What is wrong with Ghanaians?

The recent brochure-gaffe controversy generated in the wake of Ghana’s 59th independence anniversary is a further indication that the country may be heading in the wrong direction. Apparently there is a universal symptomatology of mediocrity and anomie in the body politic. This then means that the political class and Ghanaians in general must sit up and set things right, otherwise further declension in intellectual and moral standards awaits them at the doorstep of societal nonchalance and political inaction.

The question is: Are the brochure gaffes merely the outcome of inadvertent editorial oversight or of glaring intellectual shortcomings in formalized anglicized compositional philosophy? Well, whatever the reasons (s) for these editorial or auctorial lapses were and still are those errors should not have occurred in the first, or at the very least should have been minimized to enhance the brochures’ readability, their internal compositional organization, orthographic sensibilities, and semantic authenticity, given that this is not the first time Ghana is organizing an independence celebration. Unfortunately these were not to be! Rather, the errors present a shameful debilitating symptomatology of where Ghana stands in terms of growth and development.

The fact is that the compositional or auctorial tackiness of the brochures is part of a larger symptomatology of societal investment in mediocrity, policy shoddiness, leadership failure, intellectual decay, and technocratic myopia. It as though the nation is in a grinding state of anarchy. How can the writer (s) not have possibly known that President Uhuru Kenyatta, the president of Kenya, was not the president of Ghana? Was President Kenyatta Ghana’s co-president? Granted, errors are certainly unavoidable but they can surely be minimized with proactive editorial oversight, auctorial professionalism, and commonsense. Again, errors are important to the human experience in that they enrich it [the human experience]. This is a fact of life.

This is not a belated attempt on our part at glorifying or elevating human errors or intellectual shoddiness in human endeavors, whatever those might be. Rather, it is to advance the opposite. Other than that, what does one really expect of a country where there exists a shadow market for examination malpractice, as in the case of employees of the West African Examination Council (WEAC) selling stolen examination papers and their answers? Where female university and polytechnic students trade sex for better grades? Where journalists take “soli” before they agree to cover an event? Where pastors turn into poisonous snakes under the cover of darkness and bite their enemies and detractors? Where judges trade justice for tubers of yam and goats?

Where male directors and producers sleep with aspiring and professional female actresses for guaranteed or promised roles in movies? Where politicians rig elections in duopolistic cycles? Where the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) accuses Fuhrer Akufo-Addo of “plagiarism”? Where the Convention People’s Party (CPP) accuses the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of plagiarizing its party slogan, “Forward Ever, Backward Ever”? Where Führer Akufo-Addo and the NPP accuse the National Democratic Party (NDC) and President Manama of plagiarism, in other words the latter’s alleged stealing of Führer Akufo-Addo’s Free SHS program?

And where President Mahama and the NDC pointed out to the opposition led by Führer Akufo-Addo, that the Free SHS is a constitutional enshrinement, with both Kwesi Nduom and members of the NDC communication team making Chapter Six of Ghana’s constitution, “The Directive Principle of State Policy,” the centerpiece of their critique of the political buffoonery of the NPP and its presidential candidate!

Adult political animals engaged in childish festivals of accusatory buffoonery. What a country of crazy Machiavellian jokers! We wonder the Great Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s take on these rhetorical questions!

OTHER MATTERS

Ghana has indeed become a dangerous Orwellian jungle plantocracy. This is exactly what Wanluv the Kubolor’s plain pidginized lyricism and its acoustic guitar accompaniment, a beautiful song otherwise titled “FOKN Country” or “Fucking Country,” says about this contradictory Orwellian jungle plantocracy called Ghana. A country in which the presidential candidate of the major opposition political party (NPP), Führer Akufo-Addo, did not see fit to attend the independence celebrations draped in colorful sartorial formality. As expected, the slimy useful idiots of the flagbearer went on the defensive just as their counterparts in the NDC did whenever the shortcomings of President Mahama and his government became the butt of public jokes!

Yet, Fuhrer Akufo-Addo’s sartorial informality pales in comparison to the shame Ghana has incurred on account of the brochure gaffes. Ghanaians may therefore have to leave Führer Akufo-Addo alone as he pursues his third presidential bid because, like all Ghanaian politicians besides the Great Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, he has absolutely nothing concrete to offer the country. Like the others, too, he is coming in to enrich himself, his family members and cronies, all at the expense of Ghana. This is why Führer Akufo-Addo is all talk and nothing substantive. Even so, did his political detractors and enemies expect him to have worn bikinis or pajamas to the independence celebrations, as though he were going for pornographic pictures at the beach or visiting Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion?

Neither should his political detractors and enemies have expected him to dress as if he were destined for one of those Silvio Berlusconi’s sybaritic bunga-bunga orgies! Yet again, what is also palpably missing from the popular narrative on the brochure controversy is the state’s neglect of President Kenyatta after the independence celebrations. This official neglect of President Kenyatta went on for at least a quarter of an hour while he waited for a state vehicle from his Ghanaian hosts to pick him up. Nothing happened for that straight twenty-something minutes! However, it was during this waiting period that ex-President Rawlings joined him and kept him company. During this same period, Ghana’s Foreign Minister Hanna Tetteh “ran around to salvage the situation,” as one Kenyan paper reported it.

THE DILEMMA CONFRONTING GHANAIANS AND KENYANS

There is a twist of irony in all these comical happenings. While Ghanaians and Kenyans crack expensive jokes at President Mahama and the NDC, Kenyans are doing the same to their president, that is, mocking their president at the least provocation and at every chance they get. One Kenyan commentator who read the article “Exposed: Uhuru Angry in Ghana, Left Stranded without Vehicle—Total Disrespect to Our President,” an online publication called “Kenyan Today,” described President Kenyatta as “a snoop dog with no substance.” Another commentator derisively referred to him as a “visiting president.” What have Ghanaians not said about President Mahama and his government?

Elsewhere the BBC recently attributed some damning controversial remarks to President Uhuru, when he met with a group of Kenyans based in the State of Israel, in which he reportedly said Kenyans “are experienced in stealing and perpetuating other crimes.” The report continues: “Kenyans were also abusers, and promoted tribalism…However, many Kenyans believe that the president’s speech was just rhetoric, and he was not serious about tackling corruption or ethnic divisions in the East African state…They complain that ethnicity determined whether they get government jobs, and that bribery and corruption are endemic in government…”

This is a country whose president, President Kenyatta, the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted on serious charges of allegedly committing crimes against humanity, but later spared or acquitted by the court for lack of solid incriminating evidence. There were wild rumors that President Kenyatta had either used state security to intimidate witnesses or that he had used financial inducements to buy off witnesses’ silence. Kenya, a country where a Kikuyu like President Kenyatta is more likely to assume the seat of presidency than it is the case for a Luo, to mention but one ethnic group, although it is relatively easier for a Luo (President Obama) to become president in the United States.

This same country did horrible things to writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o and his wife, both natives of Kenya, as the BBC reported: “Prominent Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o says thieves raped his wife when the couple were attacked at their apartment in Nairobi last week…Four thieves broke into their apartment on Wednesday night armed with guns and a machete, beating up the couple, burning him with cigarettes and stealing money, a laptop and papers. ‘In her case it was not attempted rape. It was rape, period,’ Ngugi said.” These incidents are typical occurrences in Ghana these days, particularly in the Fourth Republic. Are we surprised by these turn of events in Ghana?

And if so, could it have been why the authors of the independence brochures confused Ghana with Kenya and President Kenyatta with President Mahama, this, in spite of the fact that Ghana is in West Africa and Kenya East Africa, a salient given in matters of geographic and geopolitical factuality? There is, therefore, no use defending the thesis that some Ghanaians have become so cheap as to dump a leader many Kenyans have rejected on Ghana. Kenyan writer Evelyne Musambi notes thusly: “Ghana made a farce of its Independence Day celebrations after government officials confused Kenya’s President Kenyatta to be their own head of state in the official programme…”

Where did we go wrong? Is there something wrong with Ghanaians? But a closer look at this reprehensible political debacle recalls the disgraceful controversy surrounding Charles Wereko-Brobby and his deeply flawed oversightship of Ghana’s 50th Independence Celebrations, or Thamsanqa Tantjie’s faking sign language at Nelson Mandela’s funeral, or Robert Mugabe reading the wrong speech script before a crowd. Regardless, Charles Wereko-Brobby is right to declare that “We are worse than a banana republic.” The shameful irony here is that he contributed to the creation of this “banana republic” in the first place. Also, Charles Wereko-Brobby and the Kufuor administration spent so much money on Ghana’s independence celebrations when they knew that many school children studied under trees and used cement blocks as furniture.

We should not forget that not too long ago, tens of cement-size bags suspected of containing cocaine that washed into Ghanaian territorial waters, allegedly mysteriously turned into Kokonte powder under the watchful eyes of the Kufuor presidency. So, why is Charles Wereko-Brobby now taking issue with that Orwellian banana republic as if he were never been part of its founding? His hypocritical aloofness is typical of any leader of a banana republic including Ghana’s. All the same, this hypocritical aloofness is not unique to banana republicans such as Charles Wereku-Brobby.

Another banana republican we have on our minds is Kwaku Kwarteng (NPP), a Ranking Member of the Finance Committee in Parliament, who has made a strong allegation in the wake of the brochure controversy, that, among other things, the brochure-gaffe controversy boils down to a simple political mathematics of kickbacks. He is reported to have said the following: “I have no doubt that the motivation for this was for someone to benefit illegitimately from the payment related to it…we didn’t even have the idea where they printed those brochures and nobody told us anything about it.” One may want to ask: Is it not possible for Kwaku Kwarteng and his committee colleagues to subpoena the records? What is the use of an opposition in parliament?

HYPOCRITICAL ALOOFNESS OF GHANAIAN POLITICIANS

Failing that, can vigilant citizens not sue the Information Services Department for appropriate financial records covering the expenditure for the independence celebrations? Unfortunately, and rather ironically, Kwaku Kwarteng himself has come under the radar as the following reportage indicates: “Members and supporters of the National Democratic Party (NDC) in Obuasi West constituency of the Ashanti Region are on the heels of the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Mr. Kwaku Kwarteng, demanding accountability of his stewardship as MP…As residents of the constituency, we are entitled to know what our MP has done and is doing with his share of the Common Fund to which we all contribute…” Has the MP bothered to answer or address the accountability demands of the NDC members of his constituency?

Te reportage concludes nonetheless: “Just like Ghanaians demand accountability from President John Dramani Mahama and justifiably so, we, residents of Obuasi West, are demanding accountability from our MP…”

That is a classic instance of what Kwesi Nduom has aptly called political equalization, a somewhat titular allusion to a Nigerian movie titled “De Me, I Do You,” a dramatic comedy featuring Osita Iheme (“Pawpaw”) and Chinedu Ikedieze (“Aki”). The fact is that impunity therefore becomes the underlying factor of one political party conveniently passing the buck to the other, thus creating a vicious cycle of impunity, political equalization, moral superiority, social decay, and anomie in an Orwellian banana republic where no one seems to see any practical and moral sense in owning up to political and social crimes.

This is merely one of a number of meanings Peter Tosh may have had on his mind when he co-wrote the track, “Equal Rights,” on which he sang: “Everyone is talking about crime, Tell me who are the criminals…” There are a lot of crimes committed in the name of politics, judicial decisions, religion, journalism and so on, yet Charles Wereko-Brobby’s banana republic has no criminals, whether establishment or otherwise! In other words who are those talking about crime in Ghana? And who are the criminal faces behind these crimes? There are so many political criminals in Ghana, yet Ghana has no political criminals. What a tragedy of ironic proportions!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Let us remind our politicians what Bob Marley had to respectively say on the track “Guiltiness” and “So Much Trouble in the World”:

“Woe to the downpressors! They’ll eat the bread of sorrow! Woe to the downpressors! They’ll eat the bread of sorrow tomorrow!”

“Now they sitting on a time bomb, now I know the time has come. What goes up is coming down, goes around and comes around!”

Let us see what David Hinds of Steele Pulse has for politicians and their useful idiots (see the track “Tyrant”):

“If Dem a Tyrant; Kick dem out; Hallelujah; Jump and shout: Uprising yes! Without a doubt, watch out; You better watch out you bad rulers; Never let a politician—oh no Grant you a favour, He's coming with his plots and schemes after you…”

Finally, Bob Marley may have precociously supported David Hinds on the track “Revolution” on which he sang the following words: “Never make a politician grant you a favor. They will always want to control you forever…”

Are the useful idiots and serial callers in Ghana’s duopolistic culture and their wicked political patrons learning any useful lessons from the practical lyrical wisdom of Bob Marley and David Hinds?

CONCLUSION

The final questions we have for our readers are these:

1) Is Francis Kwarteng, the acting head of the Information of Services Department (ISD), really responsible for the mess or he is just a scapegoat of a political conspiracy? What about Stan Dogbe? What about the possibility of diabolical elements in the ISD, who may be sympathetic to the NPP, messing up the independence celebrations messing up the brochures and having the debacle blamed on incumbency? We ask because we are talking about Ghana where everything is possible and because one cannot put this past our politicians, namely members of the opposition!

2) Did the presidencies of Mahama and Kufuor (and Charles Wereko-Brobby) ever consider the possibility that some of the school children who marched at Ghana’s 50th and 59th independence celebrations, respectively, could have been studying under trees, lying on concrete floors as they studies and developing cold and pneumonia in the process, and using cement blocks as furniture?

3) Why are Ghana’s Fourth Republic politicians behaving like George W. Bush?

References

BBC. “Uhuru Kenyatta: Kenyans Are Experienced Thieves.’ February 25, 2016

BBC. “Kenyan Writer’s Wife Was Raped.” August 16, 2004.

Ghanaweb. “Ghana Worse than ‘Banana Republic’—Wereko-Brobby.” March 10, 2016.

Elizabeth Ohene. “Is This Government A Mistake?” Modernghana.com. March 8, 2016.

Ghanaweb. “I Made A Mistake—ISD Boss Sorry for Misleading Apology.” March 9, 2016.

Evelyne Musambi. “Did Ghana Grab Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta?” Nairobi News. March 8, 2016.

Ghanaweb. “Kickbacks Motivated Brochure Hijacking—Kwaku Kwarteng.” March 9, 2016.