enveloped in insults, “Na who cause am?” A strong case can be made without any fear of contradiction by anyone that it is the President’s own party especially its “Father and Founder” Jerry John Rawlings who has developed and perfected the art of political insults. Before he lost the 2000 elections which brought Kufour and the NPP to power, then Presidential Candidate John Evans Attah-Mills was seen and regarded as a “gentleman”, “lover of peace”, (Asomdweehene) by most Ghanaians. Why? Because up to a certain point, he stayed out of the crude behaviour and culture of insults that his mentor Jerry Rawlings was perfecting and throwing around. President Mills, do you remember your mentor Jerry Rawlings insulting all the women candidates in the NPP during the 2000 elections campaign? Do you recall what your mentor Rawlings and his hoodlums did to former Bawku M.P, and former Minister of Tourism, Madam Hawa Yakubu? Do you remember the insults that your mentor Rawlings heaped on Takoradi M.P and former Women and Children Affairs Minister, Mrs. Gladys Asmah referring to her as “Philomena Kitingbe”?, (a derogatory description by a Hip-Life Musician of prostitutes). You were the NDC Presidential candidate then. You were aware of, and heard all the insults your mentor Rawlings was heaping on his political opponents. You said nothing! And you did nothing!

Then out of the blue you, then Candidate Mills, decided that the insulting political behaviour was the way to go. Few months to the 2000 elections, you also started insulting people, your political opponents. Throughout President Kufuor’s eight-year term of office as President of the Republic of Ghana, Rawlings never ceased to insult him. He constantly and publicly called President Kufuor “a thief”, “a liar” and all kinds of names. You said nothing! And you did nothing!!

As if to prove that you have then graduated from the Rawlings College of Insult Technology, you publicly declared during the 2004 elections campaign in which you were again your Party’s Presidential candidate that you will “consult Rawlings 24 hours a day, seven days a week”!!

True to form and pattern, Rawlings has not stopped insulting people. Your party’s errand boys, veranda boys, “koko” boys, “goro” boys, foot soldiers, Ministers, M.Ps and others have all been on the warpath with insults against their political opponents since you came to power in 2009. You have said nothing! And you have done nothing!! And Rawlings has been directing a lot of insults at you personally making people wonder who was elected President of the Republic of Ghana. You have said nothing to him! And you have done nothing to him!! In fact your whole party under the command of its “Father” and “Founder” Rawlings has institutionalized a culture of insults into our politics and our national psyche. It has stuck!

I wonder when you suddenly woke up to the fact that insults in our political fabric is bad. I really wonder where you have been living all this while. And one grim irony: you made your reference to the political insults when you were inaugurating the Accra-Tema Railway line, a project started by the former Kufour’s NPP government. You actually did not even mention the fact that what your government has done to this project is to complete it from where the former government left off.

But in the press reporting of your lamentations of insults in our politics, one of your party’s newspaper writers, Aaron Okyere, resorted to heaping insults on the NPP government for not been able to complete the railway line you were inaugurating. I am sure you have read the story. But true to your pattern, you have said nothing! And you have done nothing!!

Recently, your Deputy Tourism Minister Kobby Acheampong, insulted the people of the Ashanti region as well as cocoa farmers when he told NPP General Secretary Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie that “‘the Kumasi thing’ was in him too much” and that he behaved like a “Kookoo ase Kuraseni” to wit, an unrefined person from the cocoa growing areas. The cocoa grown by all these “nkorasefuo” is what has built Ghana as a nation. Most of the CMB scholarships were given to children of Fantes and Gas as well as Northerners who had nothing to do with cocoa production. After the “nkurasefuo” in the “kookoase” have built Ghana, your Ministers tell them now to “polish” up. And you say nothing! And again you do nothing?!!

President Mills, you need to wake up! If Ghanaians are to take your admonitions to cut insults out of our politics seriously, you need to start from your own house, and your own party. You need to call the foul-mouthed Jerry Rawlings to order because he is a “saint” to most people in your party and they believe and copy everything he does, including his insulting behaviour and foul-mouthing.

Doing nothing and saying nothing about all these negative behaviours of your party folks and your party’s “father” and “founder”; letting your so-called “foot-soldiers” and “Goro Boys” loose on people they don’t agree with does not bode well for the stability of our nation and of its politics.

If you show by example by putting your foot down and tell them that enough is enough of this bad behaviour, then Ghanaians can take your words and pretensions of worry about insults in politics seriously.

We are watching!!!

Dr. Michael Baffoe is a Social and Political Commentator and a Professor of Social Work at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada