HI Dad.
No need to reprimand me, I am sorry I haven’t kept this yearly ritual, but let me see if I can redeem myself a little with this letter. So much I would like to share and discuss with you but some of the words would be unprintable. These days in Ghana are days of contempt and some effort at keeping a civil tongue, especially in the media, is no probic. But it’s all a façade stuffed with sycophancy. On the one hand we try to be principled and disciplined in our outlook, yet at the same time we steal money at the least opportunity. The politicians have perfected the art of sidetracking commonsense as partisan or spiritual. Makes life very tough for an independent voice.
I have lost track of how long it has been since you departed, but I am more convinced than ever that there is no such place like the Christian heaven, if that is where you reside now. You might as well let me have a GPS location of some sort just in case I have to make an early exit and need to find you. For sure you cannot be in Alepo, Syria – the fanatical Moslem fundamentalists, rightly labelled as terrorists have bombed the place and turned it into hell.
Maybe you have the answer, but what is so special about Assad that the supreme Western and Eastern blocks can’t remove him and give us the peace we so crave? We still only have machetes in Ghana so we can’t do a thing, except the police riot squad have a way of removing protestor’s eyes directly from the socket. Do you think your master would allow them to be shipped off to Turkey to help? We don’t need them here even with the elections coming up. Ghana has peace, we give it all up daily and that battle is not the Lord’s.
If you are in her circles, can you ask Mother Teresa what she thinks? Is it too much to just leave us to get on with earthly challenges? We are making great strides in science and technology, I find it difficult to cope with all the new developments. Of course this is when I miss you most. Those days when we could look into the future and get excited about the newest thing on the market.
You know the internet might just be blown out of use on election day right? A certain partially over-controlling IGP has decided that the youth might just topple the election results if they are allowed to carry on “whasapping” and sending “selfies” all over the world on the day.
You would love this era in Ghana. Even market women who we thought would never adopt technology are using mobile money applications to create a new monetised world. I am sure you haven’t forgotten all our conversations about the “third dimension”.
These days we have swapped “third dimension” for “developing economies”. And guess where we are in Ghana? Can’t even make it to Rio and back. After the world cup fiasco we hardly ever mentioned the names of the athletes. As if mentioning Brasil would rake up memories of what Elvis Afriyie Ankrah and his team did with $3million the last time round. Can you believe he is now a Minister of State, with no portfolio?
I always wondered what that position meant. So he rides around Accra as an errand boy doing nothing but finding ways to spend tax payer’s money?
Dad, Africa has problems! Who has the portfolio for Africa up there? Sometimes you guys look to me like “do nothing” group, sitting there and waiting for a major cataclysm before you take action. Flooding in India, Pakistan, Louisiana, France and in Accra? Can’t the Chief Operating Officer Gabriel terminate some appointments? It’s as if you are modelling your life on the same principles we follow here in Ghana. A see nothing Government, totally clueless of the disasters until they happen and it is too late to save lives.
Which brings me to a point. Is there anyway you can confirm whether Reverend Martey is telling the truth about the $100,000 dollar bribe allegation? Life can be so much easier to manage if you could leak some of this stuff to me. I won’t be afraid to name the culprits and be done with it. We need to know the people in our midst who have all this money undeclared on their tax returns and can afford to give so much away for what return? There has to be a lot of money in politics. Who do you think is poaching all these dollars in Ghana? I need some “apoh” to set my mind at ease.
Anyway, I think our biggest scourge is yet to reveal itself. The “Obinim” wagon is rolling on, heading for a cult, as for that I am very sure about. There are so many lessons in history about such persons I can signal to your recce squad up there that you will have to keep exceptionally long vigils so he doesn’t scrape under the net. You heard about the flogging of the buxom young girl in his church recently right? He thinks he is Jesus or something, flogging people in his “father’s temple.”
So who is this Donald Trump? Is he a reincarnation of anyone special? You know how I dabbled in Buddhism to your great amusement? Well I think he is back from a dark past to torture our minds. Every so often some person rears his head and derails us for years if not decades.
Thanks to the Internet and social media, we have killed Mugabe several times already. Even this morning he made the news again, a hidden corpse living in a land where even we in Ghana are scared to comment.
And like Ghana Muntie, we (our President and his conniving ministers) released three criminals to walk freely the streets of Ghana under the guise of some benevolent ruse. After threatening to kill off the most important arm of democracy in the country, our President and his band of merry ministers found a way to let them out, but kept Kombian (remember him? Killed a few policemen and ran away from the law easily) behind cells.
I can name a few more of this criminal breed, but your lessons are still in my mind. Sometimes it is best not to be too “schaden freud”.
Do you think we will vote Mahama out this year? Wouldn’t that be swell? I thought when you urged me to come home you would have stayed a bit longer and seen the end of all this turmoil. You think TB will know? About Mahama? Or will he do one of those after the fact revelations?
I am tired now. This year I have lost so many good friends, my world is shrinking and my health is failing badly. But I am determined to fulfil a destiny, whatever it is, and which I have not found yet, so I soldier on.
I really miss you. Times are stressful and difficult and I have left it too late to leave Ghana again. You might know already, but Mum is doing fine. Well, I leave it here till I arrive some place where we can reconnect better.
Voters notwithstanding, we should get better at this developing country game. Send me a message? Please?
Ghana, Aha a y? din papa. Alius atrox week advenio. Another terrible week to come!
Sydney Casely-Hayford, thenewghanaian@gmail.com