I served notice a few months ago that if the Minister for Information and the Director, or communication and their teams fail to rise up to the occasion and be up and doing, I will rain fire and brimstone on them. A few weeks after that notice, I was watching my old and outdated black and white television when I saw images of development projects being inspected by the President when he visited the Northern Region. It was the handiwork of the Ministry of Information and it was aired on more than five television stations. I was full of joy because at long last my dream of seeing what has been going round as far as development was concerned partly came to reality. Sadly, it ended there as if that was the only place development was taking place.
I have chosen to write this open letter to two of you because it seems to me all what I have been writing about the need to remake the communication and information outfits of the NPP continue to fall on deaf ears. If after reading this letter you continue to treat matters lightly, I will don my armour of confrontational discourse, brash and acidic, go to town, go down into the gutter and you know what that means. The President himself had had cause to complain about your outfits and I believe he will move in sympathy with me if I come rambling like a wounded bear. It is absurd to wait until election year before informing the people the good deeds of the government. Until I visited some districts recently, I did not know the Agenda 111 hospitals located there are almost completed.
Take the issue of ‘One District, One Factory’ for example. We are being told on daily basis that about one hundred and seventy factories have been built and operational. Meanwhile, the NDC also continues to tell listeners that not a single factory is built. In this era of information technology with several television stations scattered around the crannies of the country, what keeps your outfits from showcasing them for the people to see? You continue to ask people to Google, as if my ninety-year old stark illiterate mother knows what is meant by Google. You see, gone were the days when Dr. Nkrumah would instruct Krobo Edusei to go on Radio Ghana, the only radio station in those days, and tell the people that the CPP has built a bridge at where there was no river and the people believed in him.
Gentlemen, you are disappointing your party supporters and Ghanaians due to your lukewarm attitude towards informing the people for the people to know the truth about issues concerning government projects. Take the issue of ‘Double Track’ for example. It is an undeniable fact that many Senior High Schools have now abandoned the double track because projects have been built to accommodate the students. The sad aspect is that the NDC in the villages continue to tell the people that school blocks have not been built, hence the continuation of the double track even though there is no SHS located in their villages. What keeps you from liaising with the MMDCs and Regional Ministers to showcase such projects which have been built to solve the problem of double tracks? And these guys ride 4-wheel-drive cars with free fuel, free accommodation and others. And they are paid handsome salaries and allowances.
Dear Gentlemen, I don’t want to believe that you do not travel outside Accra where you live. If you do, you will realize that a number of good roads are being constructed across the length and breadth of Ghana. The year of roads is real but what we see on the screens of television stations are demonstrations of communities who complain of bad roads as if since independence, no government ever built roads. Can’t you showcase the numerous roads constructed and under construction on television stations for the people to see, and wait patiently for their share of the national cake? You see, the era of press conferences to explain these things have gone with the wind. That is why they say ‘seeing is believing’. Fortunately, in almost every village, many people own television sets since the national grid is connected almost everywhere.
Sirs, look at how the NDC advertized and showcased the Circle Interchange. In almost all the regional capitals, artist impression of the project was displayed on huge billboards with the picture of John Dramani Mahama. Serial callers on radio stations were always quick to refer listeners to the billboards even though they had never been to Accra before. That is why the NDC always say majority of their supporters are villagers. In my holy village, if you tell people that the NPP government has built more than seven interchanges, including the almighty Pokuase Interchange, they do not believe in you. To them, it was only John Dramani Mahama who built interchange in Accra. Here in my village, I know some Dagomba tenant farmers who for many years, have never travelled back home; so when you tell them that an interchange has been built at Tamale, they laugh at you. To them it is impossible because even J.J Rawlings, whom they supported all those years, could not build one there. I will one day invite Alhaji Gomda, a Dagomba royal of Daily Guide, to visit my holy village and convince them for me!
Sirs, I do not know where you were when Rawlings usurped power. He took many cadres of the revolution to Libya, Cuba, Bulgaria, Russia and other communist and socialist countries to learn the art of propaganda and naked lies. These cadres came back to join, the Peoples Defense Committees, Workers Defense Committees, Committee for the Defense of the Revolution among others. Ghanaians were fed with Communist propaganda tactics on daily basis and as a result, the poor people of Ghana were brainwashed, hoodwinked and became stooges even though things went from bad to worse in the country. Some of these cadres are alive today and their children and grand children are the ones who continue to disturb our minds with lies against the Nana Addo administration. The Akans say a crab does not beget a bird (okoto nwo anoma).
The antidote to this dangerous misinformation agenda is to adopt the toot-your-own-horn theory. You don’t wait for these people to lie through their teeth before going on air to correct the lies and set records straight. You take the battle to their doorsteps by quickly informing the people of what the government is doing. Waiting for them to lie their way out before setting the records straight is not a good strategy but politically suicidal. I am targeting two of you because together, the two of you can make a difference. The immediate past National Communication Director of the NPP, Lawyer Boabeng Asamoah, woefully failed because he stayed in Accra, organizing press conferences with ‘big’ English as if Accra is synonymous to Ghana. As for some of the Regional and Constituency Communication Directors, they can only be described as good for nothing. They just picked up the post for nothing.
Eric Bawah