Release of the Montie fools: Who really let the dogs out?

By Jaysegbefia

We’re back at it all over again, aren’t we? We’re back to the very beginning of the string of foolishness and downright ridiculousness that is the stock-in-trade of how the Ghanaian government has handled the issue of the Montie Fools.

The never-ending saga of the barbecue of the trio, who were grilled, peppered and browned by Ghana’s Supreme Court over their threats on radio to deal in no uncertain terms with the Chief Justice and other honourable justices of the apex court, is a cuisine the likes of which has been offered time and time again in this apampamu-store restaurant of a Republic.

This cuisine, never mind that the Fools tripped over themselves all-apologetically when their foul-mouthed breathings were held to supreme accountability, is not a new item on the menu.

And now, after we’d all had laughs about the ridiculousness of the stampede of the sharp-toothed Anyidohos, the bugs bunny sniggering Ablakwas, the caustic Ofosu Kwakyes and the hypocritical Oye Lithurs – the hoi polloi of all that is wrong with this country – to sign the Montie Fools Petition, we are left dazed, stupefied and chagrinned about the form of ridiculousness the petition has now assumed.

Anyone who mistakes the President of Ghana for a fool clearly does not understand the nature of the worse form of political governance – Mediocrity.

But first, the facts:

The Montie Fools, three men of a degenerate sort, went on the rampage on a government-allied broadcast programme and made proclamations of threats to harm and assassinate the Chief Justice and other judges on the eve of Martyrs’ Day in Ghana.

The Three Fools had warned judges of Ghana’s highest court to be wary of their conduct in the case involving the Electoral Commission and Mr Abu Ramadan if they did not want to suffer the fate of the three members of the bench who were shot to death and burnt on June 30, 1982 in the era of the misbegotten Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC); the sick entity that was impregnated with, conceived and birthed the even more disgusting caricature known today as the NDC.

When hauled to the Supreme Court, the three refused to cite one law (even of press freedom) in their own defense, but begged for their lives like the true cowards they were, sniveling and groveling on the floor of the Supreme Court like dehydrated sea urchins, till the day sentence was handed down to them.

Clearly their acts were criminal. Hard as it is to believe, even in this apampamu-store Republic, threatening to harm a human being is a crime. But the Supreme Court could not hold them accountable for their crime without due recourse to the legal process of a trial. That prerogative is the Attorney General’s alone, who would sooner eat her head than initiate action against the NDC Fools.

No one crosses the General of the NDC party by jailing his foot soldiers.

Unless they wanted their sleeping places changed in the quagmire of vindictive NDC politics.

Consequently, the Court could only hold the Fools accountable through the power of contempt and unanimously found them guilty of same. Their foul-mouthed backsides were towed to Nsawam right after, and deservedly so.

Immediately after, we all had good laughs as men and women of the NDC lined up to sign a petition to free the Montie Clowns. We laughed because these were men and women who clearly have consciences on auction to the highest bidder; men and women who are dishonest, in need of MRI scans from center to circumference for loose screws, and false to the heart’s core; men and women who will condemn the truth in friends and foes, as in themselves; men and women whose consciences are as faltering as the foam on the waves at the shore; men and women who will fall for the wrong even if they were not invited to so do; men and women who can embellish the lie and look the world and the heavenly hosts right in the eye; men and women who are too hungry to work outside of politics but too proud to be poor from honest work; men and women who are willing to eat what they have not earned, and wear what they have not been paid for; men and women who in their inmost souls are vile and wretched.

And so we laughed. But now, the eggs are in our faces. The President of Ghana has given power to a ridiculous petition by granting same.

For the avoidance of doubt, let me say that the decision to free the Montie Fools is a foolish one. President Mahama goes down in Ghana’s history as the president to remit the sentences of three of his party’s alleged criminals – men who threatened to rape and kill the Chief Justice and other judges of Ghana’s Supreme Court.

But this declaration of mine is premised on the unfounded belief that the president pardoned the Clowns as a show of legal, presidential or intellectual acuity.

In fact the reverse is true, and herein lies the difficulties of the middle class. President Mahama has never held himself forward as a man of intellect, as a man of middle-class forethought, nor as a man of the most decisive leadership. Those of us who judge him by these criteria really need to go hug an ECG pole. And this point is the exact same thing Asiedu Nketia tried to educate us about, in his usual, palm-wine tapping logic.

And the president has clearly demonstrated the place he wants to occupy in our political history. Not the intellectualism of Busia nor the factualism of Nkrumah, nor even the pragmatism of Rawlings – far from these – but the spinelessness of Mahamaism.

And, as demonstrated in the clearly ludicrous release of the Montie Fools, a friend of mine said, “the president has simply acted like the Biblical twin who exchanged his birthright for a pot of mpotompoto,” when the other made the choice that secured his wealth and fame for eons to come.

The President is thinking of himself and his ultimate survival in the quagmire of NDC politics. His chances of ever becoming party leader and flagbearer would have equated to a snowball’s chance in hell but for Prof. Mills’ death. The only way to secure what would otherwise have been for him a misfortune of unimaginable proportions is to serve the grassroots. And the grassroots wanted their comrades freed.

Already, the doves that were released to capitalize on the memory of the resting Prof absolutely refused to fly and engage in mindless propaganda in Cape Coast. Therefore, the gates of Nsawam had to be opened, and the Montie Fools had to be released, similar to Herod’s granting of Herodias’ Salome-veiled request for John the Baptist’s head on a silver plate.

It is those grassroots soldiers who got him the presidential crown to begin with. He messes with them at the risk of his own presidential backside. Clearly, just like little Dramani’s indecision when stared with disaster on his little bike, the president was found in the spot where suicide looked imminent. So he made his move. And released the dogs.

Not wise.

Not smart.

But a move, nonetheless.

But who really let the dogs out on this saga? You and I – the so-called middle-class – we’re the ones who really released the dogs. While the bunch of jokers were tripping over themselves to sign the petition, we all stood back and chortled over the demonstration of such crass. The petitioners made a move. They read the signs well and made their move.

All we did was stand aside and laugh while they moved. And they knew spineless Mahamaism would respond as expected, while we ranted and raved on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp as if social media rants could boil a lizard’s egg in this Republic.

And the Fools were freed.

Effectually.

And now we’re at it again. Ranting and raving on social media. When we should hit the streets, grassroots style, and demand an end to mediocrity, we’re all here speaking long grammar and shaking our heads. The president has long since diagnosed our toothlessness and is pretty happy to exploit it.

When Yvonne Nelson got pissed off and launched an assault, we all stayed at home to watch on Facebook, waiting for photos to come in of pretty faces in the protest we could satisfy our masturbatory urges in the night with, and refused to stand up and be counted.

We are the ones sinking this once glorious ship of Ghana with our uselessness when it comes to speaking out against mediocrity and downright foolishness. We are afraid of getting tagged as political party sympathizers, so we watch unconcerned as those who hardly made a C-minus in the university in any course to do with either common sense or governance make minced meat of our national dignity. And we will be the ones who won’t vote on December 7 to end this eight-year night of madness.

Wondering who let the dogs out?

Wondering where we go pass come reach here?

Point to no one else but yourself.

Me, I have staged my protest. The dogs will come after me, of course – I’d be very disappointed if they didn’t – but let the records bear me out that in the madness of the release of the Montie Fools I, JayJay D. Segbefia, Jungle Boy Chupa Chups Extraordinare, declared it a foolish decision, among many.

Over and Out!