“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something”
Plato
“You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life”
Zig Ziglar
You may be right to ask: Do politicians have conscience (the inner sense of right or wrong).
In May, 2016, the President then campaigning as NPP Presidential candidate talked his mind about the economy under J.D. Mahama: “What we’re going through is because of bad leadership”. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was on other platforms extolling the platitude: “If the fundamentals are weak, the exchange rate will expose you”
And this was the time the rate of exchange was $1.00 for less than GH¢4.00! The NDC was kicked out; It went to $1.00 for GH¢15.00. Where is Bawumia? Are the fundamentals right this time? You may call us “free-thinkers” (we form our own opinions, not tow “party” propaganda and we thought NPP will live by the dreams of Danquah-Busia-Dombo and profess the truth even at the peril of their lives). Need we repeat that we are disappointed?
Professor Adu-Boahen, Kontopiat, who broke the “culture of silence” in Ghana under J.J Rawlings’s PNDC (in the Ghanaian Sphinx), was a staunch critic of Jerry. When he died, Rawlings attended his funeral with his wife, Nana Konadu and remarked “I always listened to his lectures, his criticisms of me… There were those I disagreed with and there were those I took in good faith.”
All, except the fawning sycophants and praise singers of Akufo Addo were moved into tears, when Nana Yaa Jantuah openly wept on TV3 on Thursday, 9th February, 2023 when she was criticizing The Finance Minister about the individual bondholders in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme: “So Ken Ofori Atta doesn’t have compassion for them? Why? …You don’t even care!” She added: “You have mismanaged the economy, made yourselves rich, made people within your space rich, and you want to treat Ghanaians like this? …And you sit down and tell us you want to break the eight as if we are fools.
By some strange coincidence… the former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo joined the picketing bond-holders, holding a placard on which was written: “We use our bond yields to pay our rents, medical bills, electricity bills and water bills”. Speaking to the media, she noted: “I find this wicked, disrespectful, and unlawful, period, because you don’t solve your problems by sacrificing your aged. That’s the last thing you should do, especially when you don’t have any services that are actually geared at the comfort and relief of the aged… I’m seeing it purely from a legal point of view, their contractual rights being threatened… I have to join them in solidarity. Their pain is my pain …” She had earlier stated: “I am over 70 years now, I am no longer government employee, and my mouth has been untagged…” she was urging government to be transparent and account to Ghanaians on what led to the current economic crisis and what all the loans were used for.
A day after Nana Jantuah’s public lamentation, Amanliba, Esq was on the same TV3 saying: “I won’t weep for these people. Your tears can fill a cup and they won’t listen. I am inciting the people to come on demonstration…There’s a pact between the President and the Finance Minister. The President himself is a mediocre President so is it surprising that he won’t sack a mediocre Finance Minister?” Amanliba was surprised at the silence of the Ghana Bar Association over the matter.
Jantuah, Esq (not the female) added: “The ‘yenntieobiara’ attitude of President and the Finance Minister is worrying. Why is the Vice-President silent about the crisis? The President should take some of the blame. Forget the Harvard-Yale thing. Jones Ofori-Atta was Minister of Finance (?) in Busia’s government taking so many loans, to be overthrown by I.K. Acheampong who said “yenntua” (we will not pay). Jones Ofori- Atta was in fact the Ministerial Secretary (Deputy Minister) of Finance together with Charles Omar Nyanor with the substantive minister being J.H. Mensah.
The present Ghanaian situation makes it clear what prompted Acheampong to make that unfortunate pronouncement. Speech is silver (n), silence is golden, and AlJahiz in the 9th century wrote “if speech were of silver, then silence would be of gold”, William Martin Leake puts it this way: “Discourse is silver, silence is gold”. We did not think the government’s communicators would rub salt into the wound of the bondholders. We did not wish to comment on the comment of Gabby Otchere-Darko on the comment by the ex-Chief Justice. Our destinies put us together at the Ghana School of Law (privileged information), and we can recall Gabby’s exchange of words with the late lecturer, J.K.E Edzie.
Gabby because he had not been born in Ghana (but rather London) and had not passed through the pangs of “suffering” as an “African Child” (walking barefoot, to school, coming home to fetch water from river a distance away, doing odd jobs like weaving baskets to earn a few cedis, being cared for going to school late because he/she had to go to farm early in the morning…) Hear Gabby: “The former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, may mean well but she erred big time in her basic appreciation of the issues.
Rather than asking the Government for exemption at this late hour, why did she simply not exempt herself from exchanging her original bond for the new one? Why picket over something you don’t like when you have the right not to sign up? Sorry, but I struggle to get her emotional outburst over exemption. I hope she won’t volunteer to picket tomorrow when the time to sign up has expired.” Call it “ntetee” in Twi (home training). A 73-year-old lady versus a young man (no disclosed age)
So, you see the kind of people surrounding Akufo Addo, and you can guess the kind of advice they would give him. Whilst some of us help to build the party with soothing words, others like those around the President expel sympathizers with scathing remark.
Obiri-Boahen says: “… picketing is a form of democracy… to express their displeasure… I don’t see the reason why someone should attack the former Chief Justice…I don’t agree with him (Gabby Otchere-Darko).
Sophia Akuffo herself says in reply to Gabby Otchere-Darko: “Gabby Otchere can call me paranoid… we are talking about the people, … human beings… when you are not a member of government and you are calling yourself a member of government…” the government and communicators need our pity though. These are the people who want to “break the eight.”? Do you break the eight with such an attitude: arrogance, haughtiness, pomposity, superciliousness, egocentricity, self-conceitedness…?
Who will tell the President he is “naked”? Do you ask why Akufo Addo did not get as many votes in the 2020 elections as he did in the 2016 one? Do you know why many NPP MPs lost their seats in the 2020 elections? The effect of arrogance the family and friends will not tell him, but some of us will! It’s Amma Ghana we think about, not the selfish comfort of the President and a handful of his cronies. We shall fight for Ghana, no matter whose ox is gored-NPP or NDC
During the Commission of Enquiry after the 1966 coup, there were many allegations of “prestige projects” Nkrumah built. The respondents including Kofi Baako said they were all “gapingsycophants” (now it will be National Cathedral, bloated size of government, free SHS, ex-gratia reckless spending. Some die-hard party members think Nana Addo, Ken Ofori-Atta and their closest paddies have made it difficult to defend NPP. Quiet, else you are Sanballat and Tobiah. Do you know the number of times key NPP members switch off their radios and television sets when they hear or see the photo of the President or the Minister of Finance? Don’t let this sound like the fox calling ‘sour grapes’ because he could not reach them, enough of the “tintin-tininti.”
Africanus Owusu-Ansah
africanusowusu1234@gmail.com