Red Alert For Our Welfare?

Herbert Krapa

hkrapa@gmail.com

*On Thursday, February 17, 2011, the President, Prof. Mills, in his state of the nation address, supposed to be the general situation and status of the entire country, remarked to all of us, that, “Madam Speaker**,* as Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, and having sworn to protect the integrity of mother Ghana, I have put security agencies on red alert and they are under strict instructions to deal decisively within the ambit of the law with anybody or group of persons who will attempt to disturb the peace and stability of this dear nation of ours.

We will not sit idly by and allow some persons to throw this country into a state of chaos just to satisfy their self-centered and inordinate political desires.”

I had a good laugh.

With too many questions lingering in my mind about the President’s directive to security agents, I intriguingly called up a friend, a security expert to explain to me what it means to put security agents on “red alert”. After his lengthy, security explanation, I asked him what could possibly be the Presidents motivation to put security agents in Ghana on red alert, as he put it to “deal decisively within the ambit of the law with anybody or group of persons who will attempt to disturb the peace and stability of this dear nation of ours.”

He thought the President’s call was needless to say the least and a complete sham to say it best. He mentioned in passing though, that, the President could also be doing so because of the fierce internal competition coming up in his party, which competition promises a lot of tension and perhaps threat to our dear nation’s security. We both had a laugh, but perhaps over a serious matter in the making.

Mr. Osu Castle resident President, the Ghanaian people, thanks to the mass media and information technology, are clear in our minds that there is no tension in any part of Ghana today: we haven’t heard, we haven’t seen. Indeed, for many of us, the biggest insecurity of our lives today, is the growing hardships and sky rocketing cost of living that your obviously insensitive government continues to subject us to.

By the third day of this year, just before workers could recover from the Christmas spending, the government announced a 30% price hike on petroleum products. It would be the third time that Mills has increased fuel prices since assuming office as President. Don’t be confused! He is the same person who as candidate, said in 2008, after the NPP reduced fuel prices twice that year, that, as President he would not hesitate to further reduce fuel prices. So far, as President, he has not hesitated at all to increase petrol prices by 85.4% and diesel and kerosene have gone up by 72.5% and 30% respectively and not bothered by the unfortunate hardships that his insensitive fuel price hikes have brought to all of us, he sarcastically decided to joke with the matter by blaming the NPP for his cruel decisions. Hypocrisy, comedy and sarcasm! But do the Ghanaian people deserve to be treated like that by our President? Mills should perhaps take some humility lessons from the man he borrowed the ‘Change’ slogan from, President Barrack Obama. Obama, at his own midterm crisis, was courageous and humble enough to apologise to Americans for some of his policies which have not brought them economic relief. Mills can and should do same and stop taking us for a ride.

The NDC said in their 2008 manifesto, the policy document that was supposed to have won them the elections that they were coming to inherit a paralysed economy, if they won the elections. What then is this usual NDC chorus of “we didn’t know the real state of affairs” “we didn’t know the real state of affairs”? The NPP did not leave behind a paralysed economy. But to cut a long story short, let all of us remind the NDC that they are in power, they already knew they were going to inherit a paralysed economy as they said; they have come to meet it as they insist our country is broke, so they should just fix it. For my money, Mills has presided over the most paralysed government ever, at least in the fourth Republican dispensation.

Who, reading this piece, irrespective of your political affiliation, has not heard one or the other of these statements being made by the people in your locality or workplace - President Mills has disappointed us; we were expecting him to continue from where Kufuor left off; there is no money in Ghana today, when NPP was in power our lives were better off; Mills has turned his back on all his campaign promises; only the NDC ministers are living well; today in Ghana, there is no money, nowhere and we will vote for Akufo-Addo in 2012.

You have, and yes these are the things that portend the greatest form of insecurity to the people on a daily basis: whether they can pay their children’s school fees, being able to pay for their healthcare and what to eat today, and to them Mills has been a failure in that regard. Our President should know therefore, that his red alert call is misdirected. He should put his ministers and appointees on red alert to arrest the growing economic hardship that the Ghanaian suffers today and stop wasting everybody’s time with a matter that does not exist.

Akufo-Addo’s “all-die be-die” call is a peaceful one, members of the NPP understand it, the Ghanaian people have embraced it and it is therefore not a surprise that ever since he made that statement, not a single incident of violence has been reported in any part of our country in connection to it. In any case, why are the NDC being hysterical and paranoid about the statement? The man says if you throw a stone at us, me and my people will defend ourselves. My question to the NDC is: why worry about such a harmless comment if you know you will not throw a stone at them?

After an un impressive two years performance, the President decided to play on our minds as usual and declared this year, his third year in office, as action year. On the contrary, like many other Ghanaians, the man tipped widely by all, to unseat Mills and make him a one-term President has described the year as a ration year. “Water is being rationed, electricity supply is being rationed irrationally, road works are on ration, and the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure is seriously being rationed to the dismay of several workers including nurses and teachers.

The President is obviously out of touch with the happenings of today; he sees and hears differently from the rest of us, including Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings. I sit in the office with Akufo-Addo and I know the different groups that come to him on a daily basis to express their disappointment in the Mills-Mahama administration and also promise to work hard to ensure a Nana Addo victory in 2012. Just as dissatisfied members of the NDC go to Nana Konadu with their problems, so do fishermen, teachers, nurses and all other groups of people come to Akufo-Addo, hoping, that he will come and take over power in 2012 and salvage them from the suffering and deprivations that the Mills-Mahama government has brought on them. Until then, Mr. President, the Ghanaian people are hoping that you can at least ration the sufferings of the masses.