Hajia Fati
A few days after Nana Akufo-Addo was sworn in as the Executive President of Ghana, many people, including yours sincerely, trooped to his house at Nima to congratulate him.
On four occasions, I did not have the opportunity to see the gentleman but I kept on trying.  One day, when I visited the house I saw top- ranking members of the NPP, diplomats, chiefs and imminent citizens, all waiting outside to have the opportunity to enter his hall to congratulate the newly sworn-in President of Ghana.
As we were all waiting, this woman called Hajia Fati walked in, and without greeting anyone, she snubbed even the security guards on duty and went straight into the hall, where Nana was receiving some visitors. As to what happened inside the house, nobody knew because we were not in the hall.  She came out shouting, ranting and throwing her arms into the air, while using unprintable words on whoever might have made her angry.
We all thanked God, for the diplomats who were present did not understand the Ghanaian language she was speaking. It was then that I realized the NPP had brought a baby lioness in the house and now that the lioness has grown, she is ‘devouring’ everybody.
This woman started bullying party faithful at the National Headquarters of the NPP but nobody had the guts to call her to order or whip her into line.  What this half-baked politician doesn’t know is that while she was fooling around at the party’s Headquarters in Accra, we had supporters of the party in the trenches all in an effort to make sure the party came to power. In fact, some even lost their lives in the process. If she says she loves President Akufo-Addo more than anyone else, she must be told in her puffy face that the real lovers of Nana did lay their precious lives for him to become the President of Ghana.
What is most disturbing about this rude character is that while some of us spend time to explain government good policies to the populace so that the NDC propaganda cannot have any effect, she distracts the attention of Ghanaians through her buffoonery and uncouth behaviour.
Yes, it is true Mr. Sammy Crabbe has been indefinitely suspended by the party but should it take such an opportunist to bar him from picking nomination forms?  In anyway, does picking a nomination form qualify anyone to vie for whatever position he or she desires to contest? Is this woman aware that after presenting completed forms, aspirants go through a vetting process?
Now that she has turned her gun on journalists, the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) should let her smell pepper. Haul her to court and if the judge tells us that if you punch the mouth of a journalist you should go free, then she must go free.  But when there is punishment for her rude behavior, she should carry her own cross.
I want to appeal to the party hierarchy to distance themselves from her reprehensible behaviour in that she continues to put sand in our gari. There is much work to be done and the President and his vice have suddenly become workaholics, closing very late at night and making sure they honour every invitation.  The President has been junketing around the globe looking for investors while this woman sits at the party Headquarters misbehaving.
I learnt she has started begging for forgiveness.  Nobody should listen to her because she is not the type of person who will ever regret whatever she has done.  She has been fooling around for quite a long time and this should be used to silence her once and for all.  If the GJA accepts her apology, what is the guarantee that next time she will not hit the head of a journalist with a club?
Anyway, if there is anyone who should accept her apology, it is the lady she assaulted. She calls herself Iron Lady and so she should have the guts to face the full rigors of the law.  If a court of competent jurisdiction bonds her to be of good behaviour for five years, it will help the New Patriotic Party a lot.
The most annoying aspect of the uncouth behaviour of this woman is that a few days after the President had given assurance that he would make sure journalists do their work without any hindrance, she angrily punched a journalist who just took a picture of her.  And the irony is that the whole thing happened when we were celebrating the World Press Freedom Day in Ghana!
Anyway, what is her role at the party Headquarters?  The NDC, particularly, ex-President Mahama continues to accuse the media for not taking on the Akufo-led administration like they did to him. Now, are they saying the NPP Headquarters is a no-go area for journalists in Ghana because of the behaviour of Hajia Fati?
FATI’S CROCODILE TEARS
The other day, when I tuned in to my old and rusty black and white TV, I saw Hajia Fati standing in front of Mr. Sammy Awuku speaking to the press and apologizing to the media to forgive her.  After speaking for a while, she started shedding tears and I laughed. Anyway, why should Sammy Awuku, such a fine gentleman stand behind the bully, while she was speaking to the press?  Why did he not leave the puffy-faced woman to swim in her own folly?  Or is it because she is a member of the NPP?  What has her behaviour got to do with the party? If the lady who was battered fails to take this woman to court simply because she apologized to the media, it will stand to reason that she has received something in the form of compensation to let bygones be bygones.  And it will send a signal that if you beat a journalist in Ghana all that you need is to give such a journalist noko fio and get yourself off the hook.
And listen to the unreasonable defense that Hajia Fati gave when the media took her on.  She said she thought the journalist was an onion seller!  Are onion sellers not human beings? Can’t an onion seller be a freelance journalist?  And is it journalists alone who can take pictures?  Irrational defense!  If she had been watching news from Syria and other war-torn countries, she would have realized that many of the videos and pictures were taken by unprofessional bystanders.
All that the NPP as a political party can do is to punish the woman and bar her from going to the party Headquarters.  That will send a notice to any person who will go to the party Headquarters to fool around.
Occupy Ghana, the GJA and a cross section of the good people of Ghana have called for the prosecution of the woman and the state must act now.  If Multimedia decides to let the woman off the hook by asking their employee to succumb to pressure, that is their case but they will be setting a bad example because their workers will not be safe anytime they go out there to cover stories.
It was this same woman who smashed the windscreen of Mr. Kwabena Agyapong at the same party Headquarters and nobody did anything to her.  That might have given her the guts to punch the lady.  Why not?  If Kwabena Agyapong, a former aspirant to the NPP flagbearership and a former Chief Executive of the party could be treated this way by this woman, who is a journalist to her?.
The suspension of Paul Afoko, Kwabena Agyapong and Sammy Crabbe did not affect the fortunes of the party in the 2016 elections, so why should this woman continue to add insults to injury? The three gentlemen have not been dismissed from the party so there is the possibility that when the dust settles down they could be called back.  It is a matter of time because even grief recedes with time. I rest my case for now.
Churchill cigar is named after the famous British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who was a cigar connoisseur. Churchill is a serious cigar for serious smokers like me.  So here I go again with a stick of Churchill cigar!!!
By Eric Bawah