Playing Dumb On The Road To Utopia

Court: “How do you plead? Are you guilty or not guilty?
Accused: “ I plead my party”!!!
- Coming to a court near you this season of madness.

Okay, its official: The NPP has become the NDC!!!

While you slept, former ministers of the Kuffour government had organised themselves and marched en masse, cars, girlsfriends, brothers and sisters, well-wishers and even enemies to the House of Exile, or the Headquarters of the BNI, properly so-called. The reasons for the action were that they were going there to ask of the whereabouts of the Honourable Kojo Mpiani. I was in my office but I listened to the running commentary on JOY FM. I heard Dan Botwe speak. I heard Asabee speak later in the night. I also heard Kwabena Agyepong speak.

Oh, me nkrofo, aba asem koraa nyi? The actions of the former government officials and their supporters in organizing a siege at the BNI Head Office were to say the least unfortunate. It’s a low point, whichever you look at it, if former leaders and potential leaders besiege a state institution to demand the release of Mr. Mpiani. In the opinion of Breda Osimi, it another example of the brazen, shameless, typically-Ghanaian-politically induced move by people who frankly ought to know better. That is what makes the NPP the same as the NDC of yore.

Now let me pose a few questions? How different is that from the gang that followed the Venerable Papa Jay to the same place many years ago. Note that the then incumbent NPP extended the invitation. How different is the NPP mob of ex-ministers and former government functionaries and elephant sympathizers from the NDC yobs that followed the Hon. E. T. Mensah to the same House of Exile following his arrest and interrogation in the same House of Exile? How different is the NPP from the NDC yobs who followed Auntie Nana Konadu to the Courts singing and drumming their way into pumping fear in the hearts of the judges in the case? What moral compass does the NPP hold when people like Nana Ato Dadzie and many other functionaries of NDC I found themselves walking the same path as that threaded by Kojo Mpiani on the 02/26/09. Has the BNI been overhauled? Has Uncle Fiifi changed all the personnel there in the past 5 months such that they are applying new water boarding techniques learnt from the Venerable Gbevlo Lartey and Soja Panyin Nunoo-Mensah? How can the people who besieged the BNI office call themselves leaders? Are these the people to whom I entrusted my life and that of my manager and the two musketeers over all these years? Champions of the rule of law?

To all the people who besieged the House of Exile, I say you are potential nation-wreckers and hypocrites. You are no different from the guys up North who take up arms at the slightest provocation to resolve their issues. You are attacking government and governance the same way the NDC did to win power. In effect, you have now shown that you are officially in the opposition. You have just become the NDC of yore and its a crying shame. I could hardly bear listening to discerning minds among them and indeed some elder statesmen inciting the good people of Ogyakrom to breach the peace. How can you govern when all you do is to bastardise government and government agencies for selfish political ends? When will you start behavioring like leaders? I have previously commented that some of our leaders must go to church and mosques to thank Yeshua and Allah as appropriate for the country they find themselves in. Because if you were in other climes where they are discerning, you would not even qualify as a council member. One of them was even brazen enough to say that Mr. Mpiani may have been killed. What crash buffoonery is this from people who frankly ought to know better? The same thing happened during the elections. The NDC called out its people and they responded, en masse, sticks, cutlasses, 'bodanbo', 'buta', 'apio', 'ntampi' and all. The NPP did same. All in a bid to intimidate the EC? Leaders of today incorporating leaders of tomorrow? Weep for Ama Ghana!!!

For the records, the BNI did nothing illegal or unlawful re Kojo Mpiani’s invitation for questioning. This fact is known to most of the former government officials who converged at the House of Exile. Under the Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, 1996 (Act 526), the mandate of the BNI is so widely defined under section 12 (e) that the President or the National Security Counsel may direct them to perform any defined function which they deem as falling within national security. That’s broad, way too broad. That’s prone to abuse. Abuse is not specific to the NDC. It applies equally to the NPP too.

I fully agree with Counsel for Mr. Mpiani when he argues that it is critical that we all work at changing our ways in such matters. How can lawyers be disabled from being of service to their clients at such a critical time? Mpiani’s lawyer is absolutely spot-on that Mr. Mpiani’s right has been infringed.

But who’d bell the cat? These matters aren’t new. They existed in the NPP era and were duly utilized for selfish political gains. The same personnel are now employing the same tactics on their former masters. The abiding pain is that the NPP has no moral right to make such calls against such behaviour. You feel like crying for Opanyin Kojo but truth be told, the tears are hard to come by. People who are passionate about Ghana and who are discerning can and indeed should make the calls against such behaviour. It cannot be right when a senior policeman at a station where a client has been arrested tells the lawyer that their time had not come because they should go and wait for the case in court and have no business at a police station when a client has been arrested. That’s of course, bunkum. But that’s the life in Ogyakrom. Opanyin Kojo, warts and all, has a right under the constitution to legal counsel. If he does not get it, he can refuse to talk until his lawyers are by his side. But the dilemma for Opanyin Kojo may be this: “in a land where it’s the victor’s law that applies, what do I do? If I don’t cooperate and they get angry, they may “finger” me bad”. Ask yourself, why are the Tony Blairs and Dubya’s walking free in the land of their birth? It’s because the law is no respector of person. It’s because of equality before the law. It’s because out there, no politician can manipulate the system. If you have manipulated the system before, knowing that the pains of Tsatsu were contrived in some room before being played out in public, then you have earned the right to your nightmares! May you never sleep easy!!!. If you have stolen money, done illegal and unlawful things in our collective names, you have earned the right to your nightmares! God is doing a wonderful thing. Teaching politicians that it is about service to the people and not to self!!!

Mr. Politician, you have been given a golden chance to fleece a nation of forgivers. You can do a little good for great personal gain. But please, Papa Politricks, stop bastardizing the government or government agencies. Now you have the street hawkers saying that they would not leave the pavements. Are we cursed to remain in the jungle forever? All of us, discerning or not, have a duty to give government time and space to work. The law, as the breachers are already aware, makes provision for redress even if the BNI messes one up. If Gushiegu, Tamale and Bawku are deemed lawless because of the tendency for self-help, then our so-called leaders have the same genes. That should set you running to the nearest temple for some fasting and prayers. For people who aspire to govern and the people who are in government, you act to impugn government at your peril. Those actions will not stop the state agencies from doing their work. If anyone perceives an infringement of their right, the law is available.

So what has changed?

Where there was a Papa Jay There was a K4.

Where there was a Konadu There was a Theresa.

Where there was a 31st There was a Mother & Child.

Where there was a Kume Preko There was a Wahala.

Where there was an Alliance There was a Committee.

Where there was a Vision There was a Strategy.

Where there was an Asemfofro There was a Stadium.

Where there was a Chagnon There is a Lion.

Where there was a Vitol There is a Sahara.

Where there was an NPP There is an NDC.

The NPP was for primaries The NDC was for consensus.

The NPP was for consensus The NDC was for primaries.

The NPP was for Change The NDC was for Continuity.

The NPP was for Continuity The NDC was for Change.

The NPP is the NDC is the NPP?

So if you didn’t know, now you know. The wheels have turned and still remain forever still. The politicians are the same? Is life only about tummies? You and I may not matter much in that equation. The NPP has become the NDC! Will the NDC become the NPP? When you say a prayer, say one for Uncle Fiifi. Uncle Fiifi, wowo asem bo no por!!!

Mr. Politrician, stop driving us to utopia just because we are all dumb!!!

God Bless Our Homeland Ghana

And Make Our Nation Great and Strong!!!

Breda Osimi

www.osimidiaries.blogspot.com