Of Memoirs, Emerging Facts

Ghanaians, especially politicians, should start composing stories about their journeys in life.

When they do in their sober moments, we on the fringes are able to learn from the past the morals of which will impact positively on national development.

Committing some of the blunders which exacted worrying consequences in various forms will be avoided when a new crop of Ghanaians take over the mantle of leadership, the morals from the memoirs available to them.

In the past few years, there has been a fervent interest in, if you like, retired public servants to write books. The excitements and controversies some of them brought about are providing fodder for the media to compose stories. While some of these stories are palatable to some, for others it is a source of seismic events shaking the foundations of some political groupings. History is a controversial subject because of the varying lenses with which individuals look at events. The Holocaust is a typical example as that event in world history is prone to varying interpretations. While some acknowledge others deny it and even describe it as fictional.

When former President John Mahama wrote his book, ‘My First Coup d’état’, it elicited an assortment of interpretations. In the end, we wondered whether the literary work by a man who studied history achieved the objective the author envisaged when he worked on the book.

Be that as it may, the book said a lot about the Bole boy while he could not pass for an ordinary boy because his father was a top politician and his kids, of course, enjoyed privileged positions in society. He was not cocooned to the four walls of the typical colonial era bungalows in which they lived.

His adversaries took interest in the portion which showed him as a person given to vacillation, not steadfast. These attributes for them are responsible for his management lapses when he was at the helm. He wants to return and has started dangling goodies he could not deliver when he was at the helm anyway.

He succeeded, however, in presenting a picture of his childhood days which evoked memories of that period in the country’s chequered history.

Today, we are dealing with yet another book which appears to have set our minds thinking about what informed certain actions in our body politic. Now, we know how some persons were spotted at drinking spots. When deals in such spots are made, the emerging developments should not surprise us one bit.

Now we know why a former President nearly resigned his appointment. Isn’t it intriguing that this same man died under circumstances still shrouded in mystery?

Some young men were taught the unenviable art of hurling a stream of invective at elders, the book has told us.

The leader of the junta which metamorphosed into the NDC is peeved about a negative reference to himself and has promised to return fire though from a fighter jet.

Maybe more books are in the works which would tell us a lot about why the NDC prefers busing foreigners from neighbouring countries to register in our registration exercise and to vote in the December elections.

Tags: