Tutoring Mr “know all” Kwesi Pratt on the “one village, one dam” proposition

By Rockson Adofo

Today, Tuesday 27 September 2016, I heard Mr “Know All” Kwesi Pratt live on Kwami Sefa Kayi’s Morning Show Kookrokoo share his views on Nana Akufo Addo’s envisaged policy of “One Village One Dam”. As usual, he was vociferously condemning and rubbishing the policy as non-feasible and non-achievable.

Has anything good ever come out of the mouth of Kwesi Pratt about the NPP and Nana Akufo Addo? No!

Kwesi Pratt as a known failed newspaper owner, Editor-in-Chief and journalist, has become a serial radio programme panellist, shuttling between radio stations from morning till evening sharing his views on every topic under the Sun, the moon and the stars, as though he was an authority on every subject.

He is again a known stomach politician and journalist walking with his stomach so is always being at the beck and call of the NDC, doing their dirty propaganda work for them on the radio programmes.

Kwesi Pratt argued on top of his voice saying, a dam is not a borehole and a borehole is not a dam hence Nana Akufo Addo’s promise of one village one dam to the three Northern regions if he becomes the President of Ghana after winning the 7 December 2016 general election is never feasible hence a hoax.

Being feasible or not, Ghanaians can no longer accommodate a further 4-year rule of President Mahama and the NDC, for failing the people of Ghana and the country so disastrously through their bad governance overflowing with corruption, incompetence and all sorts of lawlessness.

Let me help broaden up the understanding of Kwesi Pratt to stop him from not only throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians, an expert in that trade he is, but also, to not continue making a fool of himself as more knowledgeable people worldwide listen to some of the radio stations he frequents to argue blindly.

To start with, what does he understand by a dam? A dam by a dictionary definition is a wall built across a river that stops the river's flow and collects the water, especially to make a reservoir (= an artificial lake) that provides water for an area: e.g. The Aswan High Dam is on the River Nile in Egypt.

The dams Nana Akufo Addo proposes should not be seen and interpreted in the largeness and intensity of the Aswam High Dam or the Akosombo Dam. This is where some people, especially the NDC propagandists and some little minds or “educated-illiterates” with Kwesi Pratt inclusive, get it all wrong. It must be seen as a wall raised across a river to regulate or stop its flow to help collect water behind the wall as defined by the dictionary.

To further help Mr Kwesi Pratt and to stop him from deceiving Ghanaians in his bid to always earn his living fraudulently through some possible secret payments from the NDC for the lies and defence he strenuously puts up on their behalf, let me cite a clear example of what constitutes an improvised, although a temporary, dam, from my own village in Ghana.

When I was growing up as a child, pupil and student, and used to visit my native matrilineal village (Asiampa) in Ghana on holiday, I would see the women in the village once in a blue moon, decide to go fishing. How did they do it without using hooks and lines?

They would go to whichever river they decide on that day to fish from, either “Ntore or Oworam”. However, they often went to river Notore. They would check to tell where some fish may abound and would subsequently go a few metres upstream from there to construct a dam, using trunks (cut stems of trees), stones and mud.

They would place them across the river, continue to build and strengthen it until the river would stop flowing, but with the water start to accumulate behind the barrier (dam) they had erected across the river.

As the water accumulates behind the improvised wall raised across the river, and with the water on the other side of the river flown or drained further downstream, one would see the fish flapping about in the little stagnant pockets of water left. The women would then kill them using their machetes (cutlasses) and, or clubs.

What the women did was a perfect example of constructing a dam across the river to stop its flow downstream by getting the water build up behind the barrier as explained above. When they did that, we could see the water swell scaringly behind the raised structure.

The dam Nana Akufo Addo intends to build for the villages may not be like the improvised ones built by the mothers of my village which were removed soon after gathering enough fish within hours of its construction but proper walls which may also not be like those on the Aswan High Dam or Akosombo Dam.

I think this is enough to educate Mr Kwesi Pratt and his ilk of ignoramuses to cease rubbishing a big mind’s vision of making Ghana self-sufficient in food production for as long as there is a river in every village, constructing a dam is possible!

A dam for the village is all about building a wall across the river to regulate its flow by accumulating water behind the wall for the irrigational and drinking needs of the villagers and their environs.

I always have rich history to cite from Asiampa or Kumawu. Even though Asiampa is almost no more, everybody has left with the village left in ruins, I shall continually cite it to prove a point when need be.

Is it not said by the Akans, “Se onipa wu na ne ketrema amporo a, na efiri oteasefo”? Simply put, a deceased person will continually be remembered by his acts, behaviours and sayings, through their living children or family members. These people may from time to time say something, in reference or inference to, or attributing it, the said deceased father, mother or person hence the dead person continues to live and talk through the living descendants.

Similarly, Asiampa shall always be remembered in glorification of the ancestors through their living sons, daughters and grandchildren, to educate the people who lack knowledge of certain things of which good examples can be found in Asiampa.

Let us not be deceived by the hollow-minded propaganda being churned out by Kwesi Pratt and his like-minded stomach politicians.

Ghanaians are suffering under President Mahama and they really need a change of government from NDC to a more competent and caring NPP.

Each time Kwesi Pratt goes on air to lie or express his deceiving views, I shall come to correct him through a publication.

“Boys abere, girls abere” – they need a change and change shall they have come 7 December 2016, God willing! By the grace of God, Kwesi Pratt’s shenanigans cannot stop the change that is coming.