I don’t worship money because money is fake. I admire honesty, righteousness, integrity and dignity. I hate people who insult others because it is when you have no sensible thing to say that you resort to insults. You can get all the money to buy any dictionary and English text books in the world but that cannot make you a good English Language speaker. You can get all the money to buy all the versions of the Holy Bible or the Holy Koran but that won’t give you salvation or open the gates of heaven for you to enter. In fact, you can get all the money to buy all the medicines that give appetite but at a point in time you would find it difficult to swallow even a teaspoonful of Hausa koko.
In short, money is not everything. Those who chase money by lying and insulting through the social media will sooner than later realize that they have swallowed the tail of a crocodile and planted a dragon teeth at their backyard.
To become cultured, respectful and respectable, you learn from your infancy, that is when you have good parents who train and jealously guard you at home but not parents who can only feed you like the way poultry chickens are fed. All the qualities I admire as enumerated above are prizeless and they are not sold at the shops or supermarkets. They are earned.
I have taken my precious time to study how social media is used in other jurisdictions to teach, experiment, inform and above all to shape society, particularly, the younger generation who were born too late to understand how people were able to make it in life. Physician specialists have used the social media to teach us many things which have saved lives. That is the more reason why I don’t suffer fools who misuse the social media so gladly.
When I open my Youtube in my computer, I learn about wars that have been fought in this world and those being fought today and of course the effects of wars to humanity. I learn about conversional weapons and the dangers of Weapons of Mass Destruction because I always think of how a Third World War will look like. Even though I was a literature student, many, many years ago and read the History of Israel, I use the Youtube to polish my knowledge of the History of Israel. Through the Youtube and other programmes, I have learnt a lot about pandemics and vaccines that were developed to fight the pandemics.
If you ask me to write about Wuhan in China where the Corona Virus originated, you may think I am domiciled in Wuhan after reading the piece. I am a maize farmer, so I spend my time studying Army Worms, Fall Army Worms, fertilizers, weedicides, the climate change and other chemicals that will help me on my farm through studies on my computer. I believe knowledge is power so I do not waste my time listening and reading trash.
In recent times, we have some irresponsible and opportunistic half-baked politicians and half-baked journalists using the social media to play the buffoonery and also distract us. Take Captain Smart for example. This upstart is using the social media to distract our forward march towards nation building. He pretends to be speaking for the youth as if the problem of the youth in this country started only yesterday. His stock in trade is insults and he doesn’t look back to see who he is insulting. May be he was not brought up in a good home. He continues to take good citizens of this country who have made it in life through the hard way to the cleaners. He seems to be having the backing of some shameless and faceless power-seeking politicians but sadly he has not yet sat down to realize that time changes. He doesn’t think about his own future because he seems to think he will end up where he is today, riding in a V8 vehicle which only he knows how he managed to acquire the luxurious vehicle. The Akans say if a person who has never bought meat before gets money to buy liver, he will climb the rooftop and shout for someone to lend him an axe to cut the liver. Someone should tell this guy that even the Pope was an Altar boy before he became the Pope.
The future is for people like Captain Smart but he is gradually destroying his own future. What if Captain Smart becomes a Minister in Ghana in future? How will he feel when the youth insult him like the way he did to the Western Regional Minister and continue to do to others? He said the Western Regional Minister is acting like a politician from the Northern Regions. If that is so, then so be it but somebody should remind this reckless guy that his boss and financier, Mr. Dramani Mahama and the Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Alban Bagdin are top politicians from the Northern Regions. You now see how people who suffer from signs and symptoms of infantile disorders talk? This guy needs to go to the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital for a checkup.
I once wrote to admonish Captain Smart to do his job devoid of insults but it seems he has vowed to swim against the tide, damn the consequences. He doesn’t know by swimming against the tide, he will break a rib one day. But if that is what he insists doing, he should better go for a crush helmet from this day onwards. If he thinks some of us cannot bite, he should look at our teeth. Some of us can insult more than he is doing but our family and society have tamed us. In fact, we are not as raw as Captain Smart. And above all, we are cosmopolitan and have enough visibility, respect and recognition in relevant quarters. My friend, don’t bring yourself ooo!
When ex-president John Agyekum Kufuor introduced the Peoples’ Assembly concept, he visited all the regions and asked people to ask him whatever question that was baffling their minds as far as his administration was concerned. When it came to the turn of Greater Accra, Okudjato Ablakwa, then an unemployed graduate roaming the streets of Accra took his turn to ask the President his question. The boy looked into the face of the old man and spoke rubbish which I need not mention here. As he was about to leave after spiting fire, President Kufuor called him back and admonished him to mind the way he talks to elderly persons because one day, he, Ablakwa too will grow up and take responsible position in this country. Okudjato Ablakwa shamefully walked away with his head bent down like a prodigal son. Today, Mr. Okudjato Ablakwa is an Honorable Member of Parliament and even once held a Deputy Ministerial position. You see how the world goes around and comes around? Is Captain Smart reading this Okudjato story? He will not because he is Mr. Know-Everything.
As for the like of Twene Jonas, Kelvin Taylor and their cohorts who have invaded the social media space with their stupidity, I have no space to deal with them in this powerful column because I consider them to be half-wits, nit-wits and nonentities. In fact, they don’t matter and don’t deserve my attention at all and I will not glorify them by commenting on their wayward and insulting behaviour. They belong to the ghettoes where respect to elders is a sin.
There seems to be a contending doom in the social media in Ghana. Daughters of Eve who are now parading as Mercenaries of Eros and who have modernized their names as Slay Queens are also out there disgracing themselves in the social media space. All what these libidinous lasses use the social media to do is to seek carnal communication for financial consideration by twerking their waists like the way pigs mate. They are not ashamed of telling society the number of men they have slept with and they are proud to expose their nudity. They have thrown respect to the hyenas. In fact, they are not ashamed of the way they degrade womanhood and they make the near exposure of their private parts as part of the culture of Ghanaians. Ashawo baby!!!
The sad aspect of the behavior of these deviants is that they belong to churches and pay their so-called tithe to their pastors who are equally immoral and charlatans in the first place. The Lord has kept long coming to judge us. Maranatha!!!
When former President Bill Clinton of the US asked Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern to ‘get me my stogie’, he meant the lady should get him his cigar. “Stogie” is one of the nicknames of cigar. Gentlemen use that to confuse their guests who are not connoisseurs of cigar. So here I go with my favorite stogie called Regius Double Corona. This brand is good when the rains are falling. Wanna try one? See my Editor.
By Eric Bawah