It Is The Same Old Story.
Andy C.Y. Kwawukume
So much for Prof. Ayittey’s views and his powers of prediction. No one can accuse him of not having an imaginative mind though. Any wonder I had accused him of abstract and false empiricism? So let us see what we can make out of what he wrote. After all, he couldn’t just been blowing hot air, as it is clear the issues he wrote about then are real and still making headlines today, though some had vaporized into thin air. Yes, Kufuor and the NPP indeed won the 2000 and 2004 elections and the legacy of endemic corruption they had institutionalized, just as Prof. Ayittey feared, is now tearing the body politic asunder. So, in spite of the much vaunted better economic performance of the NPP in power, the voters turned their back on them in 2008 and 2012 due to the total aversion even some of their die-hard supporters of many felt about their rampant acts of corruption. In fact, I was shocked to observe some of those erstwhile NPP supporters raising money on Ghanaweb’s SIL for the NDC in 2008, something which led to clashes between them and the dyed-in-the-wool NDC supporters who viewed such donations as blood money coming from their many years cyber “enemies”.
Anyway, his post sent me back to something I had then been raising for quite some time on Okyeame. It touches the type of education which the young man in the Prof's story receives which makes him "mess" things up. In the Prof's own word in his presentation at NAROG 1 in Washington, become "astigmatised intellectual".
This problem was well captured in the response given by some “Red Indians” to the invitation sent to them by the white colonisers of America who requested for some young Indians to be "educated" in their new colleges. The Indians, of course, recognised the problem but their way of dealing with it saw them ending up in the squalid reservations they live in today, forerunners to the Bantustans those geniis of Apartheid were creating in South Africa.
The story is told of how by 1744 the colonisers of America had established the three colleges (Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale). Of course, they were all built according to the then British model; to teach young men in Greek, Latin, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, and philosophy. The colonies of Maryland and Virginia entered into agreement with the Indians of the Six Nations, and in June 1744, invited them to send some of their young men to be educated at William and Mary. The Indians politely turned down the offer. I quote in full their response I have, courtesy of the infamous Flatin Committee's Report, "Grenselos Læring" (Borderless Learning) (NOU 1989: 24), which I have the enforced honour of being associated with as the then Chairperson of the Foreign Students Union of Trondheim (FSUT).
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"We know that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in those colleges, and that the Maintenance of our Young Men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your Proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you, who are wise, must know different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss, if our ideas of this kind of Education happen not to be same with yours. We have some Experience of it. Several of our Young People were formerly brought up at the colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all your Sciences; but when they came back to us, they were bad Runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either Cold or Hunger, knew neither how to build a Cabin, take a Deer, or kill an Enemy, spoke our Language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for Hunters, Warriors nor Councellors; they were totally good for nothing. We are, however, not the less oblig'd by your kind offer, tho' we decline accepting it; and to show our Grateful Sense of it; if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a Dozen of their sons, we will take care of their Education, instruct them in all we know, and make Men of them."
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Indeed, hidden in the above quote is the root for explaining what causes "educated" Africans to "mess up", become designated as bankrupt or "astigmatised" intellectuals. I do not intend to delve into the processes here and now, as it is a major issue why the kind of education we have in Africa is failing to deliver development to the continent. I only consider it fit to bring it to the attention of the learned Prof. and sundry, since it appears to me that that realisation seems to lack in his (Prof's) and a great many others' world view of why we Africans are what we are - the chickens are simply coming home to roost! It is simply a question of whether the "young men" and now young women are receiving the right type of education in the first place – an education largely devoid of any practical training and experience in the skills required to cope with and transform their respective environment and societies. With some ignorantly calling for the return of former missionary established schools to the churches in order to purportedly instill discipline in pupils and students - which missionary education is at the core of the problem - I’d recommend that such ignoramuses go and read at least the book, “The Missionaries” by Monkhouse as the first step in enlightening themselves. And then we can take a look at the much talked about failure of educated Africans to behave and perform just like their European (and now Asian) counterparts.
Now, I turn to what I had already commented upon long ago - the "shenanigans" in the NPP prior to the Dec. 1996 elections. Just another batch of chickens coming home to roost, see? Oldies on Okyeame might remember the individual and personalised "contributions" to various NPP constituencies by some candidates vying to be chosen as Presidential candidates. Prof. Adu-Boahen protested to no avail. I brought the issue on Okyeame and supported the Prof's stance. The NPP organisation supported such personalised attempts to gain popularity with the delegates, and the ensuing Tammany Hall-style horse-trading received its blessing! So, several years down the lane, what is exactly new and not proper?
When I read Afari-Adjoa's glowing report in "West Africa" of how Kufuor was such a jolly good fellow, so much concerned about the welfare of the delegates that when some delegates from the North complained about their accommodation, he personally went to them, consoled them and then lodged them in a hotel at own expense, I nearly swooned! If the NPP machinery was incapable of housing its own delegates properly, to me and mercifully a majority of sensible Ghanaians, then it was not yet properly organised to take over the affairs of Ghana! Period! But they went on to take over in 2001 and might still do so in the future in the midst of all that rot they relish!
Well, such personalised actions receive sanction from the party, let us not be fooled about! The trouble, dear and sensible Ghanaians, is not with Kufuor then, nor with Obetsebi-Lamptey now. It has to do with the whole party machinery and its functionaries and, not to forget, many of its die-hard supporters, who saw no evil and spoke no evil then. Anyway, the Busia/Danquah tradition has never captured the imagination of the majority of Ghanaians and has never won any free and fair election before until the 2000 and 2004 elections. Forget about the 1969 fraud, when they made sure any viable opposition was banned pork, lock and barrel. We the "against people" of such a tradition can therefore afford to be complacent until the year 2000 or plus, as I wrote then! I wish them good luck in the proposed image lifting measures since their effects on my nerves for not doing so, and I believe that of others, compounding the mind-shattering conditions back at home, induce a shorter life-span!
As an addition, it was the same Prof. Ayittey who informed us after the 2000 elections about how the NDC government abortively tried to seize a donation of $10m from President Obasanjo to the NPP, a donation very much against the electoral rules of Ghana. It was the utter dereliction of the Electoral Commissioner, Dr Afari Gyan, that allowed such a blatant breach of our laws to be committed without any consequence. Perhaps, taking a cue from that, the late President Mills also sought Nigerians to finance his 2008 elections. Some of us read with increasing trepidation the Editor of the Ovation Magazine account of how TB Joshua and the owner of the Energy Bank came into his life and assistance; and by default, the life of Ghanaians. It now appears the insidious power of Nigerian money bags and religious charlatans have become parts and parcels of our body politic, thanks to the criminal negligence of the EC. The need to overhaul the oversight over and rationalize party financing CANNOT be swept under the carpet any longer. As at this very moment, only the PPP is known to have submitted the statutory declarations to the EC since the last elections. The NPP and PNC are involved in trading accusations of theft against those entrusted with party funds and materials. Good for them!
By the way, if the NPP is seen in some circles as an "Ashanti" party, who is to be blamed? Were some of us not mortified and aghast when upon the election of Kufuor as its flag-bearer, attempts were made to present him ("foist" a better word) to us as having "blue urine" (apologies to Chicky) flowing directly from Manhyia (the Palace of the Asante King), and that would cause magic? Reminds me of the banned sect, Jesus Christ of Dzorwulu, whose "Pastor" used to baptise the faithfuls with his urine, long before drinking their own urine was found by fellow Ghanaians to have curative properties! Wonder what a blue urine would have caused then. Emmm, perhaps, we're finding out now ... Chickens coming home to roost, one by one.
Well, I guess I've said enough. But before I go, it seems the Prof. has echoed some things I said long ago about some being caught in the Nkrumah-Busia/Danquah blind alleys. My ancestors and grandfathers, like the ancestors of some on this net too (and back at home), built and ruled over some of the towns and villages that today make up Ghana long before those gents were born. I think we have learned enough (new things), know enough (from past and present) and have imagination enough to contribute in our unique ways to build a better Ghana, nay! Africa, to live in. It is only the vacuous with no ideas of their own that continue to hang on to the apron-strings of those gents without reflection. Busia and Danquah did not invent democracy and the rule of law; neither did Nkrumah socialism. We can go to the sources too and pick and choose to shape our imaginations and visions to transform our societies so that almost all, if not all, live in dignity as defined universally, with a local basis, of course.
Andy C. Y. Kwawukume
cyandyk@ymail.com
London, Feb. 2014
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