Presidential Goofs and Gaffes – Who is Who?

The English press heavily ridiculed former Premier, Tony Blair for the few grammatical mistakes he made during his years at Number 10 Downing Street.

I remember very well, how a section of the English press circulated a text that was supposedly written by the audacious talking Blair. I was so worried that I began asking myself whether the British press thought Tony Blair should be the repository of all the good works in syntax.

That stereotyping was not limited to Blair – it was extended to John Prescott, to the extent that a section of the press pejoratively referred to the intelligent Deputy Prime Minister as the ‘Man with the Golden Gaffes’.

When ex-US President Clinton was defending his ‘relationship’ with an ex-White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, he used the phrase ‘inappropriate relationship’.

Back home in Ghana, I remember many of the favourite phrases I.K. Acheampong used, I also remember the many gaffes of Mr Rawlings. However, a friend of mine always argued with me during the 19 odd years of Rawlings’ rule that the latter never goofed.

My friend’s reasoning was founded in his belief that the ex-President always spoke in a certain Europeanised tone – and the Europeans never ‘screw up words’!

Well, then enter Mr John Agyekum Kufuor. I loved and still reminisce the Kufuor days. I reminisce Mr Kufuor and his ruling elites for their love for comfort and luxury. But should I blame them? The people practised a property owning democracy, which in the African political and economic lexicon is ‘the division of economic benefits among self, family, friends and cronies’ – call it crony capitalism and you would just be spot on!

Another ‘good’ thing was the spin doctoring – here, the Kufuor regime was just super.

Hey, before I digress too much, the Kufuor gaffes were just awesomely rib cracking! I know that African presidents love decorating themselves with awards. Idi Amin and Bokassa fall in that category. However, I never thought that disease could find its way into our Motherland.

So when Mr Kufuor decided to make himself a pop star by decorating himself with expensive golden chains, I wondered, just like many Ghanaians why the ex-President should descend to that low. By that feat, the ex-President earned himself the nickname ‘50 Cents’!

Then I remember very well how Mr Kufuor decided to call the hungry Ghanaian masses ‘lazy people.’ Yes, for complaining that his economic management policies brought untold hardships on the electorate, the masses drew the ire of the ‘50 Cent’ ex-President and he decided to call them lazy people.

That was not the best gaffe of ex-President Kufuor! According to him, Ghana had discovered gas in large deposits in the Cape Three Points Area. He invited the Voice of America (VOA) to the Castle for an interview. During the interview, the ex-President who was obviously overwhelmed by ‘his’ gas discovery said he did not want Ghanaians to be ‘hobbled.’ Whatever that word meant in the context of the interview, only God knows!

Then ex-President Kufuor decided to extend his ‘good’ grammar further by deciding to pronounce the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, commonly known by its acronym, FIFA, the international governing body of association football as ‘fyfa’.

Many times ex-President Kufuor spoke during his presidency, he used another phrase, ‘impactful’. Indeed, the word ‘impactful’ is a non-existent word coined by corporate advertising, marketing and business drones to make their work sound far more useful, exciting and beneficial to humanity than it really is. The ‘coinage’ is also used informally to refer to things that have an impact.

Indeed, I am not saying any of these things for the sake of ridiculing the personalities, but rather to tell supporters of political parties that gaffes are not strictly limited to people of a particular leaning.

A few days ago, I got a very interesting text message on my communicator phone. Because the telephone number was hidden, and I was driving at the time, I decided to flip the communicator interface open.

Then an interesting voice popped up. It went like, ‘ecomony, ecomony, economy.’ I began to wonder what that text message was all about. Then I went to a friend’s place to make some enquires and while there, my friend changed his dial to the frequency of an Accra radio station. Then bam, “ecomony, ecomony, economy”. I asked my friend what the voice was all about.

He quickly said that was how President Mills, who ‘was simply overwhelmed by his victory at the December 2008 polls pronounced ‘economy’. I said well, I remember that the President even ‘screwed’ up his oath of office.

The following day when I got home, my wife told me that some of her students actually have the ‘ecomony, ecomony, economy’ gaffe as ring tones! But what about President Mills deciding to award himself 80 percent for doing ‘a very good job for the past 100 days’?

Well, in the midst of all the gaffes, I believe that because the English language is not our first language, we are bound to release a few ‘bullets’ once a while. However, when the ‘bullets’ become one too many, especially those coming from Law Professors from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and Exeter College educated graduates, then where shall the Legon graduates stand?

Source: Kojo Owusu-Mbire

Email: owusumbire@gmail.com