In other jurisdictions, people like Captain Smart, the notorious and reckless morning show host of Onua TV, are not insulted, abused, arrested or chastised. Such persons are taken to the psychiatrist hospitals for cure. I have warned the good people of Ghana not to take the untoward behaviour of this guy who is suffering from infantile disorder, because he could plunge the country into chaos.
He is a threat to peaceful co-existence. He is simply a walking time bomb. In fact, this is the third time I have written about the boy and yet Ghanaians are silent over his predicament. The guy is either mentally deranged or possessed by the devil. He needs some help. Such persons can go berserk, enter a school and butcher innocent children when they eventually contract hallucination.
We don’t have to wait for such a thing to happen before we save him from committing collective suicide in his moment of total madness. The mistake that we do as a people is that we have that funny idea that anyone who dresses well is not mad.
Twenty-four years ago when Madam Gina Blay, the former Editor of DAILY GUIDE and now Ambassador to Germany approached me and asked me to write a column for her newspaper, the DAILY GUIDE, she told me in plain words that the DAILY GUIDE commands readers who are more knowledgeable, and fine ladies and gentlemen who look for nothing but the best. She is even the one who coined the column, Time With Angel Gabriel. She admonished me to be careful with my words before I put pen on paper.
As the years rolled by and professors, lawyers, military and police officers, respectable chiefs, seasoned politicians and a cross section of society in Ghana started writing to thank me for writing one piece after the other, I realised that what Gina told me was right. Anytime I open my in box in my computer and read compliments by these ladies and gentlemen, it encourages me to continue to refine my language.
Society has tamed me a lot. That is why anytime I see a foolish man I tell him to go and look into the mirror and see how a foolish man looks like. I refuse to call him a foolish man because I have good upbringing. In fact, that is the more reason why I refuse to go down the gutter with Captain Smart who has already made himself dirty and a disgrace to those who belong to this noble profession, the 4rd Estate of the Realm. A Yoruba man will say, ‘If you don’t want monkey tail to touch you, you don’t go to monkey dance.’ Why should a refined gentleman like me screw with a pig which has just come out of the mud?
I used to admire Captain Smart when he used to serialise and comment on the Auditor-General’s Report. He was so good and I never missed his programme even though sometimes he committed some journalistic peccadilloes. All that has gone into the drain. The Captain Smart I used to admire has gone mad and a slave to money, using unprintable words on persons who could be his father and mother.
He is now acting like the Kumasi Kejetia petty drug seller who used monkeys to attract his customers in those happy days. Anytime the drug seller claps and sings, the monkey will jump from one end to the other, dancing and jumping. As children, we used to troop to such places just to watch the monkeys.
If a person who has wife and children, educated and works for his living can face the camera and tell Ghanaians that anyone who will vote for Dr. Bawumia and NAPO in this year’s election is mad, a fool, a beast, blockheaded and senseless, then something has gone wrong with that person.
He has madness embedded in his stomach. That is why I said Captain Smart is either mad or possessed by the devil. Did he understand what he said? Was he under the influence of some drugs when he opened his mouth to say such an abominable words? Does he know the type of persons who belong to the NPP and will surely vote for the party, including yours sincerely, irrepressible Earth Angel Gabriel?
Is this reckless village Johnny Just Come (JJC) telling us that former President Kufuor, Nana Akufo-Addo, Dr. Bawumia, professors, lawyers, graduates, undergraduates, businessmen, businesswomen, disgruntled NDC supporters and many more ladies and gentlemen who intend to vote for the NPP are fools if indeed they vote for the party come December? If the great Otumfuo who is nicknamed King Solomon and other respectable chiefs and men of God vote for the NPP, they are mad and fools?
Has this small boy, who looks too old for his age, all too soon forgotten that but for former President Kufuor, the Criminal Libel Law, promulgated by the (P)NDC will have been still in our status books which will not have given him the leeway to vomit his rots? And he says Mr. Kufuor is a fool and blockheaded! Let him ask veteran journalists like Kwaku Baako Jr. and Haruna Atta. The Criminal Libel Law threw them into jail.
Family members of Captain Smart are not doing him any good. They should bundle him into a car, drive him straight to Pantang or Asylum Down Psychiatrist Hospitals for treatment. He really needs the services of psychiatrists who would take him through tests, give him some drugs, detain him and observe his behavior very well.
If the issue is something which needs the services of an exorcist, I have a powerful one in my holy village who is good at curing such persons who are possessed by an evil spirit. Such persons are chained and locked in a room while some herbs are applied. There are some herbs that will be cooked for him to drink on daily bases and others which he will bath when the cock crows at dawn. In no time, the exorcist will be able to exorcise any evil spirit that the person is possessed.
All what you will need is a black cat, the heart of a tortoise and a new calabash. You will pay nothing until the patient is healed. I am ready to donate something for his upkeep if the need arises. After all, we are all in the inky fraternity. Who knows tomorrow? I may also contract the disease since anything can happen when the market is going to an end. God forbid!
But on a more serious note, unto us is come the season of TV and Radio station owners who don’t care a hoot about tenets of the profession. All what they care is to use irresponsible, half-baked, wee-smoking journalists and rubble-rousers to get adverts and make money. To such employers and paymasters for that matter, as far as they can make the money they want, Rome can burn.
I cannot count the number of times the well-meaning people of this country have referred to the massacre in Rwanda following the irresponsible comments made by a single radio commentator. What these employers should know is that when the rain falls, it won’t fall on one man’s house. As for me, I am not prepared to carry my mattress and a few cooking utensils with my wife and children and head to an unknown place.
Ghana is in a disadvantageous geographic location as we are surrounded by Francophone countries and the big blue sea. Few of us can respond to greetings in French not to talk of communicating in that language or jump into the Atlantic Ocean and swim to safety. We may have to cross more than two borders in order to reach Nigeria where we would feel “comfortable”. And Nigerians too are reeling under economic hardship.
In Nigeria today, even “ogogro” (Apketashie) is too expensive for people to buy. Look at the huge number of Nigerians who have literally invaded Ghana. The Management of Onua TV should spare us the pain of running away to escape the bullets when trouble rears its ugly head as Captain Smart continues to embark on a suicide mission. Full stop!!!
Eric Bawah