All Set For Kumasi "Wahala"

--- Despite police efforts to shorten the route

?Que sera, sera

Whatever will be will be

We?re going to Kumasi

Que sera sera?.

This must be the song going through the minds of the members of the Committee for Joint Action (CJA) and the tens of thousands of ?Wahala? supporters who cannot wait for next week Thursday, 20th May 2005.

?Wahala 4? Demonstration

That is the day that Kumasi will shake, when dedicated members of the ?Wahala? Movement, the unstoppable articulator of anti-hardships, anti-petroleum price increases, anti-utility price increases, anti-corruption, anti-incompetence, anti-nepotism, pro-poor, pro-development and pro-Ghana Ghanaians will descend on the ?Garden City of West Africa? to demonstrate in the heartland of the NPP to show the Kufuor administration that ?they can deceive some of the people some of the time, they can deceive all of the people some of the time, they can even deceive some of the people all of the time, but they can never, never, deceive all of the people all of the time,? to quote a member of the CJA who was also rendering in her own words somebody else?s quote.

Tricks

When the Government, through the police, were engaging in all those tricks to get the ?Wahala 4? March postponed, they must have thought their preferred date of 26th May 2005 would never come.

Now 26th May has less than a week to go to come. The NPP was not able to hold its planned pre-emptive demonstration yesterday because they had not reckoned with the traditional Homowo ban on drumming and excessive noise making.

The euphoria of the NDC?s Asawase victory has not died down because the people of Asawase are still yet to celebrate their victory.

And now there is the added ?bonanza? with the revelation that that in the midst of all the ?wahala? that the people are suffering, the President?s 41-year old son, Chief John Addo Kufuor, has been able to put together a cool US$8 billion from a consortium of banks to purchase the seven-storey, exquisite ?Hotel Kufuor? next door to Daddy?s private residence at the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange in Accra!

Kumasi will shake on Thursday!

According to the CJA organisers, all is set for the Kumasi ?Wahala 4? March on Thursday, despite police efforts, obviously at the instigation of the NPP Government, to shorten the route of the demonstrators.

The CJA Route

The route as proposed by the Kumasi Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the CJA would take the demonstrators from the starting point at the Post Office Square, through Prempeh II Street, over the Adum Overhead, around the Asafo Market Roundabout, in front of the Zongo Police Station and the Aboabo Police Station to Aboabo No. 1 and end at Aboabo Neighbourhood Park, popularly known as ?Boom Park?.

The march along this route will take approximately two and a half hours and is more or less the route used by the NDC in the 2003 ?Kafo Didi? March.

The Police Route

The alternative route proposed by the police will take the demonstration from the Post Office Square to the Amakom Roundabout in front of the Ghana Education Service Headquarters to the AOGOD and end at the Jackson?s Park/

A march along that route will take twenty (20) minutes, with the frontline demonstrators reaching the finishing point even before those bringing up the rear would have set off (see comparative diagram below).

Disagreement

Obviously, there has not been any ?meeting of minds? (or ?consensus ad idem?, as the lawyers put it), and the police have agreed to come out with the final route tomorrow, Saturday 21st May 2005.

Sekondi/Takoradi Public For "Wahala"

Meanwhile, community sensitisation ?Wahala? public for a continue to be held throughout the country in anticipation of ?Wahala 5? and ?Wahala 6? in Sekondi/Takoradi and Cape Coast respectively.

CJA members addressed education and community for a at Takoradi Polytechnic and the Sekondi Zenith Hotel last Wednesday evening and took over the airwaves in the twin city on Thursday morning, spreading the message of the expected ?Wahala Demonstration? in Sekondi/Takoradi on all the FM stations in the twin city.

Cape Coast Public Forum

On Thursday 2nd June 2005, CJA spokespersons will be in the Central Region capital of Cape Coast to take the message of the ?Wahala? to the students of the University of Cape Coast and spread the message over the airwaves in the Cape Coast municipality and its environs.

Kumasi Walkabout

?Ghana Palaver has also learnt that in Kumasi on Wednesday 25th May 2005, members of the National CJA and the Ashanti Region LOC of the CJA will go ?walkabout? to ?recce? the demonstrate route which would have been agreed with the police, and also to test the efficacy of complementary security measures that would have been put in place.

Kumasi will shake!

From our correspondents in the Ashanti Regional capital, there is no doubt that ?Kumasi will shake? on Thursday, and there is a sense of anxious expectation as the people of Oseikrom await the arrival of Alhaji Ahmed Ramadan, Bernard Morna, Mrs. Ama Benyiwa-Doe, Ofosu Ampofo, Dr. Richard Pessey, Kyeretwie Opoku, Ms. Emelia Arthur, Nii Noi Dowouna, Kwesi Pratt, Danny Ofori-Atta, Kofi Wayo, and all the other stalwarts of the CJA, the ?Movement of the People?.