Sad, So Sad

Melancholic, doleful, lugubrious, crestfallen, plaintive, dolorous, anguished, lachrymose, elegiac, saturnine…

Tragic events in Ghana now are cascading and writers find it difficult to navigate through them to pick those to report. So, we go on “fishing”.

Then we read that Hon. Samuel OkudzetoAblakwa, Chairman of Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) has submitted the report to President John Dramani Mahama. We are not moved nor tickled when the President says “I have handed the report to the AG to commence immediate investigation into the cases reported”. “Why? You remember the song” Won aade pa ba a, wokye di no eka ba a, won aranawokyetua” (Those who benefit from a windfall will be the ones to repay whatever debt it entails).

Justice to our “friends” who at the time of enjoying their beneficence fell out with us, for no apparent reason – except that they know our history of exposing rot (in governance) and not ready to accept what is not our due.

For all those who are agitated about the unconstitutionality of President Mahama’s actions we ask whether this has allayed their fears? This time round, it may not take seven years of legalities as was the case of Opuni, until the AG filed a notice to withdraw the charges.

Good for Opuni despite the questions about the size of the Opuni file, the lack of thorough examination of the file blah, blah, blah. And we are tickled by Prof. Kwaku Azar’s piece which ends; “justice is not served by keeping individuals in legal limbo for years. The rule of law demands not only the pursuit of accountability but also efficiency and fairness… “

President Mahama says ”For those who think they can defraud the state and escape justice, let this serve as a strong warning, Ghana is no longer a safe haven for corruption”.

But it is Ghana’s history we are writing; Paa Grant will be agitated in his grave “me man Gold Coast”; so will Dr. J. B. Danquah “me man Ghana” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah will be moaning across Africa; so, will Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia in his dialogue in South Africa.

Flt. Lt. J. J. Rawlings will remember his deeds and ask why his “innocent” daughter will be tagged with an uncomplimentary word (Kromantse: we went but we did not hear); so, will Okatakyie General Afrifa turn in his grave and tell Kofi Abrefa Busia; vigilance pays. But Dr. Busia will defend himself and say, you think with my government’s Rural Development you would see young pupils struggling to cross a river on a branch of a tree to school.

Then Professor Adu Boahen will, at Abelenkpe house, reject his wife, Mary’s invitation to go to bed and disregard his supporters threatening to break away from PFP to form UNC. Then Dr. Limann say we are all Ghanaians; politicians will be politicians. And General Kutu Acheampong will show “magnanimite” to his detractors.

Then we lament the inferno that consumed a 33-year-old nurse, Linda Kusi and her three children at her Gyinyaase home close to our niece’s “To Be Hotel”. We would drop our pen, our mouths agape, upon hearing. “When a police team from the KNUST Police Station arrived to pick up the life – less bodies, Linda was found with her arms around the children under running water from the shower in her bathroom”. Aaron Badu of Bibiani Gold Mines “due”. Oh destiny, how can you be so wicked; you could have spared the kids! And a Kotoko fan Pooley ‘bafoed’ at Nsuatre Stadium? Then Bawku…

The NPP National Youth Organiser, Salam Mustapha, argues that the elders of the party should give way to the youth to run the affairs of the party. Why, you will ask. The “hidden” answer may be that Akufo-Addo was an octogenarian, and it was under him that the NPP got white-washed by NDC.

Wait for the report of the Election Review Committee set up under Prof. Mike Oquaye to let us know the cause(s) of the defeat. But, were there not young men in Akufo-Addo’s government? Abu Jinapor, Asenso Boakye, Oquaye (Jnr) the late John Kumah et cetera were “youngmen”. Or the “young men” want to take over the party and run it rudderless for the years ahead? Well!

We did not see the Osafo Maafo report on the 2020 Election. So, the nation was on auto-pilot, as if there were no leaders, no patriots – and people forget why the NPP put in the word “patriotic” to define the party. It became a free-for-all; some of us saw it, and we commented on it. Parliament? Dishonourable MPs!

Then we return to our library stocked with many autobiographies, Pick Kwamina Ahwoi’s 291- page book “Working with Rawlings”. We read the “foreword” by Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, the present Vice-President “… In the process of narrating “what it was like” the text spans the decades of the author’s close, exciting and revealing encounters with Jerry John Rawlings in all his complexity – a person tightly focused on his convictions – humane, a family man with a heart that heals and sometimes bleeds. The book as well, displays the author’s own moments of elation, bewilderment, resolve and downright confusion if not regret, at various events …”

Then we go to page 258 where the author writes; “The unique thing about Rawlings’s megalomania, however, was that he was able to cover it up. By behaving very humbly; by identifying himself with the ordinary person, by speaking the language of the street and by seeming to be unostentatious, Rawlings presented himself as somebody who was completely uninterested in power but upon whom power has been thrust. My dealings with Rawlings, however, revealed to me that he was very much interested in power and that he was very reluctant to lose power…”

Armed with this “revelation”, we take a look at Alan Bullock’s “Hitler – a study in tyranny” and read:  “Hitler never trusted anyone, he never committed himself to anyone, never admitted any loyalty. His lack of scruple later took by surprise even those who prided themselves on their unscrupulousness.

He learned to lie with conviction and dissemble with candor. To the end he refused to admit defeat and still held to the belief that by the power of will alone he could transform events. Men were moved by fear, greed, lust for power, envy, often by mean and petty motives. Politics, Hitler was later to conclude, is the art of knowing how to use these weaknesses for one’s own ends…”

Instinctively, we pick John Dramani Mahama, the President’s 314-page book; “My First Coup d’Etat” and read “…All the decisions I have made in my life were regularly plagued with doubt… Again and again, I have felt like that boy Dramani, on the bicycle going downhill fast, without any brakes and not knowing which way to turn. What I have learned from Dramani and his experiences – my experiences – is that the possibility of danger lurks at the edge of all of life’s decisions. So too does the potential for the most exhilarating ride of your life … anaa?

“We predict that the answer to “anaa” will be found in his second book sooner than later. The great news is that President Mahama has banned First-Class Travel for Government appointees. Did he add: No first-class hotel accommodation? – a modest administration!

We are all making history and will leave a mark on the world.

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