Kennedy Agyapong
“Then the Lord reached out His hand, touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me: Behold, I have put my words in your mouth, you will speak for me.” – Jeremiah Chapter 1 Vrs 9
Of all the Prophets in the Holy Bible, the one who fascinates me a lot is Jeremiah, the weeping and reluctant Prophet who was chosen before his birth to be a Prophet among the nation of Judah. He was courageous and fearless and told the King and people of Judah what everybody feared to say. He stood at the market and open places to chastise the King and his sons for leading the people to idol worshiping at the peril of his life. He reminded them of how the Lord of Host brought them from the land of Egypt to the Promised Land and the warning given by the Lord to them to desist from idol worshiping.
Jeremiah did not have it easy. He was insulted, beaten and cast into deep pit to shut him up but the more he was castigated, the more he pronounced the words of the Lord. He will boldly go to the palace of the King to warn him of the impending doom if he and his sons refused to listen to him and repent. When the people of Judah refused to pay heed, they were conquered, captured and sent into slavery as prophesized by Jeremiah. Ironically, when the people of Judah were being taken away as slaves, Jeremiah was spared because the conquerors had heard of the prophesy of Jeremiah.
On the other hand, I always refer to Prophet Nathan as a fearful Prophet. God revealed to him about the abominable sin committed by King David when the King impregnated the wife of Uriah, a soldier in the army of King David. The king wickedly caused the poor soldier to be killed at the warfront in order to cover up his sin but the All-knowing God of Israel revealed the sin to Prophet Nathan. Instead of the Prophet ‘blowing the alarm’, he clandestinely went to King David in the night and told him what God revealed to him. In fact, Prophet Nathan feared that if he did tell the people before King David heard it, he, Nathan will be killed like the way Uriah was killed. That is why I call him a coward. You may say I am my irreverent self today but that is me, the irrepressible Earth Angel Gabriel, the senior messenger of God. Crucify me if you can!
I have religiously followed the exploits of Hon. Kennedy Agyapong, the MP for Assin Central since he entered the political arena some years ago. The man is modern day Jeremiah. He says it as it is even if the issue is about the political family he belongs to and to me that is good for our democracy. In politics we have the hawks and doves. Kennedy Agyapong can be likened to a hawk or Jeremiah. He doesn’t mince words. He may have his faults but so are all of us. If you take time to listen to the guy, you will come to realize that he has passion for the welfare of the poor. He has become a voice for the voiceless. You may differ from the way he presents his case but so is the world.
When Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful was attacked a few years ago at Odododiodoo by supporters of the NDC, Kennedy Agyapong was his typical self when he called on Akans to also attack Ewes and Gas. That was an unfortunate pronouncement but when ex-president Kufuor said the police who arrested Kennedy Agyapong was trying to kill a fly with a sledgehammer, Mr. Dramani Mahama insulted the elderly statesman by insolently telling him that the NDC will rather use a bulldozer than a sledgehammer. What is more insulting than what the younger Mahama said about the ex-president who could be his father?
What is trending today about Kennedy Agyapong is the statement he made that if he was the president of Ghana he would have ‘flogged the hell out of the Joy TV newsman” who reported what happened at Ejura during the commotion which led to the killing of two innocent souls and the wounding of others. In the first place, Kennedy Agyapong is not the president of Ghana and so what he said was wishful thinking which should not be taken seriously as the NDC wants the world to see it. What they are doing to the guy is just to give the dog a bad name and hung it. Simplisita!
The problem that Kennedy Agyapong has is that because he spent sometime in the US, he thinks what the Americans can say and get away with it is the same thing that you can say in Ghana and get away with it. We need to be abreast with time and accommodating because as we trudge on, we will surely be confronted with American slang expressions since many Ghanaians are now domiciled in the US with Green Cards. Their children will come back home and bombard us with American slangs. If we refuse to understand them, we will be spending all our time hauling them before elders for being rude. As I am writing this piece, I have a seven-year old grandson who was literally ‘posted’ to me from the US where his parents have sojourned. He will not complete a sentence without mentioning ’sh*t men!’, ‘Goddamn you!’ ‘bullsh*t!’, ‘what the hell!’, ‘damn you!’ ‘f**k you!’, ‘mother f**ker!’ among others. I am finding it very difficult to whip him into line but with time, he will adjust and speak like a Ghanaian.
If the American says ‘I will beat the hell out of you” he doesn’t mean he will literally beat you up. In fact, he simply wants to tell you that he will discipline you. Similarly, if the America says ‘to hell with you’ he doesn’t mean you belong to hell. Because of our training as journalists, some of us have tried to steer away from the American slangs because some people will not understand us and may take us to be insolent and disrespectful. I remember when the Ghana Black Star players had an opportunity to meet then president Agyekum Kufuor a few years ago, the captain of the team who spoke on their behalf referred to the president and his ministers present as ’you guys’, as if the president and his ministers were his co-equals. Heaven did not fall because we understood where he was coming from. ‘Flogging the hell out of a person’ should not be interpreted to mean killing the person or beating up the person. That is what people should understand. No wonder the Fantes say ‘brofo ye dur’ (English is heavy’)
You know what? Former President of America, J.F. Kennedy was the most famous cigar smoker in his time. He smoked cigar when he was a young man. He asked his Press Secretary to procure 1,000 Cuban cigars before he signed the embargo against Cuban tobacco products. And people complain when I order just a box of cigar which contains twenty four sticks from Cuba. Do I care? Excuse me whiles I pollute the air like the way the late Fidel Castro of Cuba did when he met the Queen of England. We piss everywhere, men!!!
By Eric Bawah