'Yentie obiara' - Mr. President are you listening now?

Adamant?

The President once sent a message across and it was heard loud and clear. It was through the hit song by Charles Kwadwo Fosu, popularly known as Daddy Lumba.

The message was so convenient to the President that he was even looking to buy the copyright. The ‘YENTIE OBIARA’ hit song is not yet in the past.

The implication and message in that song is clear and so was the President’s message. All and sundry got the President’s implicit message. Literally translated, the theme of the music is saying, “We won’t pay heed to anybody” or better still “We won’t mind them all.”

In essence, the President was saying he was going to be adamant, and was not going to respond and just do what was right in his own sight.

Developments of late however, is giving the impression that Mr. President is after all paying heed or listening, or is it selective listening? We do not want to believe the President is not a gentleman enough, not to keep his word of not heeding.

For that much, I would vouch for him. The President really comes across as a likeable and a fine gentleman if even he sometimes casts insinuations and aspersions like this woman we lived within a “passenger house,” some years back, giving it to the other neighbour.

He is now listening so much that he is even over listening. He has listened so much that he has now decided to descend into the trenches himself. He has decided to descend into the trenches to dirty himself because those he has been paying to dirty themselves in the trenches are all so busy fighting at other places to get rid of and to replace those who they think have “chopped” enough and should thus give way for them to come and “chop some”. Where are you Sam George? E.T. is your Dad, be careful.

Incompetence

The President felt so maligned for being described as “INCOMPETENT” and he had to come out himself to cast aspersions on the “culprit,” the Vice Presidential candidate of the leading opposition party, Dr. Bawumia. The wonder here is, did the President take it as an insult or as a personal attack? Either way he got it wrong. As an insult, it cannot be.

Criticism and insult are two different things to a discerning mind. Personal? No. Dr. Bawumia was critiquing the work of the President and his administration and never attacked his person. Yes, Dr. Bawumia was explaining further what is already known to all of us. We are not so block headed not to know what is not good for us.

Are we being told that the mess with our electricity, health care delivery, the near collapse of our educational standards due to near neglect and host of other mismanagement issues are not obvious to us? Let the President tell us how he would describe it. What would be the appropriate word he would use in place of “INCOMPETENCE” and we will use that.

Until then, we have no other word. In fact it beats understanding if the President should say that a worker who has not been paid for over a year cannot complain about the President’s incompetence because that worker has never been a President. What kind of logic is that?

Are we so ignorant to know that the huge sums of money being borrowed do not commensurate with what we are being shown as development projects?

1/3

Violence and Insults

It was obvious that the President took the criticism as an insult especially coming from somebody who he considers as never having been a President. This attitude in itself was cheeky and arrogant of nature to say the least. The culture now makes it seem that an honest criticism and a good advice can also be considered as an insult. It is becoming difficult for even the President to tell the difference between the two.

One thing the President got right was his reference to their party being born out of a revolution. The right words subsequent to the revolution should have been violence and insults.

Only yesterday we had a Head of State who could stand in public and insult everybody with impunity. It was "normal' at the time and he had people cheering him on. The word "buluu" was not familiar to some of us. He made it well known to us. This behavior became part of our culture because it was coming from our leader, and was considered normal. He was even applauded.

The point is, those who could not respond to Rawlings at the time have found their voices, with Rawlings out of the way, and they are replying to those he left the legacy of insults to, the NDC.

Now it seems so loud because it is not one sided anymore. What we have to bear in mind is that whatever we do now has its repercussion sooner or later. Whatever is wrong today has its antecedent from yesterday. The President should not pretend to be oblivious of what he inherited, the heritage of insult which he is in one way or the other perpetuating.

A child getting into maturity and voting age these days considers it as normal to insult his political opponent. They know nothing different. It is the ‘normal’ thing because that is what they came to meet. We must not turn around to complain about what we contributed to and planted, now that it has started yielding results and bearing fruits. The wish is that we could all learn some lessons out of it.

Those "babies with sharp teeth," the so-called communicators, what is their main job? Only to jump on and insult anyone who does not see everything by the Government to be perfect, even including their own founder and his wife. We cannot pretend to be treating a wound if we do not open it up, clean it and put on medication. We cannot expect it to heal when we only keep putting a nice and neat bandage on top of the old and dirty dressing. Getting rid of those guys is the first and major step.

The cycle of insults will continue so far as we have the likes of Sam George and the rest still at the seat of Government. Look at the insults and disrespect to ET Mensah now, in the name of politics. SOMEBODY WHO CAN BE HIS FATHER AND MENTORED HIM. Even within their own. OH NO!!!

The advice to the President is that we expect him to maintain his composure and leave his hoodlums, and the babies with sharp teeth to do the dirty work. After all we have not complained about the tax payer’s money being used to pay those lazy lay about who are sucking on our blood. We expect the President to maintain decorum and decency since his “unpresidential” behavior rubs off on us all and reflect on all of us as nation.

2/3 - Please Mr. President, until you get rid of them, do not take over the work of the serial callers and the “babies with sharp teeth.” That is what you pay them for.

Michael Gyamfi

Please do not publish address.

2615 Gorniak Dr

Parlin

New Jersey 08859

USA