On 'loving' your president and yet - Deliberately embarrassing him!

Politics, they say, makes strange bed-fellows. But sometimes, things happen that even in politics, seem unbelievable.

Otherwise, why would US President Donald Trump have hired Rex Tillerson as his Secretary of State, only to fire him by a message posted on 'Twitter' -- without even having the courtesy to call him and tell him -- after he'd heard that Tillerson had described Trump as a “moron”?

Or why would ex-President Jacob Zuma have had open, undisguised dealings with the Guptas, an Indian family that was so unscrupulous in using their association with Zuma in grabbing financial power in South Africa, that the term commonly used to describe their blatant seizure of public funds is “state capture”?

As a result of the Guptas' lust for “state capture”, both ex-President Zuma and his son, Duduzane, are now in danger of being convicted by South African courts on charges relating to financial misconduct. They may well end up in jail. Some "love" from the Guptas, what?

Yet, if anyone had ever asked the Guptas about their feelings for the Zumas, the Guptas would have professed to “love” the Zumas even more than they love themselves!

Bizarre, isn't it? You allegedly “love” a person and yet you engage in conduct that you must know will reflect badly on him – because of your known association with him?

I am afraid this awful mode of exhibiting an insensitive attitude towards the reflection people's actions produce against friends or colleagues in authority, has arrived on Ghanaian soil. In spite of the bad taste left in our mouths by the “Ameri deal”; despite the hue and cry over the alleged Cocobod “money-chopping” enterprise; or the still unresolved issues surrounding contracts awarded by the National Communications Authority and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust; we still read about “single-source” procurement and other questionable practices continuing in our beloved country.

Have those who carry out such transactions that create a lot of political noise no pity at all? Can't they see that in the current political atmosphere, where the Minority Group is so vituperative and negative that even the founder of their own party has expressed bewilderment at their attitude, it is sheer madness not to anticipate that bad motives will be ascribed to their actions, if they allow the slightest whiff of impropriety to be attached such actions? And that the scent of it will gravitate towards the President they claim to ”love” so much because he has been so gracious towards them?

Are these officials too dim-witted to realise that we are in a political climate in which, when President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo merely sneezes, political propagandists can detect in the mucus from his nose, the catalytic beginnings of a “process” for the diversion of the Nile River onto the plains of Afram, with the connivance of the Egyptian authorities and ex-Guantanamo water-boarding practitioners?

But wait! If Nana Addo then coughs, they say, "Didn't we tell you? The process has reached a stage whereby there is to be a mass transplantation of Greenland ice – adorned by polar bears and all – to the Odaw River basin so that would-be squatters there would run scared of using the place as their unauthorised abode (in case the polar bears ate them!)

I use those examples as a metaphor (I don't care whether it's a “mixed” one!) to describe what I think is happening between some sections of the NPP and President Akufo-Addo. The President has launched a campaign against galamsey; a campaign which, according to him, will never be abandoned, even if it were to cost him re-election in 2020 (assuming he was interested in securing such a re-election.)

Speaking at Soabe in the Eastern Region on 26 April 2017, the President said: “I have been told that some of the people engaged in illegal mining [galamsey] have threatened to vote against the NPP in 2020 if I crack the whip on the culprits. I am more concerned about fulfilling God’s purpose and devising measures to propel the nation’s development. That’s my focus and not election-related issues.

“Things we must do to propel development are the things I am concerned about. Our forefathers left us the natural resources. If we can’t protect them, then we should leave them for future generations........ Today, Kyebi, Abirem, it’s a sad sight to behold. Mining along the water-bodies cannot continue if we want to preserve nature and our system”.

This is such a logical and patriotic dictum on the part of the President that even those who hate his guts can see the sense of it, let alone those who profess to “love” him. And yet, what do we hear? Not only from the rumour-mill but now, from the centres of traditional power in our country; from those whom our ancient proverbs extol as having been provided with “big ears” so that they can hear about whatever is going on in their own land?

This is what I am talking about: QUOTE

“Deal with your own people if you want 'galamsey' curbed - Amansie Chiefs to Akufo-Addo

“Traditional leaders in the Amansie Central District of the Ashanti region have urged President Akufo-Addo to deal with his own people if he is really determined to stop illegal mining activities in the country. They are accusing the CEO of the Ghana Forestry Commission..... of giving the Aprapram forest reserve to Chinese nationals to mine, under the pretext of doing reclamation.

“The chiefs also cited the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party... who they say is supervising illegal mining activities at the forest reserve. This came to [the] fore during a meeting between the Minister of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs, and the Chiefs of Amansie.

“The [chiefs] indicated that illegal mining is so rife in the area that the Kobro (sic) forest reserve had been tagged as the 'Nana Akufo-Addo galamsey site'. Anybody who attempts going to the forest, they claim, is turned away, even to the extent that [the] Member of Parliament for the people of Jacobu, Hon Emmanuel Akwasi Gyamfi, was turned away when he tried enter the Kobro (sic) Forest to [assess] the ...reclamation going on there. UNQUOTE

Now, one must ask: Are the NPP “bigwigs” accused of carrying on galamsey by the chiefs, proud to have their names associated with an evil practice that is depriving millions of Ghanaians of their drinking water? Are they proud to be acting in such a way that the name of the President who said he would end galamsey, is now being openly coupled with a “galamsey site”?

There are certain things that are too disgraceful to be associated with people of good breeding. “Animguase?mmfata Okanni ba!”[“Disgrace does not befit the offspring of an Akan!”] our elders taught us. I am sure other ethnic groups have similar sayings that warn members of their group not to act in a such a way that disgrace would be brought upon the heads of them all as a collective whole.

The matter is out in the open. It is up to the individuals exposed by the chiefs to realise that this is the end of that road they had ignominiously chosen for themselves, and purge themselves of the contempt they have shown towards the President they profess to love. Failing that, the President must be bold – and he would have the backing of all right-thinking Ghanaians – to utter unto them, the words made famous by Donald Trump: “You are fired!”

And if they don't like that, they can go and burn the sea. Ghana will remain, with its water-bodies secured for her unborn generations.