As the NPP threatens and Anyidoho roars…

Friday, November 25, 2011

Every well-meaning Ghanaian must be alarmed at the spate of threats coming from the NDC government and its opponents (the NPP camp, especially). It is as if some people are convinced that their party will win the elections only through the volume of threats they issue. Poor souls.

We’ve heard Koku Anyidoho, Communications Director at the Presidency, respond to a series of threats from the NPP camp concerning the 2012 elections. He has warned the NPP’s Akufo-Addo and National Chairman, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, that they won’t be spared if they foment trouble in the country.

When 72 sheep bleat in the Ofori Panin Palace…

Friday, November 25, 2011

Soon and very soon, there will be much bleating in the Ofori Panin Palace at Kibi when 72 sheep are herded in there as payment of the hefty fine imposed on Odehye Kwame Boateng, the man who accused the Okyenhene, Amoatia Ofori-Panin II of involvement in illegal gold mining in the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Area of the Eastern Region. The bleating will not be it all. If Odehye Boateng provides the 36 crates of Schnapps as demanded, there will be much liquour for the audience listening to the bleating.

This is the Okyeman Council’s contribution to what gives the institution of chieftaincy a very bad name in contemporary times. It is often said that a dying donkey kicks the hardest. Our chieftaincy institution is, indeed, a dying donkey that is doing all it can, expending its energy in kicking the hardest but won’t survive the whirligig of modernization for as long as decisions of this sort reduce it to absurdity.

The NPP to install Akufo-Addo as a parallel President?

Friday, November 24, 2011

The persistent issuing of threats by NPP activists has reinforced the horrible image that their political camp has. Of course, once perceived as a leopard, the NPP is not expected to shed off its dark spots. The party has deep roots in the tradition of violence, beginning from the pre-independence era through the anti-Nkrumah bomb-throwing escapades to what its functionaries are fast taking on these days as their tool for solving problems militating against their bid to return to power.

From open declarations that the party will match the NDC boot-to-boot in causing mayhem regarding the 2012 elections to disturbing utterances bordering on acts to cause instability, these NPP activists seem to know no bounds. Apparently, their flagbearer, Akufo-Addo, has already set the tone for them through his senseless war-cry of “All die be die,” which they seem to have latched on to in intensifying their campaign of threats and aggressiveness.

Certainly, the NDC knows how to destroy itself

Friday, November 24, 2011

I have chosen to be the devil’s advocate and will say aboveboard that the NDC is digging a deep grave fort itself. As its functionaries engage in misguided actions and the government continues to lose public goodwill because it can’t fulfill its electioneering campaign promises, the party will eventually come face-to-face with reality, probably when it will be too late to make amends. It is poised to suffer a fate likely to be worse than what has afflicted the pro-Nkrumahist political family all these years.

Too many people in the NDC are consumed by ambitions that threaten the collective interests of the party. One of such characters is Samuel Okudjeto Ablakwa, a Deputy Minister of Information.

Kennedy Agyapong reflects the weaknesses of our Parliament

Thursday, November 24, 2011

The NPP’s Kennedy Agyapong is often in the news for the wrong reason. His latest outburst that the country will be turned into “Rwanda” if the NDC attempts rigging the 2012 elections sums up everything about him and all others who have been given the power to help solve problems but often choose to do otherwise. 

And to have him as a Member of Parliament is a pain in the neck. I pity the Assin South constituency whose representative he is, no matter what he may mean to his followers there.

Kennedy Agyapong’s threatening utterances highlight the weaknesses in our political dispensation and bring into contempt the workings of the Legislature to which he belongs. He is not alone, though.  

In 8 years, how much begging did Kufuor do?

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Former President, John Agyekum Kufuor, has surfaced again, drawing needless attention to himself by making utterances that confirm my stance that he will be better off when silent. Doubtless, he has become one of those who become wise only after the fact. 

He has asked President Mills to beg foreign governments and institutions to help Ghana solve basic problems, including provision of potable water and sanitation. 

Then, at the weekend, he observed that as much as government is making efforts to ensure that students are comfortable on campus, it is equally important to address the needs of teachers. I consider his utterances as unbecoming and take him to task on that score.

Kufuor gives away government land, Mills takes it back, then…

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The court order restraining the government and its agents from constructing any structure on the plots of land (No. 34 Airport Residential Area, also known as International Student Hostel) to house the Foreign Affairs Ministry and two state institutions is without merit. It is a clear demonstration of the decadence that has engulfed our judicial system. That verdict is a recipe for disaster.

Rawlings and Chinua Achebe’s lizard (Part II)

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Before the emergence of Rawlings, governance had been mystified. When he burst onto the scene with his close attachment to the mass of the people, he succeeded in demystifying governance and raising the spirit of self-help and communal activities.

No one should begrudge him credit for this feat. He broke the myth surrounding elitism in Ghanaian politics and created opportunities for the hitherto “unbiz” elements of the society to walk the corridors of power. Some excelled in their use of that power to advance the cause of the people while others misused that opportunity and suffered for it.

Rawlings and Chinua Achebe’s lizard (Part I)

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Do you remember Chinua Achebe’s proverb of the lizard that drops from the tall iroko tree to hit the ground, nods its head, and praises itself if nobody will praise it for surviving such a mighty fall?

Former President Jerry John Rawlings may have a part of that proverbial lizard in him. He says that his nearly 20-year rule can be described as the best ever in the annals of the country’s political history. And his boast has sent his critics, including former President Kufuor, into a tail spin. Instantaneously, all of them are giddy with anger. Why not?

Insults, insults, more insults… won’t win Election 2012

Monday, November 7, 2011

Over the past one week alone, several pronouncements from the NDC camp have focused on the NPP’s flagbearer, Nana Akufo Addo, to such an extent that no single day passes by without anything damning being said about him. All these pronouncements have one common pinpoint: highlighting the negative aspects of Akufo-Addo’s standing.

Indeed, the pronouncements have centred on his past, present, and future, creating the impression that he is not fit to be Ghana’s President. Reading news reports on these pronouncements, one might be tempted to conclude that the NDC camp has found an antidote to the NPP’s campaign of demonization and outright condemnation of everything done by the NDC and its government.

If Rawlings won’t campaign for President Mills…

Sunday, November 6, 2011

The NDC’s General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah, is reported to have expressed sentiments that I share, even if he has turned round to deny what was attributed to him. No one should beg Rawlings and his wife to campaign for the NDC. This reasoning encapsulates all that I want to hear at this stage when the NDC government is faced with numerous thorny issues to grapple with as Election 2012 looms large and the problems mount. The Rawlingses are also part of those thorny issues.

It is not as if Rawlings’ campaigning for the NDC will automatically win victory for it. Against the NPP, what didn’t Rawlings do for the 2000 and 2004 elections to promote then Candidate Mills’ interests? Did he win? He lost on both occasions to the NPP’s Kufuor despite all the huge personal investment and infusion of resources into the NDC’s campaign stunts. Rawlings was all over the place, vigorously urging the electorate to go for Professor Mills; but they turned the other way.

Even at that time that he hadn’t done much to destroy his own NDC, the electorate spurned Professor Mills. What is there about him today for the electorate to enthuse over after he has succeeded in undercutting his own party’s government?

You see, no moral basis exists for Rawlings to be actively involved in the NDC’s campaigns. Unless someone wants to tell me that he has no conscience, I don’t think that he has acquitted himself properly enough to take on the responsibilities that some NDC elements sympathetic to his cause are suggesting.

Rawlings: NDC Founder and Father now an OUTCAST? (Part II)

Friday, November 4, 2011

The causes of Rawlings’ problems are obvious. He is a bundle of contradictions who is suffering as a consequence of his own inability to come to terms with the reality of the human condition: he is indeed not what he professes to be—which is gradually leading to his unmasking himself through this spate of constant whining and fault-finding. 

All the goodwill that has clothed him all these years has virtually been eroded by his own miscalculation, leaving him thinly veiled. Very soon, that veil will fall for all to know the real stuff of which he is made.

Rawlings: NDC Founder and Father now an OUTCAST? (Part I)

Friday, November 4, 2011

The irony of fate that has reduced former President Rawlings from the high horse of a hero to a near-villain in his own political camp defies rationalization; but it is understandable as the outcome of his own inability to change with the times. We will continue to examine the twists and turns that have turned him into what he himself has labelled as “an outcast” in his own political family (the NDC).

Yes, an outcast he is because that is the outcome of his not stopping to look and listen before leaping into the whirlpool. Now, overwhelmed by the outcome, he has become giddy with resentment. I don’t pity him. Whether the NDC cannot do without him doesn’t really bother me. A viable political party needs to position itself to outgrow its founder(s). That’s what Rawlings cannot fathom and is suffering for it.

Do Ghanaians want Akufo-Addo as their President? (Part II)

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Arrogance in official government circles is disgusting to the electorate, and they won’t root for a government whose functionaries carry themselves too high and come across as condescending. The NDC MPs are particularly guilty; and this Abayateye can’t absolve himself of blame. His own problems with a section of the electorate in his Sege constituency come to mind. How sure is he that he will be re-elected?

Others like him also have serious problems in their constituencies because they have either failed to deliver the goods they promised the electorate to win their votes or because they have already been written off as non-performing assets.

Do Ghanaians want Akufo-Addo as their President? (Part I)

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Factors that prevented the NPP’s Akufo-Addo from winning the 2008 Presidential elections may not have evaporated; new ones may have emerged ever since then to add to his credibility problems. But whether he will win the next general elections or not cannot be gauged by how much his opponents denounce him.

Personally, I have my qualms against Akufo-Addo and will hate to have him as Ghana’s President in my lifetime; but my sentiments are my private matter. Others too have their sentiments and expectations of him and mine alone will not prevent him from being so if the majority of voters go for him. Akufo-Addo’s electoral fate is in the womb of time; and the objective reality of the Ghanaian condition will determine what he becomes at the end of the polls in December 2012.

Palestine joins UNESCO and the United States goes wild! (Part II)

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Israel and the US have no moral justification to continue resisting Palestine’s bid for statehood. Israel's concerns against the Palestine Liberation Organization as a terrorist organization are no more valid, especially after both had exchanged letters of recognition as far back as 1993.

If the bone of contention is land, there is nothing anybody can do about it. The struggle over land between Israelis and those in the Middle East (including the Palestinians) is an age-old problem that shouldn’t be put forward by anybody as a major stumbling block.

Palestine joins UNESCO and the United States goes wild! (Part I)

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Even before the United Nations votes on Palestine’s application for full membership—a preparatory step for its becoming a full-fledged state—one of its organs has taken a giant step to boost Palestine’s status in the community of nations.  

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) full membership voted yesterday to admit Palestine into its fold as its 195^th full member. The vote tally was 107 to 14, with 52 abstentions, according to The New York Times (Monday, October 31, 2011).