I hate liars. In fact, everybody hates liars. If you lie to me, you open your underbelly for me to attack you from all cylinders. If Initially I do believe what you tell me and it later turns out that what you told me was a lie, you lose the respect that I have for you because by lying to me, you want to tell me that I am a dunderhead. That is natural justice. Tit for tat, butter for bread. I don’t suffer liars so gladly. Mensah Thompson of ASEP has forced me to travel down memory lane today.
I used to like Baba Jamal, the former MP for Akwatia until he was caught on tape, coaching staff of the Information Services Department how to lie to Ghanaians. This was a young man who was steadily climbing the political ladder until he contracted verbal diarrhea and started acting as Head Coach of Liars Team. Many people seem to have forgotten what he told the ISD staff when he was a Deputy Minister so. Baba Jamal continues to shamelessly strut this land of our birth. Addressing the staff of the ISD, Baba Jamal told them that as government employees, it was their duty to lie to the people in order to make the Mill/Mahama-led administration popular. He said if the government bought a sheep, the ISD staff should tell Ghanaians that the government bought a big white cow. Ebei, Baba! And this man was an ’honorable’ Member of Parliament in God’s own country. We need to constantly remind Ghanaians of the lies told by people so that somebody else can learn a lesson from the experience. People must be made to understand that when you lie, society will spit you out and ditch you in history’s dustbin of discarded lies.
Ghana’s number one celebrated liar who poisoned the minds of Ghanaians when Mr. Kufuor was in power is Fifi Kwetey. It was Fifi Kwetey, the then NDC Propaganda Secretary who told the good people of this country that, then president Kufuor stole all the country’s gold reserves. If an educated person like Fifi Kwetey says this, you can imagine how far his statement will go to poison the minds of less endowed supporters of the NDC and Ghanaians for that matter. We were preparing for the general election when this guy made the infantile statement. Many people believed in him. But for the popularity of Mr. Kufuor, this unfortunate statement could have tilted the results of the Presidential Election. The guy knew pretty well that no Jupiter could steal the gold reserve from the secured volts of the Bank of Ghana but he deliberately flew that kite to win votes. Fifi Kwetey’s statement still lingers in my mind because what he said is some of the reason why they say politics is a dirty game. Today, this same man became a Parliamentarian, helping to make laws for Ghanaians and I wonder if he has any shame at all.
When the Nana Addo-led administration introduced the Zip Line to dispatch drugs by drones to remote areas to save lives, this woman too who should know better told Ghanaians to be wary of the technology because the drones will take pictures of nude women in their bathrooms since those who live in the villages don’t roof their bathrooms. And this is a woman who calls herself Dr. Hanna Bisiw. No wonder she lost her parliamentary seat. If a woman who should be a role model for up and coming girls stoops so low like this veterinary doctor did, you can imagine what she will do to your pet dog if you take it to her veterinary clinic for treatment. She will tell you the dog has contracted Corona Virus after diagnosing it and prescribe a nose mask for the dog. If my illiterate mother tells me drones sent to deliver medical supplies can take pictures of nude women along the way, I will forgive her but surely not a well-educated woman like Dr. Hanna Bisiw. She too has totally lost the respect that I used to have for her.
Enter Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, the Church of Pentecost Elder and former well known photographer and now the National Chairman of the NDC. When this man was caught on tape, telling supporters of the NDC to start burning markets, kidnap children and make the country ungovernable, he flatly denied. He said the tape was doctored as if those of us who listened to the tape are idiots. Because the case is before court I will spare Sammy Photo for now. But surely he will have his day with Angel Gabriel another time when the chickens come home to roost.
And now Mensah Thomson who said the children and grandchildren of the President were flown overseas to do Christmas shopping which turned out to be lies. This shameless person is still walking with chest out. I wonder if he is married and has children. People like this Thompson guy have no honour and they have no shame too. I wonder how his wife and children will feel when it turned out that their husband and father lied through his teeth to the whole nation. Where I come from, if an elderly person like Mensah Thompson lies, he brings disgrace and shame not to his family alone but the community that he lives in.
If I had his cell phone number, the first time I saw his picture, I would have called him and instruct him to go and look through the mirror and see how a foolish man looks like. The Akans say no matter how hungry you are, you don’t eat fufu with two hands. The man is visibly hungry so when his paymasters gave him something small, he started spewing rot from his unbridled mouth. Ofui! The Ghana Arm Forces has referred the matter to the IGP for further investigation and that is consoling enough. Dr. Dampare should as a matter of urgency delve into the matter. If found culpable, Mensah Thomson should be charged for court because what he said boarders on national security. Unless we begin doing such things, foolishness and imbecility will take roots in this country.
The four examples given above should be the reason why the NPP should wake up and take the bull by the horns. This is not the time for niceties. There is a job to be done. This is the time to release the pitcher within. In fact, this is the time to dilute the poison in the blood of the NDC. If you are dealing with liars, you need to be wide awake because if you delay in setting the records straight, they will use lies to change the minds of people. In the villages, people have swallowed everything that Thompson Mensah Thompson said, hook, line and sinker. I heard two women who were on their way to farm discussing this issue. Listen to one of them: “Akufo-Addo did not do well at all. How can he use our ‘alupre’ to fly his children and grandchildren to ‘abrokyire’ to shop when our children are suffering?” You see the harm that lies can do?
I had cause to write in this column that the NDC is winning the propaganda war because the NPP communicators are not doing a good job as far as informing the populace is concerned. Lies should be nipped in the bud. You wait for lies to filter down to the villages and small towns, you will find it difficult to set the records straight. In Ghana today, radio sets are in almost every home. Some listen to radio on their mobile phones even when they walk along the road to their farms so if you don’t set the records straight immediately, the man or woman in the villages who heard the lies on his or her radio set or mobile phone swallows everything and refuse to believe in any one with contrary views. Anyway, who appoints these NPP communicators? I pause for an answer while I puff away my Havana like Che Guevara did. Don’t cough. Just move away to safety if you don’t like the aroma. Any challenger?
By Eric Bawah