The National Executive Committee of the NDC is itself undisciplined

Monday, March 31, 2014

My good friends, when I heard that the NEC of the NDC had appealed to President Mahama to reinstate Gabriel Barima, popularly known as "DCE Tweaa", I quickly concluded that the major problems confronting Ghana in this 4th Republic go beyond the incompetence displayed by the various governments that have ruled the country since January 7, 1993 (when the 4th Republic took off) to encompass gross indiscipline in the political parties.

No democracy that is designed to succeed has room for the kind of indiscipline that shot Mr. Barima out of political office.

In this 4^th Republic, particularly, several instances of gross disrespect for the citizens have been displayed by those put in political office by the citizens. In fact, the government functionaries are guilty of disrespecting the citizens in many guises, insulting their senses and sensibilities, but getting away unscathed because the existing structures cannot be used to tame them.

The sell-out has begun: ECOWAS consents to EPA

Friday, March 28, 2014

Folks, we are doomed already. Despite much public agitations against the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between West Africa and the European Union (EU), the West African sub-regional group ECOWAS says it is satisfied with it (the EPA).

The chairman of the Council of Ministers and the Chairman of the ECOWAS Commission (Kadré Désiré Ouedraogo) say they are “very pleased” with the agreement. Ouedraogo even believes that the agreement will be advantageous for the West African sub-region.

He did not tell us what those advantages might be. But we know that the opponents of the EPA have raised very cogent reasons and arguments to prove that the EPA won’t help us solve any problem. It will rather deepen our woes.

Who goes for free Senior High School Education?

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Folks, there is some good news from the hinterland. I am happy at the news report saying that hitherto unregarded senior high schools have now performed so creditably as to topple the “traditional” big-shots as far as the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is concerned. Good news to celebrate by all accounts.

Congratulations to the students and authorities of these schools who have turned the table in their favour.

Those of us who attended rural secondary schools in those days (that had no electricity, potable water, means of communication, or other resources) but managed to enter those “traditionally respected” secondary schools see this new development as heart-warming.

Fighting corruption in public office: What the United States teaches us

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Folks, a country cannot make the desired progress if its system of governance is crippled by bribery and corruption. It is as clear as daylight!

Bribery and corruption have only one effect: to undermine morality and impede good governance. In a democracy, the more prevalent the canker is, the better chances are that governance will be adversely affected. Ghana is a victim of bribery and corruption. Its democracy cannot mature on that score.

Although human beings are by nature fallible, their desire for progress in this mundane world cannot be achieved if they don’t put their house in order as far as moral decadence and irresponsible behaviour (translated into unbridled self-acquisition through fair and foul means, mostly through the latter) are not held in check. We have too much of the unbridled craving for ill-gotten wealth in Ghana, which is why our democracy isn’t growing to serve the needs of the wider majority of the citizenry.

Ukraine begins the dance-of-death with a vampire

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

My good friends, the people of Ukraine have already begun the dance with the devil (the most deadly vampire in the global financial sector: the International Monetary Fund). Most African countries have been engaged in that dance all these years with devastating consequences.

The new leaders of Ukraine will soon gain their composure as reality dawns. They will be jostled enough into realizing that they have entered into a "marriage of inconvenience" with the West whose consequences won’t be palatable.

All too soon, the West has opened the floodgates for their most-trusted vampire (the International Monetary Fund) to do their hatchet job for them. And the IMF’s notorious austerity measures bite deep. For Ukraine, the biting will begin being done all too soon.

The President doesn't pay tax? Oh, Ghana!!!

Monday, March 17, 2014

Folks, I am really bent on taking on those who have (mis)led Ghana since the promulgation of the 1992 Constitution to establish this 4th Republic. I won’t regret at all for whatever I say about them here and how I say it.

By their own demonstration of greed, callousness, and plain insensitivity, they deserve whatever I will heap on them—and I expect readers too to splash much scum on them. They deserve it.

My anger was provoked by news reports that among the entrenched provisions in the 1992 Constitution on which the Constitution Review Implementation Committee (CRIC) has submitted a draft bill for amendment is that “the President of Ghana and others are to pay tax”.

Let me finish providing details before I plunge into the tirade that I have chosen as my response to the matter.

As Ukraine burns, Africa vanishes from global political affairs!!

Saturday, March 15, 2014

My good friends, the crisis deepening in Ukraine has attracted global attention because it risks sparking off a catastrophe that will belittle the first two world wars. Unless stemmed without any ill-thought-of use of military action by the United States and its European allies against Russia whose interest in Ukraine is beyond dispute.

Much hot air is being blown, even as diplomatic efforts falter because none of the interested parties will budge. While the US and its allies have begun imposing sanctions on Russia and threatening more wide-ranging ones, Russia has dug in and is determined to do what it seeks to ensure that Ukraine doesn’t fall into the hands of the US and is NATO allies.

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, vindicates me, after all

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Folks, over the years, I have been insistent that the NPP cannot do without the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi. I did say in many opinion pieces that the NPP   is so grafted to Manhyia that it cannot claim to be itself, meaning that the real forces behind it can be traced to Manhyia.

I have also made it clear that the NPP was incubated in the Danquah Busia Club (DBC) that the late Attakora-Gyimah of Nkukuo-Buoho, near Offinso (and a veteran journalist operating the Ashanti Pioneer newspaper in Kumasi) formed to bring together all the adherents of the Danquah-Busia political tradition.

I knew them in all that they were doing before the Rawlings PNDC government lifted the ban on partisan politics on May 18, 1992, when the DBC metamorphosed into the NPP with a history closely tied to Manhyia.

Any “angel” in Ghana’s Parliament?

Thursday, March 13, 2014

My good friends, there is enough reason to say that any talk of fighting corruption in Ghana annoys me more than giving me hope that the vice will ever be successfully fought to improve governance.

Good citizenship is not achieved through appeals to conscience but through verifiable decent conduct as far as the handling of national affairs is concerned.

If you are one of those bothering yourself about corruption in Ghana and why it can’t be tackled despite official assurances, you needn’t do so anymore. Corruption cannot be stemmed. Lip service here, lip service there, lip service everywhere cannot tackle it. But that is the most preferred strategy: lip service and more lip service!! The chorus is set to be sung.

Let somebody tell me where exactly there is any provision in our legal code that specifically defines corruption for what it is and prescribes requisite punishment for it. Then, let somebody tell me whether there have not been infringements of that injunction and what has specifically been done to prove that there is a legal code on corruption that binds or bites culprits.

So, who is the NPP’s Akufo-Addo deceiving?

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

My good friends, when the weight of fact-based opinion bears down heavily on self-deception in politics, it is only those who trap themselves in absurdity who will continue to live in darkness.

I have insisted all this while that the NPP's Akufo-Addo cannot bear ceding the NPP's flagbearership to any other candidate for Election 2016. It's a foregone decision that he cunningly hid behind the smokescreen of "the face of God" in pursuit of his grand agenda of manipulating the sentiments of NPP followers.

He is reported to have said today that he will make his decision known on March 20. Nothing new to those of us who have seen through that veil of self-deception and won't be surprised at anything coming from him on that date.

Why the United States will press on with the Ukraine Mission

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Folks, the United States has an ulterior motive for inserting itself into the Ukraine crisis. No one needs any special transcendental powers to know why. It seeks to avenge the damage caused to it by the disclosures of Edward Snowden, a former CIA contractor now being harboured by Russia.

Of course, Russia is not only harbouring Snowden but it is treating him as the proverbial goose laying its golden intelligence-filled eggs. And trust the Russians to keep mum over anything extracted from Snowden. The US feels threatened in many ways!!

Its ultimate objective may be to use this Ukrainian crisis for actions to teach Russia a bitter lesson and reduce it to the depth of a begging state or to rubble, if need be.

Akufo-Addo storms Manhyia on Wednesday?

Monday, March 10, 2014

Folks, when the NPP's Akufo-Addo sought to distance himself from the fire that he himself set in the NPP as a result of his madcap politics that divided the party's ranks more than uniting them for Election 2012---and after manipulating the situation to avoid being torn into shreds at the loss of the elections---he did two main things:

1. He sought solace in the UK but sent out his ventriloquists to do his groundwork for Election 2016. They were all over the place, singing his song while intimidating all those emerging as his opponents in the party.

He himself managed to dash down to the United States on the quiet to do his own bidding toward Election 2016 while deceptively insisting that he was waiting to see the face of God to be told his future political direction---as if he hadn't had a premeditated decision on his stance to contest Election 2016.

The crisis in Ukraine won't end soon as NATO steps in

Monday, March 10, 2014

My good friends, there is no doubt in my mind that Ukraine has more in common with Russia than the United States and its allies in Europe banded together into the European Union and behaving as if they have any umbilical cord stuck into Ukraine that is sustaining it.

What is unfolding in Ukraine clearly reveals the far-reaching implications of the break-up of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and why its hub (Russia) is doing all it can to ensure that nothing happens there to threaten its own viability, national security, and integrity as a former superpower.

Politicians beware: Ghana yesterday, today, and tomorrow!!

Saturday, March 8, 2014

My good friends, the discourse on our national affairs is full of interesting peculiarities. Those of us who have chosen to do the yeoman’s job of raising pertinent issues for comment are clearly aware of the implications and won’t lose any sleep regarding comments made by readers who see us as threats to their political ambitions. If they can’t take the heat, let’s leave them to fight the wind!

I have been particularly resolute and brazenly resilient in my stance and will continue to be so, regardless of whose ox I gore in the process or who bounces back to attempt intimidating me with verbal actions.

Those days are long gone when people like us might be bothered by vain threats. That is why I am particularly intrigued by comments on my opinion piece on the return of the NPP’s Akufo-Addo to Ghana after “hibernating” for 6 months in London, proving to me that he and his followers don’t have the capacity to contain dissension or to come to terms with the sorry Fate that befell him (Akufo-Addo) at Election 2012—and will befall him again at Election 2016 if he deceives himself that God has spoken to him to lead the NPP to the land of milk and honey. No elaboration.

Improving Ghana’s democracy: Revamping the local government base

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Folks, I have said it several times that until local government improves to prop up our democracy, we will continue to lag behind and be content with the mediocrity that has characterized this 4^th Republic.

There is much hue and cry about the Electoral Commission’s inability to conduct district-level elections this year to put in office Assembly men and women.

Parliament has already summonsed Dr. Afari-Gyan to appear before it to clarify issues. Even before he does so, the Deputy Minority Chief Whip, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, is warning of serious administrative crisis at the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies if government fails to resource the Electoral Commission (EC) to organize the district level elections.

(Source: http://www.myjoyonline.com/news/2014/March-7th/administrative-crisis-looms-if-ec-fails-to-conduct-district-elections-mp-warns.php)

The problem, to me, goes beyond the so-called administrative lapses or fears that the CEOs of the Assemblies might do things their own ways to endanger local government.

The NPP's Akufo-Addo returns to Ghana: Still, the battle is the Lord's

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Folks, the NPP's Akufo-Addo has returned to Ghana after staying away for six months after the Supreme Court had sealed his doom as the defeated Presidential Candidate at Election 2012, his petition against his defeat having been torn into shreds and discarded as an act in desperation.

His return this night is uneventful in itself, clearly because it happened at the time that we all knew he would be returning home after the NPP's national delegates congress had been shifted from March 1 to April 12 .

And we know very well the reason he gave for not returning home before March 1. Now that he is home before the April 12 congress, can he say that he will keep to himself and not dabble in the very internal politics that he had raised as his reason for postponing his earlier planned return? Over to him.

Is Barack Obama biting off more than he can chew?

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Folks, the United States has for many years now prided itself as the only SUPERPOWER of the world (especially after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed at the impact of Mikhail Gorbachov’s “perestroika’ and “glasnost”, vain attempts to offset the hugely negative impact of the arms race and the devastating consequences of the Cold War).

In its pride, the US has done things all over the world and boasted of its capability to continue doing so till thy kingdom come. It has made no secret of the potency of its military-industrial complex, entering countries and systems and doing anything that its superior arms would allow it to.

Stealing Akufo-Addo’s Policy on Free Senior High Schools?

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Folks, there is a new wave of calumny against President Mahama following his announcement last Tuesday that his government would soon introduce a progressively free Day SHS education even as it turns attention to improving infrastructure.

He has just been reported as saying that the fee-free education will be extended to cover boarding schools too. Now, the NPP must really feel threatened, apparently because the wind in its political sail is being blown away by this strategic move by the government.

Fee-free SHS at this time means disarming the NPP and reducing its electioneering campaigns for Election 2016 to rubble even before that time comes. No new buzz-word for it!!