The Stolen Ananse Story

When we were young our elders told us so many stories, some were true fact such as the story about Yaa Asantewaah and her strong stand on defending our culture and kingdom, the story of slave trade and white man’s exchange of the Bible for our gold, land and enslaving our kinsmen. There were also the fictions which were called the Ananse story. In this fiction one character, Kwaku Ananse seems to posses all the wisdom and antics which made him to be able to con and maneuver any other character, but in the end Kwaku always get into trouble. This should be a lesson for those who wants to be modern day Kwaku Ananse.

We now have the whole American Embassy which is not contented to collect our voluntary donation in the form of Visa Fees and voluntary slavery which we allow ourselves to become to America. But also they have now become the Ananse story tellers. The New ‘Akee Akee’ group with so much Water passing under the Bridge.

By the way why do we now have Ministers whose main job is to gossip with these people that have no job in our country but only to collect visa fees? Perhaps the orientation at GIMPA for our newly appointed Minister should include a topic on how to relate to a these foreign diplomats. As Honorable Victor Gbeho said it is not everything you must discuss with these so called foreign staff about your government officials, party leadership and even your opposition members. These white people are natural gossip machines; they talk about anything and everything with their wives, church member’s colleagues, you name it. Officials should be circumspect when dealing with such people. Shame to all the political parties who taught they were going to make political gain from the Wikileaks exposure. There is a proverb that when you are having a nice launch chewing the hand of the monkey, you should remember yours.

I for one am not worried about what Wikileaks releases, what we should be worried about as a country should be what discussion our ministers and government officials are allowed to do with foreign country staff, they are paid to bring development and promote our country not to denigrate our leaders and spent our tax money on useless ventures. We should be able to give ministers target and hold them to performance. In five years, Japan has had six Prime Ministers because they are held accountable to the people who voted them into power. What we see in Ghana is that politicians seek power as servants and when given power, they act as lord and masters. Our political discus is mainly about who has embezzle most and unprintable personal insults which leave bad taste in the month.

It is time for Ghanaians to handle national issues with bipartisan approach and send strong protest to American Embassy Official to mind the kind of gossip they engage in while in Ghana. We should not forget the issue of the British diplomat who wrote lot garbage about some Ghanaians official sometime ago which generated a lot noise but nothing came out of it. There was also the mother of Twins for ex president Kufour. We are yet to see the children. Why do we spend so much time on useless discussion which does not add any value to our daily life?

We should be challenging our young brilliant brains on how we can start thinking of building underground train to ameliorate the traffic jam in Accra and other cities. Dr Yankeys’ new outfit for natural gas should be discussion on how we can encourage the use of the gas by piping it to individual houses to remove the middle man and reduce the danger of gas bottle explosions. Rather what I hear now is whether gas should be used in vehicles. If the natural is in abundance why can’t we use it in vehicles which is much clear than octane and diesel. There are many country where gas is used in vehicles, there more than 13 million vehicles in Dhaka which uses Condensed Natural Gaz (CNG), Let us start to think of developing equipment that we can also produce now that Ghana is going to produce petrochemicals, flat sheets, produce fertilizer for export. Set target for present government to give us a blue print for the development of our country. Set a new agenda for discussion instead of Wikileaks. Please everyone should grow up. Ananse Story should be left for the kids to enjoy.

Joseph Ampomah Adu