I must say I admire the courage and fortitude of Dr. Bawumia under cross-examination. He attempted something many politicians, the clergy, chiefs, academics and even elites have failed to do in Ghana. What I wish to call, "if you will permit me," the culture of "generally" and "wide/wild approximation" and not been precise.
Unfortunately, the gentleman used the wrong medium of politics instead of through a revolutionising the education, constant, systematic training and re-training, in improving the mindset of the people. This tendency of "taking things for granted" have persisted among the populace for a long time with no exception although most people are trying to stem the tide of desperation.
In any case it's a good beginning and it boils down to this, for instance in the election year of 2012 when the presidential debates were on, a broad majority of questions and issues were raised and answers emanating from all candidates vice or presidential were "generally," "about" and not exact and scientific including Dr. Bawumia himself. How could the people understand and vote for you.
Based on that low ebb, the person who wins the elections as you can see was the one that came closest to negating the "generally" and was a bit substantive. There were many examples and it is not my job to "bleed old wounds" but everyone knows what I am talking about.
The problem of our elections is part of this problem according to Dr. Bawumia. It is the bad ways of looking at things and doing things in Ghana which is the difficulty of being exact and indiscipline generally.
In our daily lives people have complained about African/Ghana time for instance, in effect time consciousness is another culprit could be a starting point. Think about it if you ask for directions people are unable to define the cardinal points from the position you are.
Another is the issue of the whole society relying and waiting for freebies left and right, a kind of "robbing Peter to pay Paul syndrome." As we all saw how the NPP almost chastised the Internationally, reputable accounting firm into kowtowing to the nonsense of invoking the issue of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to the extent that an audit will have to be pro bono.
Some other example could be with directions. Is it north, south, east or west? Some people have complained about proper street address and naming stem in the past. We saw in the evidence with serial number XXX, name of polling station as "under the mango tree," "Paa Kojo veranda," "back of mosque" and so on and so forth.
These are a few of the monumental issues the Electoral Commission had to grapple with in creating "ghost" or "no ghost polling stations and Dr. Bawumia, my "brother" knows this better than any Ghanaian and per where his Dad was a Chief of.
If we also consider distance in the Ghanaian's eye, everything becomes shorter than it actually is. As if we are in a time travel spaceship. Just ask for direction to go somewhere on foot as many of us do and you will notice what answer you will get.
I had a hard awakening once, "Oh it is not far you can walk" so consider when I had to walk from Nandom to Ko in the Upper West region after the last "tro tro" had left the town. It took me over an hour and in darkness until I got to Ko. It was on the occasion of once a week market day.
I over enjoyed the flamboyance at the market environment and forgot to leave for where I was living on time. There were traders from overseas mostly from Cote d'Ivoire and as far as Burkina Faso passing through the Hamile border post.
In some of these places there are no daily bus schedules other than during the once a week markets. Everybody is at the mercy of everyone. Most people in this part of Ghana own bicycles as a means of transport but I did not have one.
So these are some of the things we take for granted about the situation in the rural environs once we leave there as Dr. Bawumia has also vividly manifested in his petition. With his evidence only petition, also with his repeated "I and you were not there statement." With such a matter that concerns people but is "witness free" all through because the SC deems it unnecessary.
The first lesson I had to learn very quickly went I left abroad at a time a hero from my area was to stop generalising. So when I returned home after a long stay overseas it was hard to adjust to the "unstated" norms in the country concerning some of the things I will be talking about. Woe unto you if you are a "been-to" and you say it. You will be branded as "too know."
Once upon a time a very close Ghanaian graduate relative of mine was giving me directions as I was driving from Kpehe, Kokomlemle to Accra through the "Circle overhead bridge" and a bitter argument ensued unprovoked as it was. Since then we have not spoken as I left Ghana. What was the case?
But the lady insisted it was on the right, I until today regret the incident but after watching the seventeen days of election petition hearings and cross-examinations in Ghana I could now better understand something that occurred ten years ago about my relation.
I knew all along that s/he was a left-handed could that have been the reason s/he was insisting that Busy Internet was on the right instead of left from where we were.
I would say we were heading south to Accra Central as you will usually notice that "Busy Internet" Café was on the left or I should better say east of/from where we were and going?
It's sad to say we were probably both right, depending on what you might be thinking and feeling at the time in Ghana. But this should not be the standard, because a "standard" is what everyone can/should agree on.
Is it true that certain people use more of the left part of their brain and others use more of their right part of the brain to sometime cause such misunderstanding?
Could it be also true that there are more left handed in women than men? Are there more right handed people in the world that left handed? How about the ratio of the ambidextrous in the general population and how they too may think?
These are all cases of research that needs research on people, real people I mean witnesses. But the does think there was a need for witnesses to be cross-examined. Is the supreme court going base its judgment on NPP's flawed theory of "law of evidence without witness?" It's their job and it could be okay in law.
Is it the training, education or culture that we leave in that makes for this shortfall? I may not be able to answer this but leave it to the psychologist/neurologist. I important thing is Ghana went "metric"(nifa, nifa naa ni slogan) very successfully in the 70s, specifically 1974.
It's been over forty years so we need to be standardized and exact in all aspects of our lives. Be it buying gari (measure in olonka/america tin) and sugar/rice (measure in a tin of butter), water (measure by bucket) etc., from the market and so on.
Let us remember these are the people voting at Nalerigu/Gambaga, Kpeve, Asokwa, Adansi Fumso, Kofi Pari, Lawra, etc., who might have woken up at about 4:00AM on election day in polling stations across the country some turning up from their farms with soiled fingers and so on. These are the realities on the ground.
Then let us remember when the EC advised and trained polling agents what did we see or notice? As Dr. Bawumia has confirmed the NPP polling agents were just "elated" members of society who they brought there just to be part of the process. "They did not know anything, were just onlookers. So why bring them there?"
I cannot say the same for the electoral officers though. But all political parties are to be blamed in this regard whether it was E.T. Mensah and Asiedu Nketia of the NPP, or Owusu-Afriyie and Kyei Mensah-Bonsu of the NPP, who are well vested in the process over the many years.
For the many others that parties brought to participate as foot shoulders, party loyalists and family to represent them in the process were certainly not well equipped or were just buried in the Ghanaian general culture of "any/everything goes" and "any/everyway is a way."
Probably, they participated just for the financial reward. Mind you I am not saying a "bribe" here. If this was what happened which may not be the case, why turn round and blame the EC or the actual winner of the election for your lose.
This may be why many people find Dr. Bawumia who was not there and looking at just the "pink sheets" alone thinks that he has all the "evidence" and does not need to be three and no need for a witness. This is the biggest fallacy in the petition.
The NPP sound like an UFO/mars, Martians; I haven't met any by the way, comes to earth prescribing remedies to our ailing earth. If there is nothing to remember at all there is a high gravitational force/pull on earth that need to be taken into consideration.
It has taken, as I have said over forty years since we went metric so things like our culture of saying "generally" must change. I can feel the pain of Nana-Addo, of course Obetsebi-Lamptey and their whole group. They were the generation before us they could have done a lot already but did nothing.
So what's good for the goose is good for the gander. The feeling of these people should permeate their attitude and life as a whole and not just during elections, when the stakes are high and a winner must take all. All are culprits in the non-exactness or "closeness to exactness," if there is anything like that.
Listen to this case in point about Akufo-Addo he could tell Ghanaians he lost his certificate but he is still as some may say a good lawyer, he said he could use also just US$78M to give free education to all Ghanaian children in the first year from daycare to senior high school.
Everyone knows this figure is grossly inadequate, for even a good school in Accra for a few years if the best standard is to be kept. Even the BBC quizzed for answers but to no avail.
You also remember Osafo-Marfo when he was Minister of Finance and was touted in the media as the best finance minister in Africa after the similar minister of Botswana. What happened immediately after that? These were the type of politicians we have.
You will wonder why President Kufuor thought it wise to fire him immediately after being the best. Is it that the NPP has some fraud "hangover" to be thinking that in politics they are or should be the best otherwise someone is committing fraud against them?
It isn't that there was any "fraud" or plan orchestrated by the good man President Mahama to create irregularities, omissions, administrative errors, similar serial numbers, ghost polling stations, no verification, etc. Wow!
If that should be the case then this Mahama guy will be the greatest commander-in-chief in history because his war machinery is greater than the battle of Normandy, better than Winston Churchill and General McArthur put together. Ghanaians should be pleased and lucky to have him as president.
"You ask yourself." How could this man have done this in three months, to be able to get all Ghanaians to buy into his fraud. Was it Fraud? As if he is some kind of Bernie Madoff.
Problems that confront our nation as we all know are massive and there are practical solutions to solve these by mobilizing/involving all and sundry. But an election petition should be necessary only when there is an actual mishandling of the process, instead "to cry wolf." What sort of leadership are we portraying?
There is a best way to get this country developed and fast since time is running out, there seem not to be urgency in Ghana at all is another aspect of our woes.
We should allow not just teachers but also use the whole National Service Scheme (NSS) personnel in the electoral process. I mean graduates who are qualified at this level and have at least the education and training that will make them break from the norm and to be able aspire to be "exact" starting from their election experience.
Just like it was for me but should so as not to wait until they get out of the shores of Ghana to get to seriously apply or have the knowledge of the relevance of all the concepts I have espoused. It should be such that it will have to be learned by the people of Ghana for the first time from Dr. Bawumia in this weird setting of trying to correct everyone after every election.
The Supreme court in its judgement will need to also be of counsel to carefully explain the judgment they will make to the broad masses of Ghanaian in the "language" that they understand and not in some Jeff Bridges', K-Pax (Martian) language that will worsen the people's refusal and misunderstanding to participate in future elections.
For now all over the world election participation rates in developed countries are in the fifty percentage range to some eighty percent in the European Union. If care is not taken to safeguard the current participation rate we would be nearing the bastardisation of elections in Ghana.
If the people in Ghana lose the interest in taking part in elections for the sake of one man, "a demigod" looking at some "pink sheets" and annul over 4M election votes in order to become president will be too bizarre. May be the obsession is the pink sheets in itself.
If so, then I will suggest that in future the colour of the sheets should be anything other than "pink," possibly white. So as we will not have any Dr. Bawumia's (professor Pink Sheets) sharp cancelling of votes.
Ghana cannot go into any election where below forty percent of the registered voters will participate for this same fear. The other issue is from now on people will refuse to register to vote at all.
The other reality is if we ask, what do these teeming people gain in elections and what motivates them that is what politicians need to focus on. Is it the issue of getting a free government issued voter ID or the interest in democracy itself?
Instead of becoming disillusioned when they lose elections by resorting to both orthodox and unorthodox ways to circumvent the will of the people at all cost.
Dr. Bawumia could not produce the evidence in his layered "smoking gun" of "pink sheets" because he went fishing for the red herring in the Odaw and Densu stream and river respectively.
It was high time the Supreme Court suggest to him to leave Mars and land on earth since both streams do not have that kind of fish he is looking for. The fish will return only when the environment they will live in is cultured and clean enough to accommodate them. They should all rather be involved in building Ghana instead of destroying it from within.
In the same vane our society, especially the EC should not take things for granted in future elections, for it has got the experience over the years. Hence, it should utilize that strength efficiently instead of allowing any such outsiders dictate how it should do its work.
Every state institution has a role to play especially the EC towards greater democracy such that no "bitter losers" should derail its functions in the future.
To me, Dr. Bawumia may have done a good thing but have used a wrong medium, not because of the petition per se. But for the fact that we should all start learning to be exact in our thinking and in all our endeavours and spheres of life instead of accepting things at face-value.
This statement should be even more true for state institutions, Electoral Commission, Registrar General, Immigration, in fact all MDAs and the whole society.
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