Thursday,
January 9, 2014
Friends, on Tuesday night, I read a news report on PeaceFmOnline that the
NPP MP for the Asuogyaman Constituency in the Eastern Region,
Kofi Osei Ameyaw, was calling for a revolt; this time, a “personal revolution”
on an “individual level” in Ghana.
He
was said to have written on his Facebook wall that the country needs another
revolution, “a revolution not born out of envy, personal interest and greediness”.
“Revolution
is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall,” he
stated.
Here
is the kind of revolution he is clamouring for: “One that seeks the interests
of all including the unborn, one that impels the just man to hate the evil one
and the evil man to respect the just one. A revolution that makes us generous
towards good and build a generation of Ghanaians who love each other mutually,
help each other naturally and attain happiness by way of virtue.”
The
NPP MP later told Peacefmonline.com that “the most important kind of
freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You
trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in
exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until
there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen
inside first.”
(Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/ Peacefmonline.com/Ghana, available at http://elections.peacefmonline.com/pages/politics/201401/185045.php)
I doubt if this kind of “personal
revolution” is possible; but I don’t doubt the heavy political currency
inherent in this call.
Interestingly, comments from those responding to
the news report published by PaceFmOnline suggest that he is calling for something
akin to the cataclysmic events initiated by Jerry Rawlings in 1979 and 1981.
They supported Osei Ameyaw’s call, as is evident in this one (reproduced
unedited but not in all caps as in the original):
“I will be the first to jump on to the street to
support a revolution. With the kind of corruption, ineptitude and insults to
the ghanaian, i pray for a change, even if it is a violent one. Where in the
world will this fortiz-merchant bank no.ns.ense happen and members of
government will defend it. Listen to the f0.0lish and no.nsen.sical reasons
given by doe-adjaho in dismissing the petition of the minority. Si..lly &
st.u.pid!!! If the rawlings of 1979 (not the present rich bourgeois one) had
come today, he would kill politicians, parliamentarians and ministers - they
are too corrupt and insulting ghanaians whiles they steal from us. The anger is
growing and one day...”
Oyiwa!! Osei Ameyaw’s call has
already assumed a huge political dimension, making it a scary thing!!
I have questioned the real motive
of Osei Ameyaw and wondered what exactly he might be driving at. Knowing very
well how some politicians hide behind ambivalence to foment trouble, I decided
to unpack Osei Ameyaw’s call.
Is he saying that a revolution is
better than the democracy that Ghana has practised for nearly 22 years now? Or
that a revolution at the personal level will be spontaneous (for that is what a
revolution involves) and solve problems better than our democracy is doing? Or will
it give him and his political camp the reprieve that the electorate have denied
them? When is a “personal revolution” not a political revolution?
Because of the support for Osei Ameyaw’s call by opponents of the NDC
government, I will be right to broaden issues for comment. The call in itself
is shocking, unexpected, misplaced, and politically hazardous. It has nothing
good to offer anybody and can easily be dismissed as the workings of a terrified
mind, considering where it has come from and the character behind it. More
clearly, the political camp to which Osei Ameyaw belongs
also raises eyebrows, not because it is capable of initiating and prosecuting
that revolution but because it may just be complicit in clinging to any straw
in sight to pursue its morbid political agenda that scared away the electorate
at Election 2012.
Osei
Ameyaw hasn’t told us that he was influenced by his political camp to make that
call, but knowing very well the lessons that history has taught some of us
about that political camp, we won’t be surprised if later developments link
that call to covert agitations in that camp.
What
makes the call ridiculous goes beyond Osei Ameyaw as an individual. He is one
of the numerous Ghanaians who rushed out of the country when Rawlings announced
the June 4 Uprising: “Fellow countrymen, there is a revolution in this country;
and this revolution has been engendered by the fact that the ordinary Ghanaian
has been suffering for far too long!”
Thus
began what would shake the country to its foundation in the 100 days that the
AFRC ruled the country with “unprecedented revolutionary action”, which sent
into self-imposed exile many of those now back in the country and making ugly
noises on radio stations and social media.
They
feared their own shadows at Rawlings’ second coming on Thursday, December 31,
1981, and took to their heels only to return when the atmosphere was created
for the 4th Republic.
Interestingly, Osei Ameyaw couldn’t live in Ghana when the
Rawlings revolution was raging. He took shelter in Australia and was later
reported to have been involved in some fraudulent deals, which he vehemently
denied but which evidence adduced by those making allegation highlighted in
public discourse as a stain on his reputation.
Well
he has put that behind him and found solace in contemporary Ghanaian politics,
having once being in Parliament and held a Deputy Ministerial position under
Kufuor. He lost his seat after the 2008 elections but has bounced back.
Indeed,
the motivation for making such a call goes beyond whatever Osei Ameyaw might
have. A lot exists for us to know that the going is really tough for our
friends in the NPP, having lost two general elections in succession and being
unable to turn the situation in their favour.
As
the situation stands now, they can tell that they have an uphill task in any
attempt to win political power through the ballot box. No day passes by without
their complaining about one thing or the other in connection with the electoral
system.
They
tested the pulse of Ghanaians with their petition against Election 2012 and
might have seen the huge barrier in front of them as we inch toward Election
2016.
Rabble-rousing,
vain threats, and plain sabotage cannot win the day for them. They see clearly
the thick brick wall to which they have dragged themselves and are scared stiff
of the future.
So,
where should they turn? Make calls of the sort that has come from Osei Ameyaw
to intensify their strategy of creating panic situations in the hope that they
can find something to capitalize on.
I am
certain that those who may be tempted to think the way Osei Ameyaw is doing are
even not sure of what a personal revolution entails. Or how they will position
themselves if their expectations are met.
We may easily write off Osei Ameyaw as a mere irritant, but we won’t do
so yet, especially when we place his political thinking within the larger
context of the NPP’s grand agenda of undermining the Mahama-led administration
(or anything NDC).
We heard them say that they would make the country ungovernable; their
public utterances, actions, and declaration of intents have confirmed to a
large extent the kind of politics they are doing—portraying themselves as if
they own Ghana and must be deferred to as such by all others not in their
political camp. They can’t bring themselves to accept the fact that they were
rejected at the polls and should cut their coats according to their sizes.
The majority not in their camp detest that kind of disdain but our NPP
friends won’t let up.
As the going continues to be tough for them at every turn— frustrated
more by their own book politics than anything else—and desperation throws them
into a spiral, they appear to be reaching their wit’s end in Ghanaian politics.
What to do next in desperation but turn to scare-mongering? Weird!!
What Osei Ameyaw has advocated is one such act of desperation; but its
boomerang effect will worsen plight, not pave the way for any political
gain.
He insists
that “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
revolution inevitable”—the very expression used by Rawlings at the initiation
of June 4, which itself is a throwback to what is attributed to Abraham Lincoln
or one of those prominent citizens of the United States.
Revolutions
or revolts occur when the objective reality of the situation in a political
system makes them inevitable. They are not imposed on the system by any
desperate individual.
That
is why I want to caution Osei Ameyaw to tread cautiously. The objective reality
of the situation in Ghana has no room for any revolt or revolution of the kind
that he is imagining and endangering himself to propound.
Ghanaians
are more interested in living their lives as they are now than risking them in
support of any wayward politician’s desperate bid for political power through
the backdoor. If Osei Ameyaw thinks that what the Supreme Court didn’t help the
NPP to achieve it can do so through ill-considered political manouevres like
the revolution or revolt that he is calling for, he won’t survive.
I hope the security agencies will take up this call
for strict monitoring and consequent action to deal with those who think that
God has anointed them to rule Ghana and will do anything at all they imagine to
impose their will on Ghanaians. It has some subtle elements bordering on
subversion!
If the ballot box won’t save them in this
democracy, is it a revolution that will? Aren’t they already known as people
who fear “revolutions”? Such characters!!
I shall return…
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E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
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me on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/mjkbokor to continue the conversation.
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