The symbolism of the defiant great-granddaughter of the Ashanti heroine and Amazon queen, Nana Yaa Asentewaa of Ejisu, who is an Ejisu-Juaben constituency executive of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in the face of the great odds ranged against her and her party, as NDC supporters were being systematically brutalized in the Ashanti Region during the run-off of the presidential election on 28th December 2008, was not lost on the many patriots and ultra-nationalists in Ghana who heard her on their radio station of choice, Radio Gold FM, on the day of the presidential run-off.
Many applauded her defiant stand against the tyranny of the unholy alliance of the tiny cabal of tribal-supremacist politicians who have dominated the New Patriotic Party (NPP) throughout its tenure and certain tribal-supremacist traditional rulers in the Ashanti Region – who sought to use intimidation and downright illegality to prevent the supporters of the NDC from exercising their franchise in her constituency, the Ejisu-Juaben constituency (as well as many other constituencies across that region).
Her heroism in the face of great personal danger must be an example to the NDC leadership, going forward: as they seek to deal with the fraud being perpetrated by the NPP – who clearly have pressurized that decent and honest gentleman, Dr Afari Djan, the chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), to somehow secure the connivance of the E.C. in denying Professor Mills what rightly is his: the presidency of Ghana.
The sense of outrage Nana Yaa Asentewaa's great-granddaughter exhibited as she complained bitterly on Radio Gold FM about the criminality being engaged in by her political opponents, who were brutalizing NDC members, to prevent her party’s supporters from taking part in the run-off of the presidential election on 28th December 2008, epitomizes the sense of fair play that is an inherent part of the character of ordinary Asantes: many of whom were appalled by the monstrous and abominable actions of the NPP activists throughout the Ashanti Region.
Many such Asantes, who live in areas in the country where they can hear Radio Gold FM, are also appalled by the revelations of the existence of a conspiracy to steal the election by certain faceless individuals in the highest reaches of the NPP that the latest airing of a tape recording of yet another Maxwell Kofi Jumah telephone conversation (that so clearly exposes the existence of a conspiracy to subvert the sovereign will of a majority of ordinary Ghanaians), which the ever-brilliant Raymond Archer played on the “Election Forensics” programme on Radio Gold FM, in the early hours of 31st December, 2008.
Whiles most ordinary Asantes have an inherent sense of fair play, sadly, it is a character trait that is often lacking in the mostly-corrupt and amoral progeny, of the traditional Asante pre-colonial feudal ruling elites. Consequently, it is important that those of them, who are part of this criminal conspiracy, are held to account for their attempt to subvert the sovereign will of Ghanaians.
Never again must we allow a repetition of the disgraceful manner in which some traditional rulers in the Ashanti Region, sought to prevent ordinary Ghanaians living in areas where they happen to be Chiefs of, from voting – simply because those Ghanaians they so actively sought to disenfranchise, were perceived by them and their NPP co-conspirators to be supporters of the NDC.
It is important for the future of Ghanaian democracy that far-reaching steps are taken by the next NDC regime to ensure that no traditional ruler anywhere in the Republic of Ghana, is ever allowed to intimidate any group of Ghanaians seeking to exercise their constitutional right to vote in an election to select their rulers, in any part of our country – without those Chiefs being prosecuted and jailed for lengthy periods for such criminal action.
Where in the world, but a nation like Ghana (that is full of such moral cowards), will the pure-nonsense-on-bamboo-stilts-compromise now being proposed by the Electoral Commission (EC), and designed specifically by the devious criminal-minds who dominate the NPP, to enable a sitting regime dominated by a few powerful tribal-supremacist rogues of the ilk of Maxwell Kofi Jumah, ditto Kwabena Adjapong and their co-conspirators be acceptable?
Why, is it not clear to the NDC that the few powerful ttribal-supremacist crooks who dominate NPP, did devise a dastardly plan to rig the election – because they felt that ordinary Ghanaians had no business wanting to vote their current leaders out of power?
What the Maxwell Kofi Jumah tapes reveal is a grand conspiracy by the NPP to rob Professor Mills of victory in the run-off of presidential election – and the NDC must not make the mistake of thinking that he and Kwabena Adjapong were a pair of power-drunk loose-cannons operating on their own as a couple of lone-rangers secretly teaming up to subvert Ghanaian democracy.
Did they not hear what Maxwell Kofi Jumah said about the ‘victory’ of Sheik I.C. Quaye? Did they not hear who it was that called him to warn him that the chap he was speaking to was the one who had betrayed them and let the proverbial cat out of the bag through the airwaves of Radio Gold FM?
The NDC must simply go ahead and do the right thing under the circumstances for the good people of Ghana – by refusing to take part in this sleight of hand designed as a legal cloak of respectability to enable the NPP snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with the seal of approval of the EC to enable those stooges for neocolonialism to continue being in power to serve the interests of their overseas masters at Ghana’s expense.
It will amount to a betrayal of our nation if the NDC were to allow this outrage to go on. Did the NPP vote-rigging machine not literally steal the election in the Ashanti Region by hundreds of thousands of votes – as voters there were allowed to vote so many times and in different polling stations too? Why should such fraudulently obtained votes decide the fate of our country – and leave it in the hands of such a criminal gang of the most dishonest politicians Ghana has ever elected into office?
The NDC must simply declare Professor Mills as Ghana’s president-elect – and put an immediate halt to this rolling coup d’état by the NPP. If the NDC accepts that outrage proposed by Dr. Afari Djan, it will be tantamount to appeasing the dishonorable, amoral crooks and armed robbers amongst those now ruling our country and allow them to perpetrate a gigantic fraud against Ghanaians.
The question patriotic Ghanaians and ultra-nationalists ought to ask, is: can the NDC deploy enough people with video recorders or mobile phones with cameras in all the polling stations in the Tien constituency to record and film the entire process? Can they get all their newly- elected parliamentarians to police every polling station in Tien as observers and to provide those vulnerable local polling assistants with the moral support they so desperately need – so vital in preventing intimidation and fraud at that crucial grassroots level in the electoral process?
Above all, can they ensure that all the security agencies will be neutral – and enforce the law at the polling station level in a manner that will ensure that all registered voters in Tien can cast their ballot? There are many who will say that it is only if they can answer yes to all those questions that must agree to this latest NPP trick.
Why aid and abet the powerful crooks amongst those now in power who have been brutally gang-raping mother Ghana for eight solid years without let – in a crazed-frenzy fuelled by an addiction to cocaine money and driven by the unfathomable greed that drives them to constantly dream of sending their personal net worth into the stratosphere: at our country’s expense through a cornucopia of kickbacks?
The NDC must look at the experience of other nations such as The Philippines in such situations - where people-power stopped ruthless ruling elites from denying ordinary people the right to have their voices heard. Let them declare Professor Atta Mills Ghana’s president-elect: and show Maxwell Kofi Jumah and Co. that they Ghanaians are not a dimwitted and feeble lot – and they must do so now!
Did they not see how the presence of their supporters who milled around the head office building of the EC made such a huge difference to the outcome of the declaration by Dr. Afari Djan – who was clever enough to keep his international reputation by telling the truth about Professor Mills’ victory: but was also somehow prevailed upon by the crooks amongst those now ruling our country to go along with the treasonable ruse designed by the NPP as a compromise to favour those too-clever-by-half rogues, too: thus getting the best of both worlds?
Let them take a leaf from the book of that brave and defiant Amazon queen, their party’s rep in the Ejisu-Juaben constituency in the Ashanti Region, who is a great granddaughter of Nana Yaa Asentewaa of Ejisu – and refuse to be intimidated by such a despicable lot.
Why aid and abet the few powerful tribal-supremacist crooks in the NPP to stage what effectively amounts to a coup d’état against ordinary Ghanaians, by stealth? Nana Frema Busia’s revelations tie in perfectly with the recruitment of those myrmidon-types whom Maxwell Kofi Jumah was caught on tape issuing instructions to, to subvert the sovereign will of ordinary Ghanaians – and whom, incredibly, they had even armed and issued with police and military uniforms to boot. Is that not evidence enough to show the rest of the world as evidence of their treasonable collective-goal of robbing Professor Mills of victory?
Let the NDC declare Professor Mills as Ghana’s president-elect, and also take their case to the court of international public opinion through press releases to overseas media outlets pronto – for, those incompetents fear nothing more than international opprobrium (lest the “gongs” those confounded house-niggers and stooges for neo-colonialism so love getting from their Western lords and masters quickly dry up!).
Hmmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom1 Long live Ghana!
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Saturday, 27 December 2008
Revelations Of The Treasonable Anti-Democratic Utterances And Election-Rigging Activities Of Maxwell Kofi Jumah & Co
It was riveting listening to the astonishing recorded conversations
between Mr. Maxwell Kofi Jumah and some of the myrmidon-types he has
been using to help his party hang on to power at all costs, which Radio
Gold FM broadcast in the early hours of the morning of Saturday 27th
December, 2008.
The tapes formed the main topic of conversation on “Election Forensics” – the radio programme hosted by the brilliant Raymond Archer and produced by that intrepid news-hound Roland Acquah-Stevens. Ghanaian democracy owes Radio Gold FM a huge debt of gratitude for putting the outrageous election-rigging activities of Maxwell Kofi Jumah into the public domain.
No one who listens to those tapes will fail to be offended by the utter contempt for ordinary Ghanaians and the unprincipled manipulation of our institutions of state, displayed and engaged in, by the current Establishment, which the Maxwell Kofi Jumah tapes illustrate so perfectly.
Personally, they remind one of similar conversations by some of Mr. Maxwell Kofi Jumah’s political forebears (who also had a similar contempt for ordinary people and for democracy), which one overheard at home as a precocious 13 year-old boy – who had a keen interest in current affairs: even at that age during the immediate post-Nkrumah years.
My loathing for politicians of Mr. Kofi Jumah’s ilk stems directly from that period of my life: when I often overhead after-dinner conversations, telephone conversations and read secret cabinet files of that era. The shocking tribal-supremacist utterances of some of the figures of history from that particular period of our history, whom one encountered at our home from time to time, were a huge disappointment to even a small boy that young then.
Clearly, the minority of powerful tribal-supremacists who have hijacked and dominated the New Patriotic Party (NPP) since the party came to power in January 2001, are determined to hang on to power at all costs – regardless of what the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential run-off is.
The question is: Who in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is going to accept an outcome that gives victory in such circumstances to the candidate of Maxwell Kofi Jumah and his party – in the light of his monstrous utterances and shameful activities?
It is just so interesting how Maxwell Kofi Jumah was quick to label the man who went to Radio Gold FM with such solid evidence of his treasonable and criminal activities, as a candidate for the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital – just as Nana Frema Busia was also labeled a ‘lunatic’ by the powerful and amoral crooks in the presidency: whose criminal and anti-democratic activities she too was brave and patriotic enough to risk her life by revealing.
How right Nana Frema Busia was - truth and decency indeed appear to have literally disappeared from our public life. Ghana has fallen into the hands of a ruthless Mafia whose unfathomable greed for money apparently knows no end – at precisely the point when there has never been such large numbers of moral coward in our society.
The question decent-minded Ghanaians ought to ask themselves is: Is it true after all, as the NDC has constantly been insisting all these years, that there is selective justice in Ghana under the NPP, because there are some members of the judiciary, who are willing to do the bidding of the executive – and give judgments that the executive so desires: as outcomes of cases they have an interest in, in the law courts?
How can even the top hierarchy of the police condone such criminal activities engaged in by some of those who rule our country – a nation whose hypocritical leaders never cease trumpeting to the world that the rule of law exists in Ghana?
Just what makes Maxwell Kofi Jumah (and his ilk!) think that he has a right to rule our country till he drops dead and is given a state burial (he, the master criminal and anti-democrat?), regardless of whether a majority of Ghanaians vote against them or not?
Is it not obvious to all that the December 7th, 2008 elections were rigged on a massive scale to deny Professor Atta Mills the presidency? Why should any one believe that the 28th December, 2008 election will also not be rigged – judging by the scandalous goings-on that the Maxwell Kofi Jumah tapes reveal?
Well, let them try and deny Ghanaians the change we all want – and see if they can rule this country under such circumstances. They will quickly realise that the former president is not the only brave soul in our homeland Ghana. Can the criminals amongst the hierarchy of the security agencies kill all of us on their behalf – just so that they can hang on to power and complete their personal wealth-creation agendas: at mother Ghana’s expense?
In his particular case, is one of the many irons in their fire-of-greed (the many ongoing projects he mentioned as being the reason why they cannot leave office under any circumstances!), his facilitating the lucrative business of the importation of waste from Canada – with a waste-to-energy plant as a perfect cover for that outrage and environmental danger of such apocalyptic proportions?
Why, do these despicable individuals think that God is sleeping? No wonder as early as 1958, just a year after our independence, they plotted to stage a military coup – although Ghana was a constitutional multi-party democracy with a vociferous, irresponsible and tribalistic opposition made up of their political forebears.
Seeing the ruthless shenanigans of Maxwell Kofi Jumah today, is it any wonder that his political forebears never hesitated in resorting to violence and terrorized Ghanaians by throwing bombs into crowds as they attempted to overthrow and kill Nkrumah – something they finally succeeded in doing in 1966 when the CIA paid their fellow-conspirators in the military and the police US$ 13 millions to overthrow Nkrumah: with more to follow if they succeeded in murdering him too?
Sod Maxwell Kofi Jumah – and sod his confounded Antowa Nyame: and the miasma that that superstitious nonsense-on-bamboo-stilts said to reside in a river in some village that is a throwback to our feudal past, and which that superstition-ridden world-view of a dreadful era of poverty-stricken serfs ruled by the selfish, greedy and ruthless benefactors of inherited privilege, represents!
Hmmm, Ghana – entiyeawiye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
The tapes formed the main topic of conversation on “Election Forensics” – the radio programme hosted by the brilliant Raymond Archer and produced by that intrepid news-hound Roland Acquah-Stevens. Ghanaian democracy owes Radio Gold FM a huge debt of gratitude for putting the outrageous election-rigging activities of Maxwell Kofi Jumah into the public domain.
No one who listens to those tapes will fail to be offended by the utter contempt for ordinary Ghanaians and the unprincipled manipulation of our institutions of state, displayed and engaged in, by the current Establishment, which the Maxwell Kofi Jumah tapes illustrate so perfectly.
Personally, they remind one of similar conversations by some of Mr. Maxwell Kofi Jumah’s political forebears (who also had a similar contempt for ordinary people and for democracy), which one overheard at home as a precocious 13 year-old boy – who had a keen interest in current affairs: even at that age during the immediate post-Nkrumah years.
My loathing for politicians of Mr. Kofi Jumah’s ilk stems directly from that period of my life: when I often overhead after-dinner conversations, telephone conversations and read secret cabinet files of that era. The shocking tribal-supremacist utterances of some of the figures of history from that particular period of our history, whom one encountered at our home from time to time, were a huge disappointment to even a small boy that young then.
Clearly, the minority of powerful tribal-supremacists who have hijacked and dominated the New Patriotic Party (NPP) since the party came to power in January 2001, are determined to hang on to power at all costs – regardless of what the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential run-off is.
The question is: Who in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is going to accept an outcome that gives victory in such circumstances to the candidate of Maxwell Kofi Jumah and his party – in the light of his monstrous utterances and shameful activities?
It is just so interesting how Maxwell Kofi Jumah was quick to label the man who went to Radio Gold FM with such solid evidence of his treasonable and criminal activities, as a candidate for the Pantang Psychiatric Hospital – just as Nana Frema Busia was also labeled a ‘lunatic’ by the powerful and amoral crooks in the presidency: whose criminal and anti-democratic activities she too was brave and patriotic enough to risk her life by revealing.
How right Nana Frema Busia was - truth and decency indeed appear to have literally disappeared from our public life. Ghana has fallen into the hands of a ruthless Mafia whose unfathomable greed for money apparently knows no end – at precisely the point when there has never been such large numbers of moral coward in our society.
The question decent-minded Ghanaians ought to ask themselves is: Is it true after all, as the NDC has constantly been insisting all these years, that there is selective justice in Ghana under the NPP, because there are some members of the judiciary, who are willing to do the bidding of the executive – and give judgments that the executive so desires: as outcomes of cases they have an interest in, in the law courts?
How can even the top hierarchy of the police condone such criminal activities engaged in by some of those who rule our country – a nation whose hypocritical leaders never cease trumpeting to the world that the rule of law exists in Ghana?
Just what makes Maxwell Kofi Jumah (and his ilk!) think that he has a right to rule our country till he drops dead and is given a state burial (he, the master criminal and anti-democrat?), regardless of whether a majority of Ghanaians vote against them or not?
Is it not obvious to all that the December 7th, 2008 elections were rigged on a massive scale to deny Professor Atta Mills the presidency? Why should any one believe that the 28th December, 2008 election will also not be rigged – judging by the scandalous goings-on that the Maxwell Kofi Jumah tapes reveal?
Well, let them try and deny Ghanaians the change we all want – and see if they can rule this country under such circumstances. They will quickly realise that the former president is not the only brave soul in our homeland Ghana. Can the criminals amongst the hierarchy of the security agencies kill all of us on their behalf – just so that they can hang on to power and complete their personal wealth-creation agendas: at mother Ghana’s expense?
In his particular case, is one of the many irons in their fire-of-greed (the many ongoing projects he mentioned as being the reason why they cannot leave office under any circumstances!), his facilitating the lucrative business of the importation of waste from Canada – with a waste-to-energy plant as a perfect cover for that outrage and environmental danger of such apocalyptic proportions?
Why, do these despicable individuals think that God is sleeping? No wonder as early as 1958, just a year after our independence, they plotted to stage a military coup – although Ghana was a constitutional multi-party democracy with a vociferous, irresponsible and tribalistic opposition made up of their political forebears.
Seeing the ruthless shenanigans of Maxwell Kofi Jumah today, is it any wonder that his political forebears never hesitated in resorting to violence and terrorized Ghanaians by throwing bombs into crowds as they attempted to overthrow and kill Nkrumah – something they finally succeeded in doing in 1966 when the CIA paid their fellow-conspirators in the military and the police US$ 13 millions to overthrow Nkrumah: with more to follow if they succeeded in murdering him too?
Sod Maxwell Kofi Jumah – and sod his confounded Antowa Nyame: and the miasma that that superstitious nonsense-on-bamboo-stilts said to reside in a river in some village that is a throwback to our feudal past, and which that superstition-ridden world-view of a dreadful era of poverty-stricken serfs ruled by the selfish, greedy and ruthless benefactors of inherited privilege, represents!
Hmmm, Ghana – entiyeawiye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Friday, 26 December 2008
WHY PROFESSOR MILLS’ POINTING OUT THE NUMBER OF PARLIAMENTARY SEATS NDC HAS IS TRULY SIGNIFICANT!
Ghanaweb.com fuor enyinaa, memamu Afiyhia paa oo! Massa, with respect, I think the significant of what Professor Milllet says escapes you entirely - sadly. May I humbly suggest that we all wait for the good people of Ghana (as opposed to the "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidon-types, who are too thick to think for themselves and too blind to see what is going on in our country, at any given point in time!), to speak finally on the 28th of December, 2008?
In the meantime, let me humbly point it out to you that in a sense, change has already occurred in Ghanaian politics. Since we are not operating a (Westminster-type!) parliamentary system of government, the political party with the largest number of seats in parliament, as opposed to a number of parties in parliament coming together to make up a majority that is a “coalition-of-convenience” (as some day-dreamers in Ghana apparently think!), will occupy the majority side in the next parliament.
This is yet another giant stride in our effort to make democracy a way of life in our nation – as opposed to a mere system with a set of moribund institutions manipulated by an unprincipled elite for their group interest at society’s expense. For, going forward, we will now see the notion of (a clear!) separation of powers working to protect the national interest in the next parliament: whoever becomes the next president of our nation – because such a tightly-configured parliament will definitely exercise its oversight responsibilities in the national interest.
This will mean that outrageous laws, such as the one that was railroaded through parliament recently to further the personal interests of the few powerful tribal-supremacist crooks in the presidency (who have had such an iron grip on the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the eight years of that party’s tenure in government unfortunately!), to sanction a sale and purchase agreement for a non-existent consortium of metal companies grandly christened “International Aluminum Partners” will never be allowed by parliament to be steamrolled through it by an amoral executive arm of government: determined to further the personal wealth-creation agenda of a powerful few with greedy ambitions (to paraphrase the great Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of blessed memory!).
Massa, it will also be difficult for yet another crop of similar politicians holding office after 7th January 2009, and with the same mindset as that of the crooks in the presidency today (those selfsame amoral and ruthless monsters that railroaded that fraudulent sale and purchase agreement for VALCO through parliament!) to pass a law clearly at variance with the constitutional edict that commands all Ghanaians to fight corruption, not further it, that seeks to protect powerful and greedy crooks in the executive branch of government, by indemnifying those who put together privatization deals – such as that which was recently passed to indemnify those who put together that shabby deal for the sale of a 70 per cent stake in Ghana Telecom to Vodafone.
Massa, such a development will be a huge step in the fight against corruption in our homeland Ghana – so in that sense change has already occurred. That is why Professor Mills pointing out the fact that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has a majority of seats in the next parliament is truly significant. One hopes that that significance is not lost on a genius like your good self, Sir? Massa, mema wu Afeyhia paa.
Hmmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Sunday, 21 December 2008
VODAFONE: IN WEB 2.0 AGE MAKE SURE SOME OF YOUR GHANAIAN STAFF DON’T RUIN YOUR WORLDWIDE REPUTATION!
I do not know who Vodafone has appointed to run its Ghanaian operation. Whoever the person is had better ensure that the old corporate culture of impunity amongst GT’s staff does not continue.
My own recent tribulations when I tried desperately hard to have my broadband internet service, for which I had pre-paid, restored, has made me wonder if there have been any real changes at Ghana Telecom – and if we will not witness a repeat of the Telenor fiasco, yet again: when foreign carpetbaggers are handed over a valuable Ghanaian asset to milk dry for their own benefit at our country’s expense. Has Vodafone even paid for its 70 per cent stake in full one wonders?
My broadband internet access was halted unexpectedly recently – and without any warning whatsoever: apart from being told in passing by a gentleman who brought me a spanking new “smart-phone” (and was more interested in my giving out my new telephone number to as many of my friends as possible – no doubt so that his masters could listen in on my conversations!) that someone would come and change the antenna as they were upgrading the system and were phasing out the old Alvarion system.
After over a week of getting nowhere whenever I have asked for a time-frame within which the service would be restored; as well as countless fruitless appeals to some of GT’s Care 4U customer service centre supervisors I spoke to by telephone, to be reconnected that all fell on deaf ears; being tossed from one GT Care 4 U centre to another for a USB port cable and always leaving empty-handed; and being given one empty promise after another to have my service finally restored, I have now reached the end of my tether.
I am currently asking for quotations from a number of more reliable broadband internet service providers – so that I am never held to ransom by such dissimulating incompetents ever again.
To cap it all, I strongly suspect that some of the powerful crooks in the current regime whom I criticise online regularly in the blogosphere, are using Ghana’s secret services to mount surveillance on my electronic pathways to the world – with an assist from GT.
Incidentally, I am also aghast that Vodafone’s Ghanaian employees have refused to reveal the location of the computer used by the person behind the infamous ‘hit-list’ currently circulating in Ghana – of a number of persons allegedly marked for elimination. Apparently, the fellow who originally sent the email containing the list of names did so at about 3am from a computer at an internet café that apparently uses GT as its ISP.
Surely, Vodafone would have quickly revealed the exact place that email was sent from to the security agencies as well as to the media, if such a monstrosity had occurred in the UK – so why aren’t they doing so in Ghana too: when fighting terrorism is supposed to be a global effort by all the world’s democracies, big and small?
Perhaps Radio Gold FM’s intrepid reporter, Roland Acquah Stevens, should simply get his radio station’s internet radio associate in the UK to contact the media in the UK directly and tell them of the curious refusal of Vodafone/GT to provide the information they are seeking about the ID of the lunatic who is seeking to cause panic in Ghana by spreading falsehood designed to spread fear nationwide – clearly in furtherance of the propaganda objective of stopping Ghanaians from voting for the candidate of the National Democratic Congress in the run-off of the presidential election on 28th December 2008.
But I digress – back to my own GT tribulations of late. It is essential that Vodafone clearly understands that if at any given point in time, GT has to cooperate with the security agencies to mount surveillance on some of its customers, it must ensure that the same standards that govern its relations with the security services in the UK in such circumstances, apply here too – as it is possible that some of its customers here are UK citizens who also happen to be Ghanaian citizens.
Criticizing the government isn’t criminal under our constitution. Consequently, Vodafone must protect itself from being sued in future by those who criticize the government of the day – for patriotic reasons and are bugged for that reason by the security agencies: possibly with the active collaboration of some of GT’s staff.
In the web 2.0 age, when at the click of a computer mouse, the transgressions of multi-national corporations, even in some of the remotest locations in the developing world, can be brought to the attention of the public in their home countries, it just doesn’t make sense for Vodafone to allow itself to be dragged into the abuse of the human rights of dissident Ghanaians by our security services – who for some extraordinary reason seem to regard critics of the current regime as enemies of the Ghanaian nation-state.
Any patriotic Ghanaian has a right to question the Vodafone takeover of GT – and to demand that members of government answer specific questions raised by them on the subject.
I am becoming increasingly irritated by the fact that having pre-paid for a broadband internet service, my ISP, GT, seems suddenly unable to deliver that service to me, every time I criticise the incompetents who have brought our country to a dead end – and who seem to think that asset-stripping the enterprise Ghana and handing over prized national assets to foreigners (whose own capitalist governments back home are busy pumping taxpayers’ money into private businesses in partial-nationalizations in order to save their national economies, even as we speak!) is the way to develop our country.
Perhaps it is mere coincidence, but I am sure that the tabloid press in the UK would be delighted to hear about the overseas activities of a major British telecoms company, which is actively colluding with the secret services of a corrupt African nation to abuse the human rights of local people who criticise a dodgy privatization of the state-owned telecoms company – and for which the crooks amongst those running the country even had to railroad a bill through parliament to indemnify all those involved in the deal, from future criminal prosecution!
It is important that Vodafone understands clearly that all its customers in Ghana, including myself, have a constitutionally guaranteed right to speak their minds freely without being persecuted – just as the crooks amongst those who run Ghana today, too, have a right to sue people like me for libel if they think I have libeled them. Period.
I demand that Vodafone compensates me for all those endless hours (in total, i.e.!) that I have been denied broadband internet access for which I had paid through the nose in advance - just for exercising my constitutional right to also enjoy the freedom of expression that all the citizens of Ghana have a right to enjoy in our supposedly democratic nation.
Above all, Vodafone must be mindful of the fact that it is a multinational that is a major player in markets in the West in which public opinion cares about what the companies whose services citizens purchase get up to in distant lands – particularly when it involves the collaboration of those multinationals with the secret services of corrupt African nations: in the abuse of the human rights of the citizenry by local despots.
Should this nonsense on bamboo stilts continue, I will not hesitate to sue Vodafone in the UK as well as in Brussels under EU human rights legislation – as well as use my contacts amongst fellow media professionals in the UK to bring this outrage to the attention of Vodafone’s customers in Britain.
There have simply been far too many ‘coincidences’ of my posting critical articles about the GT takeover deal online and my being denied my pre-paid broadband internet access by GT – and I have simply had enough. A word to the wise…
Hmmm, Ghana – entiye awiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
My own recent tribulations when I tried desperately hard to have my broadband internet service, for which I had pre-paid, restored, has made me wonder if there have been any real changes at Ghana Telecom – and if we will not witness a repeat of the Telenor fiasco, yet again: when foreign carpetbaggers are handed over a valuable Ghanaian asset to milk dry for their own benefit at our country’s expense. Has Vodafone even paid for its 70 per cent stake in full one wonders?
My broadband internet access was halted unexpectedly recently – and without any warning whatsoever: apart from being told in passing by a gentleman who brought me a spanking new “smart-phone” (and was more interested in my giving out my new telephone number to as many of my friends as possible – no doubt so that his masters could listen in on my conversations!) that someone would come and change the antenna as they were upgrading the system and were phasing out the old Alvarion system.
After over a week of getting nowhere whenever I have asked for a time-frame within which the service would be restored; as well as countless fruitless appeals to some of GT’s Care 4U customer service centre supervisors I spoke to by telephone, to be reconnected that all fell on deaf ears; being tossed from one GT Care 4 U centre to another for a USB port cable and always leaving empty-handed; and being given one empty promise after another to have my service finally restored, I have now reached the end of my tether.
I am currently asking for quotations from a number of more reliable broadband internet service providers – so that I am never held to ransom by such dissimulating incompetents ever again.
To cap it all, I strongly suspect that some of the powerful crooks in the current regime whom I criticise online regularly in the blogosphere, are using Ghana’s secret services to mount surveillance on my electronic pathways to the world – with an assist from GT.
Incidentally, I am also aghast that Vodafone’s Ghanaian employees have refused to reveal the location of the computer used by the person behind the infamous ‘hit-list’ currently circulating in Ghana – of a number of persons allegedly marked for elimination. Apparently, the fellow who originally sent the email containing the list of names did so at about 3am from a computer at an internet café that apparently uses GT as its ISP.
Surely, Vodafone would have quickly revealed the exact place that email was sent from to the security agencies as well as to the media, if such a monstrosity had occurred in the UK – so why aren’t they doing so in Ghana too: when fighting terrorism is supposed to be a global effort by all the world’s democracies, big and small?
Perhaps Radio Gold FM’s intrepid reporter, Roland Acquah Stevens, should simply get his radio station’s internet radio associate in the UK to contact the media in the UK directly and tell them of the curious refusal of Vodafone/GT to provide the information they are seeking about the ID of the lunatic who is seeking to cause panic in Ghana by spreading falsehood designed to spread fear nationwide – clearly in furtherance of the propaganda objective of stopping Ghanaians from voting for the candidate of the National Democratic Congress in the run-off of the presidential election on 28th December 2008.
But I digress – back to my own GT tribulations of late. It is essential that Vodafone clearly understands that if at any given point in time, GT has to cooperate with the security agencies to mount surveillance on some of its customers, it must ensure that the same standards that govern its relations with the security services in the UK in such circumstances, apply here too – as it is possible that some of its customers here are UK citizens who also happen to be Ghanaian citizens.
Criticizing the government isn’t criminal under our constitution. Consequently, Vodafone must protect itself from being sued in future by those who criticize the government of the day – for patriotic reasons and are bugged for that reason by the security agencies: possibly with the active collaboration of some of GT’s staff.
In the web 2.0 age, when at the click of a computer mouse, the transgressions of multi-national corporations, even in some of the remotest locations in the developing world, can be brought to the attention of the public in their home countries, it just doesn’t make sense for Vodafone to allow itself to be dragged into the abuse of the human rights of dissident Ghanaians by our security services – who for some extraordinary reason seem to regard critics of the current regime as enemies of the Ghanaian nation-state.
Any patriotic Ghanaian has a right to question the Vodafone takeover of GT – and to demand that members of government answer specific questions raised by them on the subject.
I am becoming increasingly irritated by the fact that having pre-paid for a broadband internet service, my ISP, GT, seems suddenly unable to deliver that service to me, every time I criticise the incompetents who have brought our country to a dead end – and who seem to think that asset-stripping the enterprise Ghana and handing over prized national assets to foreigners (whose own capitalist governments back home are busy pumping taxpayers’ money into private businesses in partial-nationalizations in order to save their national economies, even as we speak!) is the way to develop our country.
Perhaps it is mere coincidence, but I am sure that the tabloid press in the UK would be delighted to hear about the overseas activities of a major British telecoms company, which is actively colluding with the secret services of a corrupt African nation to abuse the human rights of local people who criticise a dodgy privatization of the state-owned telecoms company – and for which the crooks amongst those running the country even had to railroad a bill through parliament to indemnify all those involved in the deal, from future criminal prosecution!
It is important that Vodafone understands clearly that all its customers in Ghana, including myself, have a constitutionally guaranteed right to speak their minds freely without being persecuted – just as the crooks amongst those who run Ghana today, too, have a right to sue people like me for libel if they think I have libeled them. Period.
I demand that Vodafone compensates me for all those endless hours (in total, i.e.!) that I have been denied broadband internet access for which I had paid through the nose in advance - just for exercising my constitutional right to also enjoy the freedom of expression that all the citizens of Ghana have a right to enjoy in our supposedly democratic nation.
Above all, Vodafone must be mindful of the fact that it is a multinational that is a major player in markets in the West in which public opinion cares about what the companies whose services citizens purchase get up to in distant lands – particularly when it involves the collaboration of those multinationals with the secret services of corrupt African nations: in the abuse of the human rights of the citizenry by local despots.
Should this nonsense on bamboo stilts continue, I will not hesitate to sue Vodafone in the UK as well as in Brussels under EU human rights legislation – as well as use my contacts amongst fellow media professionals in the UK to bring this outrage to the attention of Vodafone’s customers in Britain.
There have simply been far too many ‘coincidences’ of my posting critical articles about the GT takeover deal online and my being denied my pre-paid broadband internet access by GT – and I have simply had enough. A word to the wise…
Hmmm, Ghana – entiye awiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
BRAVO SWEDEN AND THE NETHERLANDS FOR ENDING BUDGETARY SUPPORT FOR RWANDA – END YOUR BUDGETARY SUPPORT FOR ALL AFRICAN REGIMES TOO, NOW!
The news that at long last the governments of Sweden and the Netherlands have decided to put aside the hypocrisy that political correctness in the arena of international relations represents, and do the right thing: by ending their budgetary support for the ruthless apartheid regime now ruling the police-state known as Rwanda, is the best news ever heard by the oppressed people of Africa, since the end of colonial rule on the continent.
In taking that bold decision they have shown great moral courage – and leadership. They must now move ahead and end budgetary support for all the nations in the continent – all of whom do not deserve to be propped up by the taxpayers’ of the developed world. Why help African despots to line their pockets with aid money whiles their people continue to wallow in poverty – as their kleptocratic rulers scramble to join the list of the world’s richest individuals?
Let those Western governments with a social conscience, such as that of Sweden and The Netherlands; rather make such funds available to the NGO’s providing humanitarian assistance to the many victims of the cruelty of Africa’s various despots; ditto online micro-credit organizations such as Kiva; Ashoka; the various micro-credit organizations set up by Mohamed Yunis, the Noble Laureate from Bangladesh; as well as online volunteer developmental organizations such as Nabuur.com
Such a radical paradigm shift, will be one of the best means of ameliorating the situation of hundreds of millions suffering Africans who are the victims of the continent’s corrupt and incompetent regimes – some of whom are busy committing crimes against humanity in places like eastern DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Chad, Darfur and southern Sudan on a daily basis and with complete impunity.
If nations like Sweden and The Netherlands really want to end the catastrophic impact on the quality of life of ordinary Africans, of the misrule of the continent’s many unimaginative and incompetent leaders, and help loosen their grip on power, then in addition to ending budgetary support for all African governments, they ought to get the rest of the G8 nations to quickly agree that as part of the ongoing reforms of the international financial system, they will act to close down all the world’s offshore tax havens.
They must also freeze all the overseas bank accounts of the crooks amongst the leaders of the continent – and channel the huge sums they contain to the international NGO’s doing humanitarian work in the nations in the continent that are ruled by greedy and corrupt regimes.
The West must act swiftly to end budgetary support for all the governments of the nations on the continent without exception – as that will help bring corruption in Africa to a quick end. Nothing will focus the minds of those lazy and unimaginative leaders better. It will also make them think twice about stealing the little taxes they are able to collect from their citizenry – as they will not be able to carry out any development projects at all if they were to steal local taxes on the scale they are currently looting their national treasuries: because they are propped up annually by Western aid money.
The time has now come for nations like Sweden and The Netherlands to ask the UN and the EU to impose sanctions on Rwanda – whose support for Laurent Nkunda helps fuel his greedy ambitions. It is outrageous that Rwanda has succeeded in becoming a big exporter of metals it does not even have any deposits of, at all, in its own territory: but which Rwanda’s ruling elites, through the agency of that warlord and mass murderer, the war criminal Laurent Nkunda, have been busy looting in eastern DR Congo.
The governments of the Western nations will find that such a move will swiftly bring an end to the unimaginable suffering currently being experienced by millions of the hapless citizens of eastern DR Congo, who are the victims of the unfathomable greed of Rwanda’s ruling elites.
Above all, the UN and the EU must help the International Criminal Court (ICC) to carry out investigations into the conduct of all the men and women in leadership positions who are responsible for the endless suffering of ordinary Africans – and swiftly indict them. Why has the ICC still not indicted the self-styled and narcissistic “General” Laurent Nkunda and his sponsor Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame?
How many more millions must suffer and die in Africa before the international community takes these relatively simple measures to end the abominable acts of cruelty so many Africans in places like Eastern DR Congo, Darfur, Southern Sudan, Zimbabwe, Somalia and Chad suffer daily, at the hands of the cruel monsters amongst the ruling elites of the continent?
Bravo to Sweden and The Netherlands for showing the international community the way. Let them act further by cutting off all budgetary support to the whole of the continent now, too.
The clever and despotic rulers of Rwanda, who rule their Tutsi-dominated apartheid state by fear, will now think twice about using their nation’s meagre resources to destabilize its big neighbour DR Congo – and concentrate instead on developing their own country in order to maintain their grip on power there. Ordinary Africans want to see an end to the unending cruelty and suffering of their fellow Africans in the trouble spots on the continent – enough is enough!
In taking that bold decision they have shown great moral courage – and leadership. They must now move ahead and end budgetary support for all the nations in the continent – all of whom do not deserve to be propped up by the taxpayers’ of the developed world. Why help African despots to line their pockets with aid money whiles their people continue to wallow in poverty – as their kleptocratic rulers scramble to join the list of the world’s richest individuals?
Let those Western governments with a social conscience, such as that of Sweden and The Netherlands; rather make such funds available to the NGO’s providing humanitarian assistance to the many victims of the cruelty of Africa’s various despots; ditto online micro-credit organizations such as Kiva; Ashoka; the various micro-credit organizations set up by Mohamed Yunis, the Noble Laureate from Bangladesh; as well as online volunteer developmental organizations such as Nabuur.com
Such a radical paradigm shift, will be one of the best means of ameliorating the situation of hundreds of millions suffering Africans who are the victims of the continent’s corrupt and incompetent regimes – some of whom are busy committing crimes against humanity in places like eastern DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Chad, Darfur and southern Sudan on a daily basis and with complete impunity.
If nations like Sweden and The Netherlands really want to end the catastrophic impact on the quality of life of ordinary Africans, of the misrule of the continent’s many unimaginative and incompetent leaders, and help loosen their grip on power, then in addition to ending budgetary support for all African governments, they ought to get the rest of the G8 nations to quickly agree that as part of the ongoing reforms of the international financial system, they will act to close down all the world’s offshore tax havens.
They must also freeze all the overseas bank accounts of the crooks amongst the leaders of the continent – and channel the huge sums they contain to the international NGO’s doing humanitarian work in the nations in the continent that are ruled by greedy and corrupt regimes.
The West must act swiftly to end budgetary support for all the governments of the nations on the continent without exception – as that will help bring corruption in Africa to a quick end. Nothing will focus the minds of those lazy and unimaginative leaders better. It will also make them think twice about stealing the little taxes they are able to collect from their citizenry – as they will not be able to carry out any development projects at all if they were to steal local taxes on the scale they are currently looting their national treasuries: because they are propped up annually by Western aid money.
The time has now come for nations like Sweden and The Netherlands to ask the UN and the EU to impose sanctions on Rwanda – whose support for Laurent Nkunda helps fuel his greedy ambitions. It is outrageous that Rwanda has succeeded in becoming a big exporter of metals it does not even have any deposits of, at all, in its own territory: but which Rwanda’s ruling elites, through the agency of that warlord and mass murderer, the war criminal Laurent Nkunda, have been busy looting in eastern DR Congo.
The governments of the Western nations will find that such a move will swiftly bring an end to the unimaginable suffering currently being experienced by millions of the hapless citizens of eastern DR Congo, who are the victims of the unfathomable greed of Rwanda’s ruling elites.
Above all, the UN and the EU must help the International Criminal Court (ICC) to carry out investigations into the conduct of all the men and women in leadership positions who are responsible for the endless suffering of ordinary Africans – and swiftly indict them. Why has the ICC still not indicted the self-styled and narcissistic “General” Laurent Nkunda and his sponsor Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame?
How many more millions must suffer and die in Africa before the international community takes these relatively simple measures to end the abominable acts of cruelty so many Africans in places like Eastern DR Congo, Darfur, Southern Sudan, Zimbabwe, Somalia and Chad suffer daily, at the hands of the cruel monsters amongst the ruling elites of the continent?
Bravo to Sweden and The Netherlands for showing the international community the way. Let them act further by cutting off all budgetary support to the whole of the continent now, too.
The clever and despotic rulers of Rwanda, who rule their Tutsi-dominated apartheid state by fear, will now think twice about using their nation’s meagre resources to destabilize its big neighbour DR Congo – and concentrate instead on developing their own country in order to maintain their grip on power there. Ordinary Africans want to see an end to the unending cruelty and suffering of their fellow Africans in the trouble spots on the continent – enough is enough!
Why Is The New Patriotic Party So Desperate To Hang On To Power At All Costs?
If the powerful tribal-supremacist crooks who have dominated the New Patriotic Party (NPP), in the eight years they have been in power for, think that they are going to get away with their crimes against Ghana, by bribing the electorate, they had better revise their notes quickly.
A young taxi driver’s comment about the NPP‘s amazing apologies to Ghanaians, and the government’s incredible u-turns in making a number of sudden policy reverses, ought to be food for thought for all those in the NPP, who are so desperate to hang on to power at all costs.
The young man (and his friends!) wondered aloud just what it was that the NPP was so desperate to hide, that it was even prepared to reduce fuel prices all of a sudden; let imprisoned commercial drivers out of jail; refund fines imposed by the law courts to errant commercial drivers; allow banned wax prints into the country again; etc. etc., in order to win the presidential run-off.
Although he had voted for Nana Akufo-Addo in the first election, he said he thought it prudent to vote for Professor Mills in the run-off - so that the nation would finally discover just what it was that the NPP big-wigs were trying to prevent Ghanaians from discovering: “Hmmm, ayesei ye, djama womu epra yen paa ankasa!” (For those who don’t speak Twi, to paraphrase him: Perhaps they have done a great deal of damage financially to our country!).
As to the rumour now doing the rounds that some of the NPP members were apparently claiming that they could have easily stolen the election if they had wanted to, because they had the support of the high command of the security services, he wondered whether the NPP's big-wigs thought they had the support of the junior ranks in the security services support them too.
He was keen to discover just what is it that they wanted to hide from Ghanaians. To him it was one of the main reasons why so many Ghanaians wanted change – the same reason why they were going to vote for change too in the run-off of the presidential election!).
Whatever happens on 28th December, 2008, the fact of the matter is that since we are not operating a parliamentary system of government, constitutionally, it is the largest single party in parliament, as opposed to which parties can form a coalition of a majority in parliament, that will occupy the majority benches and choose the speaker, the first deputy speaker, as well as all the chairpersons of the various parliamentary committees.
Thus, in that sense, change has already occurred in Ghanaian politics, as it happens – and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), will play the oversight role of the legislature in our democracy, and protect the national interest at all times, going forward into the future!
The powerful tribal-supremacist crooks who have wielded such power in the presidency under President Kufuor, had better get used to the idea that they will never be able to steal the election on 28th December 2008.
And if they want some free advice, let them resign themselves to their fate and prepare mentally for longish spells in jail, as they are held to account by a nation totally fed up with their Kokofu-football politricks.
Ditto fed up with the NPP's leaders' arrogance; their sophistry; the unfathomable greed they have constantly displayed throughout their tenure; and their engaging in grand larceny on a scale we have seldom seen in our country’s chequered history, thus far.
Hmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
A young taxi driver’s comment about the NPP‘s amazing apologies to Ghanaians, and the government’s incredible u-turns in making a number of sudden policy reverses, ought to be food for thought for all those in the NPP, who are so desperate to hang on to power at all costs.
The young man (and his friends!) wondered aloud just what it was that the NPP was so desperate to hide, that it was even prepared to reduce fuel prices all of a sudden; let imprisoned commercial drivers out of jail; refund fines imposed by the law courts to errant commercial drivers; allow banned wax prints into the country again; etc. etc., in order to win the presidential run-off.
Although he had voted for Nana Akufo-Addo in the first election, he said he thought it prudent to vote for Professor Mills in the run-off - so that the nation would finally discover just what it was that the NPP big-wigs were trying to prevent Ghanaians from discovering: “Hmmm, ayesei ye, djama womu epra yen paa ankasa!” (For those who don’t speak Twi, to paraphrase him: Perhaps they have done a great deal of damage financially to our country!).
As to the rumour now doing the rounds that some of the NPP members were apparently claiming that they could have easily stolen the election if they had wanted to, because they had the support of the high command of the security services, he wondered whether the NPP's big-wigs thought they had the support of the junior ranks in the security services support them too.
He was keen to discover just what is it that they wanted to hide from Ghanaians. To him it was one of the main reasons why so many Ghanaians wanted change – the same reason why they were going to vote for change too in the run-off of the presidential election!).
Whatever happens on 28th December, 2008, the fact of the matter is that since we are not operating a parliamentary system of government, constitutionally, it is the largest single party in parliament, as opposed to which parties can form a coalition of a majority in parliament, that will occupy the majority benches and choose the speaker, the first deputy speaker, as well as all the chairpersons of the various parliamentary committees.
Thus, in that sense, change has already occurred in Ghanaian politics, as it happens – and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), will play the oversight role of the legislature in our democracy, and protect the national interest at all times, going forward into the future!
The powerful tribal-supremacist crooks who have wielded such power in the presidency under President Kufuor, had better get used to the idea that they will never be able to steal the election on 28th December 2008.
And if they want some free advice, let them resign themselves to their fate and prepare mentally for longish spells in jail, as they are held to account by a nation totally fed up with their Kokofu-football politricks.
Ditto fed up with the NPP's leaders' arrogance; their sophistry; the unfathomable greed they have constantly displayed throughout their tenure; and their engaging in grand larceny on a scale we have seldom seen in our country’s chequered history, thus far.
Hmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Monday, 15 December 2008
Re: "Minority presidential candidates call for financial support for political parties"
As regards the question of state funding for political parties, we must simply go back to basics – and remember that this country is largely divided into two political groups. Consequently, we must be creative – and use what we have to move forward as a nation that is more or less a two-party constitutional democracy.
There are those in Ghanaian politics, who buy into Nkrumah's vision of creating an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia, and those who like Dr. Busia and Dr. Danquah, believe that we must focus on developing a system that devolves power and funnels resources from the centre to the progeny of the ruling elites of the traditional feudal tribal states of the pre-colonial era (i.e. rule by Chiefs, their relations, their sycophantic acolytes and appointees!).
Since the state has limited resources, we must cut our coat according to the size of our cloth in the matter of state funding for political parties in Ghana. If we accept the fact that Ghanaians are largely divided into Busia-Danquaists and their political opponents, Ghana’s left-of-centre progressives, who call themselves Nkrumaists (which incidentally includes a majority of the members of the National Democratic Congress – [NDC]), why do we not simply resort to state funding for just those two traditional groups in Ghanaian politics?
Would it not be possible to get all the left-of-centre political parties including the NDC to regroup and reverse into a suitably restructured Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and choose a new leadership - ditto all the right-of-centre parties such as Dr. Obed Asamoah’s Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) and other such parties to reverse into the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and choose their new joint-leadership too?
A creative way to fund political parties in Ghana would be for the two newly-restructured parties to be allocated offices in District Assembly properties across the country. Ditto allocated an agreed number of vehicles every five years – and given free airtime by the state print and electronic media during election campaign periods, too.
However, we must draw the line somewhere – and decide that going forward, if men with giant egos who use the vehicle of political parties to try and make money, insist on fanning their egos by setting up political parties, well, we must let them use their own private resources to operate their creations: whenever they see fit to embark on such expensive ego trips.
A nation like ours with limited resources cannot possibly satisfy the self-indulgence of such larger-than-life characters who suffer from the dangerous virus known as “political megalomania”. Period.
Incidentally, for the benefit of the younger generation of Ghanaians who do not know much about the original philosophies that underpin the two traditional “political traditions” in our history, below is a very brief description of their worldviews.
The Busia-Danquah group adheres to the philosophy of the English philosopher Edmund Burke. Like their founding fathers, they believe that society ought to be ruled by “pre-ordained” elites. Another distinguishing factor of Busia-Danqaists, is that they place a premium on foreign ideas and collaboration with foreigners. Dr. Danquah as we all know was a super-quisling who was on the payroll of the CIA!
The Danquah-Busiasts are also the stooges for neocolonialism and the lackeys of foreign commercial interests in our country. That is why they are busy asset-stripping Ghana for the benefit of foreign interests. They also believe that an important aspect of the ideal society is one that is a “property-owning democracy”: that is, one in which only people who own property or can prove that they earn a regular wage, qualify to vote in elections.
Another cherished tenet of their party is that the state must concentrate on creating the conditions for individuals to create wealth – and must ideally not interfere in the wealth-creation activities of individuals, at all.
That is why today, their political progeny in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are busy turning Ghana into an African version of early 20 century American capitalism of the “robber baron” era - in which powerful crooks made money at the expense of the well-being of American society.
An example is the unsanitary conditions that prevailed in the Chicago meatpacking industry and the ruthless exploitation of workers in the industry, whom the plant owners literally worked to death. The US federal government finally stepped in as soon as the nation discovered the horrors in the industry - when Upton Sinclair’s novel ”The Jungle” was published. The federal government immediately passed the Food and Drug Act!
That is also why, today, under the NPP, a small group of politically well-connected and powerful Ghanaians have succeeded in ending up owning more wealth than the combined wealth of the vast majority of the population of Ghana – whom they denigrate by labeling “lazy” people: forgetting that the marginalized in Ghana do not have the same opportunities that sundry regime-crony tycoons have because of their political connections.
Yet, what number of fools in this country, dear reader, cannot build posh hotels along the beaches of Ghana, for example, if, like the scions of the family clans of some of our rulers, they too can inveigle the management of state-owned banks to lead consortia of banks to loan them zillions of dollars to build posh hotels, on generous terms?
For the Nkrumaists, the ideal society for Ghanaians is the creation of an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia. They believe that because there are not a lot of privately-held large fortunes in the hands of private individuals in nations such as ours, the state must of necessity take a leading role in wealth creation to improve the quality of life of all Ghanaians, through the agency of state-owned enterprises.
Today, we are seeing the wisdom of Nkrumah as Western capitalist nations pour trillions of dollars into even private financial institutions in part-nationalizations – in order to safeguard their national economies. Nkrumah also wanted universal adult suffrage in Ghana – so that all adults of a sound mind could vote to elect their leaders in free and fair elections: not just property owners and wage earners.
Above all, Nkrumah believed in a mixed-economy. However, whiles encouraging private wealth creation, Nkrumah wanted to use the power of the Ghanaian nation-state to regulate that sector’s activities so as to protect society from crooked businesspeople and ensure that they did not grow rich at the expense of the well-being of society: by producing sub-standard or dangerous products and avoiding paying their taxes. He also wanted their wealth creation agenda to fit into the overall national development plan determined by the Ghanaian nation-state as being in the national interest.
The Busia-Danquah group on the other hand wants individuals to be left alone to make their own business decisions with minimum state regulation. In other words, if they prefer to buy waste from Canada to use in a waste-to-energy plant in Kumasi, for example, because they and their Canadian partners will make vast profits from the business of the importation of Canadian waste (instead of using the mountains of waste generated locally here!), the state must not step in to stop them.
It is such inanities that have led to a situation today, in which a nation that is literally being choked to death as it is slowly engulfed by filth, is allowing this nonsense on bamboo stilts to occur – because in the view of the apostles of “private sector-led development” under no circumstances must the state interfere with the greedy and selfish plans of those seeking to go into the lucrative business of the importation of Canadian waste into Ghana - using a waste-to-energy plant in Kumasi, as a perfect cloak to hide their perfidy! Naturally, the ideal for the Busia-Danquaists is for the state to allow them to go ahead with their plans - as it is their private affair.
That is also why, for example, Mr. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, a minster in the present government, was so proud to announce to Ghanaians that the owners of the Kumasi waste-to-energy plant are being allowed to import waste from Canada. Astonishingly, are we in the meantime, not drowning in our own filth? Can anyone doubt that any plan for the Kumasi waste-to-energy plant must have included the use of waste generated locally – and that that must have been an important factor in the environmental protection agency (EPA) granting them permission to build their confounded plant in the first place?
Any surprise then, dear reader, that today we have become a mostly selfish and untruthful people who live in a cruel and brutish “dog-eat-dog” society in which criminals, such as drug barons, are becoming the pillars of society? Are some of these Mafioso not so powerful and influential that a number of them (apart from being the mainstays of numerous charismatic churches up and down our country), are said to even bankroll some of our politicians and political parties (according to the bush telegraph!)?
Hmmm, Ghana – eyeasem oo: enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
There are those in Ghanaian politics, who buy into Nkrumah's vision of creating an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia, and those who like Dr. Busia and Dr. Danquah, believe that we must focus on developing a system that devolves power and funnels resources from the centre to the progeny of the ruling elites of the traditional feudal tribal states of the pre-colonial era (i.e. rule by Chiefs, their relations, their sycophantic acolytes and appointees!).
Since the state has limited resources, we must cut our coat according to the size of our cloth in the matter of state funding for political parties in Ghana. If we accept the fact that Ghanaians are largely divided into Busia-Danquaists and their political opponents, Ghana’s left-of-centre progressives, who call themselves Nkrumaists (which incidentally includes a majority of the members of the National Democratic Congress – [NDC]), why do we not simply resort to state funding for just those two traditional groups in Ghanaian politics?
Would it not be possible to get all the left-of-centre political parties including the NDC to regroup and reverse into a suitably restructured Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and choose a new leadership - ditto all the right-of-centre parties such as Dr. Obed Asamoah’s Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) and other such parties to reverse into the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and choose their new joint-leadership too?
A creative way to fund political parties in Ghana would be for the two newly-restructured parties to be allocated offices in District Assembly properties across the country. Ditto allocated an agreed number of vehicles every five years – and given free airtime by the state print and electronic media during election campaign periods, too.
However, we must draw the line somewhere – and decide that going forward, if men with giant egos who use the vehicle of political parties to try and make money, insist on fanning their egos by setting up political parties, well, we must let them use their own private resources to operate their creations: whenever they see fit to embark on such expensive ego trips.
A nation like ours with limited resources cannot possibly satisfy the self-indulgence of such larger-than-life characters who suffer from the dangerous virus known as “political megalomania”. Period.
Incidentally, for the benefit of the younger generation of Ghanaians who do not know much about the original philosophies that underpin the two traditional “political traditions” in our history, below is a very brief description of their worldviews.
The Busia-Danquah group adheres to the philosophy of the English philosopher Edmund Burke. Like their founding fathers, they believe that society ought to be ruled by “pre-ordained” elites. Another distinguishing factor of Busia-Danqaists, is that they place a premium on foreign ideas and collaboration with foreigners. Dr. Danquah as we all know was a super-quisling who was on the payroll of the CIA!
The Danquah-Busiasts are also the stooges for neocolonialism and the lackeys of foreign commercial interests in our country. That is why they are busy asset-stripping Ghana for the benefit of foreign interests. They also believe that an important aspect of the ideal society is one that is a “property-owning democracy”: that is, one in which only people who own property or can prove that they earn a regular wage, qualify to vote in elections.
Another cherished tenet of their party is that the state must concentrate on creating the conditions for individuals to create wealth – and must ideally not interfere in the wealth-creation activities of individuals, at all.
That is why today, their political progeny in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are busy turning Ghana into an African version of early 20 century American capitalism of the “robber baron” era - in which powerful crooks made money at the expense of the well-being of American society.
An example is the unsanitary conditions that prevailed in the Chicago meatpacking industry and the ruthless exploitation of workers in the industry, whom the plant owners literally worked to death. The US federal government finally stepped in as soon as the nation discovered the horrors in the industry - when Upton Sinclair’s novel ”The Jungle” was published. The federal government immediately passed the Food and Drug Act!
That is also why, today, under the NPP, a small group of politically well-connected and powerful Ghanaians have succeeded in ending up owning more wealth than the combined wealth of the vast majority of the population of Ghana – whom they denigrate by labeling “lazy” people: forgetting that the marginalized in Ghana do not have the same opportunities that sundry regime-crony tycoons have because of their political connections.
Yet, what number of fools in this country, dear reader, cannot build posh hotels along the beaches of Ghana, for example, if, like the scions of the family clans of some of our rulers, they too can inveigle the management of state-owned banks to lead consortia of banks to loan them zillions of dollars to build posh hotels, on generous terms?
For the Nkrumaists, the ideal society for Ghanaians is the creation of an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia. They believe that because there are not a lot of privately-held large fortunes in the hands of private individuals in nations such as ours, the state must of necessity take a leading role in wealth creation to improve the quality of life of all Ghanaians, through the agency of state-owned enterprises.
Today, we are seeing the wisdom of Nkrumah as Western capitalist nations pour trillions of dollars into even private financial institutions in part-nationalizations – in order to safeguard their national economies. Nkrumah also wanted universal adult suffrage in Ghana – so that all adults of a sound mind could vote to elect their leaders in free and fair elections: not just property owners and wage earners.
Above all, Nkrumah believed in a mixed-economy. However, whiles encouraging private wealth creation, Nkrumah wanted to use the power of the Ghanaian nation-state to regulate that sector’s activities so as to protect society from crooked businesspeople and ensure that they did not grow rich at the expense of the well-being of society: by producing sub-standard or dangerous products and avoiding paying their taxes. He also wanted their wealth creation agenda to fit into the overall national development plan determined by the Ghanaian nation-state as being in the national interest.
The Busia-Danquah group on the other hand wants individuals to be left alone to make their own business decisions with minimum state regulation. In other words, if they prefer to buy waste from Canada to use in a waste-to-energy plant in Kumasi, for example, because they and their Canadian partners will make vast profits from the business of the importation of Canadian waste (instead of using the mountains of waste generated locally here!), the state must not step in to stop them.
It is such inanities that have led to a situation today, in which a nation that is literally being choked to death as it is slowly engulfed by filth, is allowing this nonsense on bamboo stilts to occur – because in the view of the apostles of “private sector-led development” under no circumstances must the state interfere with the greedy and selfish plans of those seeking to go into the lucrative business of the importation of Canadian waste into Ghana - using a waste-to-energy plant in Kumasi, as a perfect cloak to hide their perfidy! Naturally, the ideal for the Busia-Danquaists is for the state to allow them to go ahead with their plans - as it is their private affair.
That is also why, for example, Mr. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, a minster in the present government, was so proud to announce to Ghanaians that the owners of the Kumasi waste-to-energy plant are being allowed to import waste from Canada. Astonishingly, are we in the meantime, not drowning in our own filth? Can anyone doubt that any plan for the Kumasi waste-to-energy plant must have included the use of waste generated locally – and that that must have been an important factor in the environmental protection agency (EPA) granting them permission to build their confounded plant in the first place?
Any surprise then, dear reader, that today we have become a mostly selfish and untruthful people who live in a cruel and brutish “dog-eat-dog” society in which criminals, such as drug barons, are becoming the pillars of society? Are some of these Mafioso not so powerful and influential that a number of them (apart from being the mainstays of numerous charismatic churches up and down our country), are said to even bankroll some of our politicians and political parties (according to the bush telegraph!)?
Hmmm, Ghana – eyeasem oo: enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Re: "Minority presidential candidates call for financial support for political parties"
As regards the question of state funding for political parties, we must simply go back to basics – and remember that this country is largely divided into two political groups. Consequently, we must be creative – and use what we have to move forward as a nation that is more or less a two-party constitutional democracy.
There are those in Ghanaian politics, who buy into Nkrumah's vision of creating an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia, and those who like Dr. Busia and Dr. Danquah, believe that we must focus on developing a system that devolves power and funnels resources from the centre to the progeny of the ruling elites of the traditional feudal tribal states of the pre-colonial era (i.e. rule by Chiefs, their relations, their sycophantic acolytes and appointees!).
Since the state has limited resources, we must cut our coat according to the size of our cloth in the matter of state funding for political parties in Ghana. If we accept the fact that Ghanaians are largely divided into Busia-Danquaists and their political opponents, Ghana’s left-of-centre progressives who call themselves Nkrumaists (which incidentally includes a majority of the members of the National Democratic Congress – [NDC]), why do not simply resort to funding those two traditional groups in Ghanaian politics?
Would it not be possible to get all the left-of-centre political parties including the NDC to regroup and reverse into a suitably restructured Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and choose a new leadership - ditto all the right-of-centre parties such as Dr. Obed Asamoah’s Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) and other such parties to reverse into the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and choose their new joint-leadership too?
A creative way to fund political parties in Ghana would be for the two newly-restructured parties to be allocated offices in District Assembly properties across the country. Ditto allocated an agreed number of vehicles every five years – and given free airtime by the state print and electronic media during election campaign periods, too.
However, we must draw the line somewhere – and decide that going forward, if men with giant egos who use the vehicle of political parties to try and make money, insist on fanning their egos by setting up political parties, well, we must let them use their own private resources to operate their creations: whenever they see fit to embark on such expensive ego trips.
A nation like ours with limited resources cannot possibly satisfy the self-indulgence of such larger-than-life characters who suffer from the dangerous virus known as “political megalomania”. Period.
Incidentally, for the benefit of the younger generation of Ghanaians who do not know much about the original philosophies that underpin the two traditional “political traditions” in our history, below is a very brief description of their worldviews.
The Busia-Danquah group adheres to the philosophy of the English philosopher Edmund Burke. Like their founding fathers, they believe that society ought to be ruled by “pre-ordained” elites. Another distinguishing factor of Busia-Danqaists, is that they place a premium on foreign ideas and collaboration with foreigners. Dr. Danquah as we all know was a super-quisling who was on the payroll of the CIA!
The Danquah-Busiasts are also the stooges for neocolonialism and the lackeys of foreign commercial interests in our country. That is why they are busy asset-stripping Ghana for the benefit of foreign interests. They also believe that an important aspect of the ideal society is one that is a “property-owning democracy”: that is, one in which only people who own property or can prove that they earn a regular wage, qualify to vote in elections.
Another cherished tenet of their party is that the state must concentrate on creating the conditions for individuals to create wealth – and must ideally not interfere in the wealth-creation activities of individuals, at all.
That is why today, their political progeny in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are busy turning Ghana into an African version of early 20 century American capitalism of the “robber baron” era - in which powerful crooks made money at the expense of the well-being of American society.
An example is the unsanitary conditions that prevailed in the Chicago meatpacking industry and the ruthless exploitation of workers in the industry, whom the plant owners literally worked to death. The US federal government finally stepped in as soon as the nation discovered the horrors in the industry - when Upton Sinclair’s novel ”The Jungle” was published. The federal government immediately passed the Food and Drug Act!
That is also why, today, under the NPP, a small group of politically well-connected and powerful Ghanaians have succeeded in ending up owning more wealth than the combined wealth of the vast majority of the population of Ghana – whom they denigrate by labeling “lazy” people: forgetting that the marginalized in Ghana do not have the same opportunities that sundry regime-crony tycoons have because of their political connections.
Yet, what number of fools in this country, dear reader, cannot build posh hotels along the beaches of Ghana, for example, if, like the scions of the family clans of some of our rulers, they too can inveigle the management of state-owned banks to lead consortia of banks to loan them zillions of dollars to build posh hotels, on generous terms?
For the Nkrumaists, the ideal society for Ghanaians is the creation of an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia. They believe that because there are not a lot of privately-held large fortunes in the hands of private individuals in nations such as ours, the state must of necessity take a leading role in wealth creation to improve the quality of life of all Ghanaians, through the agency of state-owned enterprises.
Today, we are seeing the wisdom of Nkrumah as Western capitalist nations pour trillions of dollars into even private financial institutions in part-nationalizations – in order to safeguard their national economies. Nkrumah also wanted universal adult suffrage in Ghana – so that all adults of a sound mind could vote to elect their leaders in free and fair elections: not just property owners and wage earners.
Above all, Nkrumah believed in a mixed-economy. However, whiles encouraging private wealth creation, Nkrumah wanted to use the power of the Ghanaian nation-state to regulate that sector’s activities so as to protect society from crooked businesspeople and ensure that they did not grow rich at the expense of the well-being of society: by producing sub-standard or dangerous products and avoiding paying their taxes. He also wanted their wealth creation agenda to fit into the overall national development plan determined by the Ghanaian nation-state as being in the national interest.
The Busia-Danquah group on the other hand wants individuals to be left alone to make their own business decisions with minimum state regulation. In other words, if they prefer to buy waste from Canada to use in a waste-to-energy plant in Kumasi, for example, because they and their Canadian partners will make vast profits from the business of the importation of Canadian waste (instead of using the mountains of waste generated locally here!), the state must not step in to stop them.
It is such inanities that have led to a situation today, in which a nation that is literally being choked to death as it is slowly engulfed by filth, is allowing this nonsense on bamboo stilts to occur – because in the view of the apostles of “private sector-led development” under no circumstances must the state interfere with the greedy and selfish plans of those seeking to go into the lucrative business of the importation of Canadian waste into Ghana - using a waste-to-energy plant in Kumasi, as a perfect cloak to hide their perfidy! Naturally, the ideal for the Busia-Danquaists is for the state to allow them to go ahead with their plans - as it is their private affair.
That is also why, for example, Mr. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, a minster in the present government, was so proud to announce to Ghanaians that the owners of the Kumasi waste-to-energy plant are being allowed to import waste from Canada. Astonishingly, are we in the meantime, not drowning in our own filth? Can anyone doubt that any plan for the Kumasi waste-to-energy plant must have included the use of waste generated locally – and that that must have been an important factor in the environmental protection agency (EPA) granting them permission to build their confounded plant in the first place?
Any surprise then, dear reader, that today we have become a mostly selfish and untruthful people who live in a cruel and brutish “dog-eat-dog” society in which criminals, such as drug barons, are becoming the pillars of society? Are some of these Mafioso not so powerful and influential that a number of them (apart from being the mainstays of numerous charismatic churches up and down our country), are said to even bankroll some of our politicians and political parties (according to the bush telegraph!)?
Hmmm, Ghana – eyeasem oo: enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
There are those in Ghanaian politics, who buy into Nkrumah's vision of creating an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia, and those who like Dr. Busia and Dr. Danquah, believe that we must focus on developing a system that devolves power and funnels resources from the centre to the progeny of the ruling elites of the traditional feudal tribal states of the pre-colonial era (i.e. rule by Chiefs, their relations, their sycophantic acolytes and appointees!).
Since the state has limited resources, we must cut our coat according to the size of our cloth in the matter of state funding for political parties in Ghana. If we accept the fact that Ghanaians are largely divided into Busia-Danquaists and their political opponents, Ghana’s left-of-centre progressives who call themselves Nkrumaists (which incidentally includes a majority of the members of the National Democratic Congress – [NDC]), why do not simply resort to funding those two traditional groups in Ghanaian politics?
Would it not be possible to get all the left-of-centre political parties including the NDC to regroup and reverse into a suitably restructured Convention Peoples Party (CPP) and choose a new leadership - ditto all the right-of-centre parties such as Dr. Obed Asamoah’s Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) and other such parties to reverse into the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and choose their new joint-leadership too?
A creative way to fund political parties in Ghana would be for the two newly-restructured parties to be allocated offices in District Assembly properties across the country. Ditto allocated an agreed number of vehicles every five years – and given free airtime by the state print and electronic media during election campaign periods, too.
However, we must draw the line somewhere – and decide that going forward, if men with giant egos who use the vehicle of political parties to try and make money, insist on fanning their egos by setting up political parties, well, we must let them use their own private resources to operate their creations: whenever they see fit to embark on such expensive ego trips.
A nation like ours with limited resources cannot possibly satisfy the self-indulgence of such larger-than-life characters who suffer from the dangerous virus known as “political megalomania”. Period.
Incidentally, for the benefit of the younger generation of Ghanaians who do not know much about the original philosophies that underpin the two traditional “political traditions” in our history, below is a very brief description of their worldviews.
The Busia-Danquah group adheres to the philosophy of the English philosopher Edmund Burke. Like their founding fathers, they believe that society ought to be ruled by “pre-ordained” elites. Another distinguishing factor of Busia-Danqaists, is that they place a premium on foreign ideas and collaboration with foreigners. Dr. Danquah as we all know was a super-quisling who was on the payroll of the CIA!
The Danquah-Busiasts are also the stooges for neocolonialism and the lackeys of foreign commercial interests in our country. That is why they are busy asset-stripping Ghana for the benefit of foreign interests. They also believe that an important aspect of the ideal society is one that is a “property-owning democracy”: that is, one in which only people who own property or can prove that they earn a regular wage, qualify to vote in elections.
Another cherished tenet of their party is that the state must concentrate on creating the conditions for individuals to create wealth – and must ideally not interfere in the wealth-creation activities of individuals, at all.
That is why today, their political progeny in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are busy turning Ghana into an African version of early 20 century American capitalism of the “robber baron” era - in which powerful crooks made money at the expense of the well-being of American society.
An example is the unsanitary conditions that prevailed in the Chicago meatpacking industry and the ruthless exploitation of workers in the industry, whom the plant owners literally worked to death. The US federal government finally stepped in as soon as the nation discovered the horrors in the industry - when Upton Sinclair’s novel ”The Jungle” was published. The federal government immediately passed the Food and Drug Act!
That is also why, today, under the NPP, a small group of politically well-connected and powerful Ghanaians have succeeded in ending up owning more wealth than the combined wealth of the vast majority of the population of Ghana – whom they denigrate by labeling “lazy” people: forgetting that the marginalized in Ghana do not have the same opportunities that sundry regime-crony tycoons have because of their political connections.
Yet, what number of fools in this country, dear reader, cannot build posh hotels along the beaches of Ghana, for example, if, like the scions of the family clans of some of our rulers, they too can inveigle the management of state-owned banks to lead consortia of banks to loan them zillions of dollars to build posh hotels, on generous terms?
For the Nkrumaists, the ideal society for Ghanaians is the creation of an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia. They believe that because there are not a lot of privately-held large fortunes in the hands of private individuals in nations such as ours, the state must of necessity take a leading role in wealth creation to improve the quality of life of all Ghanaians, through the agency of state-owned enterprises.
Today, we are seeing the wisdom of Nkrumah as Western capitalist nations pour trillions of dollars into even private financial institutions in part-nationalizations – in order to safeguard their national economies. Nkrumah also wanted universal adult suffrage in Ghana – so that all adults of a sound mind could vote to elect their leaders in free and fair elections: not just property owners and wage earners.
Above all, Nkrumah believed in a mixed-economy. However, whiles encouraging private wealth creation, Nkrumah wanted to use the power of the Ghanaian nation-state to regulate that sector’s activities so as to protect society from crooked businesspeople and ensure that they did not grow rich at the expense of the well-being of society: by producing sub-standard or dangerous products and avoiding paying their taxes. He also wanted their wealth creation agenda to fit into the overall national development plan determined by the Ghanaian nation-state as being in the national interest.
The Busia-Danquah group on the other hand wants individuals to be left alone to make their own business decisions with minimum state regulation. In other words, if they prefer to buy waste from Canada to use in a waste-to-energy plant in Kumasi, for example, because they and their Canadian partners will make vast profits from the business of the importation of Canadian waste (instead of using the mountains of waste generated locally here!), the state must not step in to stop them.
It is such inanities that have led to a situation today, in which a nation that is literally being choked to death as it is slowly engulfed by filth, is allowing this nonsense on bamboo stilts to occur – because in the view of the apostles of “private sector-led development” under no circumstances must the state interfere with the greedy and selfish plans of those seeking to go into the lucrative business of the importation of Canadian waste into Ghana - using a waste-to-energy plant in Kumasi, as a perfect cloak to hide their perfidy! Naturally, the ideal for the Busia-Danquaists is for the state to allow them to go ahead with their plans - as it is their private affair.
That is also why, for example, Mr. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, a minster in the present government, was so proud to announce to Ghanaians that the owners of the Kumasi waste-to-energy plant are being allowed to import waste from Canada. Astonishingly, are we in the meantime, not drowning in our own filth? Can anyone doubt that any plan for the Kumasi waste-to-energy plant must have included the use of waste generated locally – and that that must have been an important factor in the environmental protection agency (EPA) granting them permission to build their confounded plant in the first place?
Any surprise then, dear reader, that today we have become a mostly selfish and untruthful people who live in a cruel and brutish “dog-eat-dog” society in which criminals, such as drug barons, are becoming the pillars of society? Are some of these Mafioso not so powerful and influential that a number of them (apart from being the mainstays of numerous charismatic churches up and down our country), are said to even bankroll some of our politicians and political parties (according to the bush telegraph!)?
Hmmm, Ghana – eyeasem oo: enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Sunday, 14 December 2008
GHANAIANS AND THEIR NATION HAVE SIMPLY HAD ENOUGH!
Massa, let me put it in a nutshell – so that it will be short and sweet. Under the NDC, the very lifeblood of our country was being sucked out of it because we had to make regular payments on our unsustainable external debt. Commodity prices were also nowhere near the record levels they have been under this most profligate and incompetent of regimes.
The present regime is one whose members did not have the nous or the gumption to fight for debt cancellation when some of us were doing so publicly in our writing in the 1990’s – because we understood, correctly, that it would give a nation like ours the maneuvering-space to enable us experience growth.
Having become the beneficiaries of the foresight and hard work of others, have they not taken us right back to square one again – by piling up yet more debt: to the extent that today, Ghana is suffering from “debt distress” to use a euphemism much-favoured by the World Bank and the IMF to describe country’s struggling or unable to meet interest payments on their external debt?
Now that the world is going through a recession, and commodity prices have plummeted, we need to have a regime that is not as profligate and above all led by a someone like Professor Mills - whom we all acknowledge, is one of the most honest politicians Ghana has ever had in its history.
Yes, Nana Akufo Add is a fine gentleman - but unfortunately for him, he came to the fore in his party eight years too late, and only after it had succeeded in bringing Ghana to a dead-end. We cannot let a political party, which although is made up of many decent individuals, is however sadly dominated by a few powerful, ruthless, greedy and crooked tribal-supremacist politicians - who in the short space of eight years, have succeeded in dividing a united nation of diverse ethnicity as never before, in our entire history.
Massa, with respect, Ghana cannot possibly survive a MK 11 version of the last eight years of unparalleled greed, incompetence and the nauseating tribal-supremacist nonsense we have had to endure, all this while.
No one would have minded even if our lame-duck “Hypocrite-in-Chief” had left his Kokofu-football politics to simply appointing his fellow tribesmen and women to fill all the top positions in the public sector as long as they were qualified - because they are all Ghanaian citizens too.
However, he did not stop there - he and the ruthless and unprincipled cabal that surrounds him in the presidency, had to go to the extent of hijacking the entire machinery of state to further the outrageous and treasonable ambitions of some of his tribal Chiefs - and offend the sensibilities of the entire nation, for eight long and painful years.
Massa, Ghanaians, are a people who aspire to living in a society that is a meritocracy - not a serfdom. They are unwilling to become the serfs of any traditional rulers - who in the 21st century ICT age, seek to return a democratic nation that had Nkrumah as its first leader, to the pre-colonial feudal era. What perfidy.
The only people who refuse to accept that it is in the long-term interest of our country that Ghanaians turf the NPP out of power, are those insufferable and tiresome “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types – who are too thick to think for themselves and too blind to notice the gang-rape of mother Ghana that has been going on these last eight years. Hopefully, you aren’t one of those, too? Massa, we have had enough!
Hmmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
The present regime is one whose members did not have the nous or the gumption to fight for debt cancellation when some of us were doing so publicly in our writing in the 1990’s – because we understood, correctly, that it would give a nation like ours the maneuvering-space to enable us experience growth.
Having become the beneficiaries of the foresight and hard work of others, have they not taken us right back to square one again – by piling up yet more debt: to the extent that today, Ghana is suffering from “debt distress” to use a euphemism much-favoured by the World Bank and the IMF to describe country’s struggling or unable to meet interest payments on their external debt?
Now that the world is going through a recession, and commodity prices have plummeted, we need to have a regime that is not as profligate and above all led by a someone like Professor Mills - whom we all acknowledge, is one of the most honest politicians Ghana has ever had in its history.
Yes, Nana Akufo Add is a fine gentleman - but unfortunately for him, he came to the fore in his party eight years too late, and only after it had succeeded in bringing Ghana to a dead-end. We cannot let a political party, which although is made up of many decent individuals, is however sadly dominated by a few powerful, ruthless, greedy and crooked tribal-supremacist politicians - who in the short space of eight years, have succeeded in dividing a united nation of diverse ethnicity as never before, in our entire history.
Massa, with respect, Ghana cannot possibly survive a MK 11 version of the last eight years of unparalleled greed, incompetence and the nauseating tribal-supremacist nonsense we have had to endure, all this while.
No one would have minded even if our lame-duck “Hypocrite-in-Chief” had left his Kokofu-football politics to simply appointing his fellow tribesmen and women to fill all the top positions in the public sector as long as they were qualified - because they are all Ghanaian citizens too.
However, he did not stop there - he and the ruthless and unprincipled cabal that surrounds him in the presidency, had to go to the extent of hijacking the entire machinery of state to further the outrageous and treasonable ambitions of some of his tribal Chiefs - and offend the sensibilities of the entire nation, for eight long and painful years.
Massa, Ghanaians, are a people who aspire to living in a society that is a meritocracy - not a serfdom. They are unwilling to become the serfs of any traditional rulers - who in the 21st century ICT age, seek to return a democratic nation that had Nkrumah as its first leader, to the pre-colonial feudal era. What perfidy.
The only people who refuse to accept that it is in the long-term interest of our country that Ghanaians turf the NPP out of power, are those insufferable and tiresome “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types – who are too thick to think for themselves and too blind to notice the gang-rape of mother Ghana that has been going on these last eight years. Hopefully, you aren’t one of those, too? Massa, we have had enough!
Hmmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Re: “Who did the feasibility studies of our Ghana Black gold?”
This sad story, is a typical example of how in the coming years, future generations of Ghanaians will have to spend all the wealth of their oil-rich country, cleaning up the environmental pollution that our generation, in blind pursuit of GDP growth rates, without ever examining what actually constitute that growth, are allowing to go on in Ghana today.
Today, sundry profit seekers, many of them carpetbaggers without an iota of a sense of social conscience or ethical ethos underpinning their businesses, and who are most definitely not interested in the slightest, in acting responsibly in terms of the impact on the natural environment of their operations either, are getting away with environmental degradation that sometimes amounts to crimes against humanity - for the egregious examples of environmental pollution that they cause whiles chasing maximum profits: at the expense of our country and its people.
A typical example is the harm to the natural environment being caused countrywide, by surface gold mining companies, including "galamsay mining".
Unfortunately, we are saddled with an environmental protection agency (EPA) that is poorly resourced, and whose staff aren’t adequately motivated financially for the crucial role they are meant to play in protecting our natural heritage. The EPA as presently constituted, is virtually unable to prevent much of the degradation of our natural environment - as evidenced by the large swathes of the Ghanaian countryside that have been poisoned by dangerous chemicals, such as arsenic and mercury, leeching into soils.
Sadly, our unimaginative leaders, many of whom haven’t a clue about the frightening rate of the destruction of our natural heritage, particularly the fast rate at which Ghana’s biodiversity is being lost, do not think creatively enough to enable them act to halt this disastrous course.
Yet, all they need do, if we do not have the wherewithal to stand up to those destroying our natural heritage, is to work in partnership with some of the leading international environmental NGO’s such as Green Peace, Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, and the Rain Forest Alliance. They can work at the grassroots level in private, public partnerships (PPP) between themselves, local communities and all of Ghana’s District Assemblies
As regards the oil deposits that we have (or do not have!), the fact of the matter is that if we do not nationalize that depleting resource by following the example of nations such as Venezuela and Iran, and make the grave error of judgment that the stooges of neocolonialism and the lackeys of foreign commercial entities now running Nkrumah’s Ghana are making today, and rather choose to continue leaving it in the hands of foreign oil and natural gas companies, we will wake up one day, to discover that like our gold, we have not been able to use our oil wealth to transform Ghanaian society into Africa’s equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia.
Our leaders must understand that as things stand, our oil and natural gas will only end up mostly enriching the shareholders of the foreign oil companies now drilling for oil off our coast. We must be bold and seize the commanding heights of this burgeoning industry - and choose a business model that enables us to use joint-ventures between the best-resourced of the state-owned Chinese oil companies (with 30 per cent stakes! ) and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) with 70 per cent shareholding, to exploit it.
We can always pay for our up-front contributions for such joint-ventures by paying the government of China, with Ghana’s sovereign bonds. We can also pay fair compensation to the foreign oil companies when we nationalize our oil and natural gas industries, by paying them the same way too.
Sadly, because of the unfathomable greed that drives some of our leaders, they prefer to have private foreign oil and natural gas companies controlling this important resource - because the powerful crooks amongst them would rather their own private special purpose vehicles (those opaque offshore entities they set up to launder their kickbacks!), secretly partner those foreign oil companies to exploit our oil and natural gas deposits: to ensure their personal gain and enable them send their personal net worth into the stratosphere. Pity.
Hmmm Ghana - entiye awiaye paa, enia? Asem ebeba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Today, sundry profit seekers, many of them carpetbaggers without an iota of a sense of social conscience or ethical ethos underpinning their businesses, and who are most definitely not interested in the slightest, in acting responsibly in terms of the impact on the natural environment of their operations either, are getting away with environmental degradation that sometimes amounts to crimes against humanity - for the egregious examples of environmental pollution that they cause whiles chasing maximum profits: at the expense of our country and its people.
A typical example is the harm to the natural environment being caused countrywide, by surface gold mining companies, including "galamsay mining".
Unfortunately, we are saddled with an environmental protection agency (EPA) that is poorly resourced, and whose staff aren’t adequately motivated financially for the crucial role they are meant to play in protecting our natural heritage. The EPA as presently constituted, is virtually unable to prevent much of the degradation of our natural environment - as evidenced by the large swathes of the Ghanaian countryside that have been poisoned by dangerous chemicals, such as arsenic and mercury, leeching into soils.
Sadly, our unimaginative leaders, many of whom haven’t a clue about the frightening rate of the destruction of our natural heritage, particularly the fast rate at which Ghana’s biodiversity is being lost, do not think creatively enough to enable them act to halt this disastrous course.
Yet, all they need do, if we do not have the wherewithal to stand up to those destroying our natural heritage, is to work in partnership with some of the leading international environmental NGO’s such as Green Peace, Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, and the Rain Forest Alliance. They can work at the grassroots level in private, public partnerships (PPP) between themselves, local communities and all of Ghana’s District Assemblies
As regards the oil deposits that we have (or do not have!), the fact of the matter is that if we do not nationalize that depleting resource by following the example of nations such as Venezuela and Iran, and make the grave error of judgment that the stooges of neocolonialism and the lackeys of foreign commercial entities now running Nkrumah’s Ghana are making today, and rather choose to continue leaving it in the hands of foreign oil and natural gas companies, we will wake up one day, to discover that like our gold, we have not been able to use our oil wealth to transform Ghanaian society into Africa’s equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia.
Our leaders must understand that as things stand, our oil and natural gas will only end up mostly enriching the shareholders of the foreign oil companies now drilling for oil off our coast. We must be bold and seize the commanding heights of this burgeoning industry - and choose a business model that enables us to use joint-ventures between the best-resourced of the state-owned Chinese oil companies (with 30 per cent stakes! ) and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) with 70 per cent shareholding, to exploit it.
We can always pay for our up-front contributions for such joint-ventures by paying the government of China, with Ghana’s sovereign bonds. We can also pay fair compensation to the foreign oil companies when we nationalize our oil and natural gas industries, by paying them the same way too.
Sadly, because of the unfathomable greed that drives some of our leaders, they prefer to have private foreign oil and natural gas companies controlling this important resource - because the powerful crooks amongst them would rather their own private special purpose vehicles (those opaque offshore entities they set up to launder their kickbacks!), secretly partner those foreign oil companies to exploit our oil and natural gas deposits: to ensure their personal gain and enable them send their personal net worth into the stratosphere. Pity.
Hmmm Ghana - entiye awiaye paa, enia? Asem ebeba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
GHANAIANS SIMPLY WANT CHANGE!
Quote: “ "The NDC is now engaged in concerted preparations for the Presidential run-off," Mr Danny Annang, the party's Greater Accra Regional Chairman told newsmen in Accra to commend the region for voting massively for the party in the December 7 Elections. The NDC obtained 52.1 percent of the valid votes cast in the Presidential as against 46.0 percent obtained by the NPP, whiles in the Parliamentary the NDC won 18 out of the 27 parliamentary seats in the region as against nine by the NPP.
In Election 2004 the NDC obtained 46.3 percent of the valid votes cast in the Presidential as against 51.9 percent obtained by the NPP whiles in the Parliamentary the NDC won eleven seats as against 16 by the NPP.” End of quotation from Ghana News Agency report, 13/1/08
Yes, Professor Atta Mills will indeed be elected as Ghana’s president on 28th December 2008, God willing - and if the National Democratic Congress (NDC) can act to prevent any rigging taking place on the day.
Their vigilance in all the polling stations across Ghana will ensure that the verdict of the people is not stolen on December 28, 2008 - and ensure their candidate’s victory.
There is no doubt that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has a fine candidate in Nana Akufo Addo and if they had selected him to be their party’s candidate for the presidency in the December 2000 election, perhaps he would have left a far better legacy for his party than the present incumbent has. Unfortunately for him, Nana Akufo Addo entered the fray, eight years too late.
The ordinary people of Ghana, who are so often taken for granted by the educated urban elites who rule them, have shown clearly that they are very discerning. They are a great deal far more sophisticated politically than Ghana’s political class gives them credit for. In a sense, the National Democratic Congress owes a huge debt of gratitude to Flt Lt. Rawlings, for bringing Professor Mills into their party.
The NPP lost this election because of the stark contrast in the choice the two parties offered the electorate. Ghanaians (the ones who aren’t the “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types - who wear blinkers permanently: and are too thick to think for themselves and too blind to see what has been going on in Ghana since 2000, i.e.!) had a choice between the humbug, arrogance, corruption and the dissimulation of many of the NPP’s leadership, especially the few powerful and incredibly greedy tribal-supremacist politicians in the presidency, and the humble nature of the peace-loving and non-tribalistic nationalist, Professor Mills.
As it happens, Professor Atta Mills is unquestionably one of the most honest politicians in Ghana’s history - and at a time when many Ghanaians feel that corruption in Ghana has reached its apogee under the NPP, his character and reputation for honesty have combined to make the NDC such a formidable force in this particular election.
The NPP is compounding its woes by the many amazing and incredible u-turns it is making all of a sudden: like a wounded elephant thrashing about in desperation - all of which only serve to reinforce the image many Ghanaian have of them as a cynical and dissimulating party full of ruthless and greedy individuals prepared to do anything to hang on to power.
Blatant tribalism is also not something that most Ghanaians, irrespective of where they hail from, are particularly enthused about - as they recognize the danger it poses to the unity and stability of their country. The country is rejecting the clear and present danger tribalism represents, by choosing to make Professor Atta Mills the next president - to ensure that there is no MK11 version of the blatant tribalism of the previous eight years, going forward!
In the year 2000, who would have thought, after hearing the criticism by the NPP of the sale by the NDC regime of a 30 per cent stake in Ghana Telecom to Telecom Malaysia that the NPP would end up asset-stripping Ghana, in one opaque privatization deal after another throughout its tenure?
To top all that it even went ahead and passed a law indemnifying those who set up the GT takeover deal from prosecution for any criminality associated with the deal - even though it is clearly an illegality as our constitution demands that all Ghanaians fight corruption, not protect those who engage in acts of corruption! Who wants leaders like that, I ask?
Who would have believed in 2000 that in what must rank as one of the most egregious examples of fraud in high places ever seen in Ghana, that in 2008 the NPP would railroad a bill through parliament sealing a sale and purchase agreement for VALCO by a “consortium” (grandly named International Aluminum Partners, by the crooks on the make, and on the take, who failed so miserably in putting the deal together!) made up of two foreign companies both of which publicly denied ever agreeing to purchase the company?
Who wants a political part that is full of such shenanigans? Ghanaians have simply had enough - and want change. Above all they want a president from a party other than the NPP who will ensure that all the crooked deals that have gone on in the last eight years are thoroughly investigated and that the perpetrators who sought to enrich themselves at the expense of Ghanaians and their country, are prosecuted and jailed. Period.
Even if the NPP had turned Ghana into paradise, they would have still been voted out of office for that reason alone. Ghanaians do not want their country to be taken for a ride ever again by any group of politicians they elect into office - especially as they want the revenues from oil and natural gas to be used to transform their country into Africa’s equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia: not to enrich Ghana’s crooked politicians!
Hmmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May Go bless and protect our homeland Ghana always. Long live freedom! Log live Ghana!
In Election 2004 the NDC obtained 46.3 percent of the valid votes cast in the Presidential as against 51.9 percent obtained by the NPP whiles in the Parliamentary the NDC won eleven seats as against 16 by the NPP.” End of quotation from Ghana News Agency report, 13/1/08
Yes, Professor Atta Mills will indeed be elected as Ghana’s president on 28th December 2008, God willing - and if the National Democratic Congress (NDC) can act to prevent any rigging taking place on the day.
Their vigilance in all the polling stations across Ghana will ensure that the verdict of the people is not stolen on December 28, 2008 - and ensure their candidate’s victory.
There is no doubt that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has a fine candidate in Nana Akufo Addo and if they had selected him to be their party’s candidate for the presidency in the December 2000 election, perhaps he would have left a far better legacy for his party than the present incumbent has. Unfortunately for him, Nana Akufo Addo entered the fray, eight years too late.
The ordinary people of Ghana, who are so often taken for granted by the educated urban elites who rule them, have shown clearly that they are very discerning. They are a great deal far more sophisticated politically than Ghana’s political class gives them credit for. In a sense, the National Democratic Congress owes a huge debt of gratitude to Flt Lt. Rawlings, for bringing Professor Mills into their party.
The NPP lost this election because of the stark contrast in the choice the two parties offered the electorate. Ghanaians (the ones who aren’t the “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types - who wear blinkers permanently: and are too thick to think for themselves and too blind to see what has been going on in Ghana since 2000, i.e.!) had a choice between the humbug, arrogance, corruption and the dissimulation of many of the NPP’s leadership, especially the few powerful and incredibly greedy tribal-supremacist politicians in the presidency, and the humble nature of the peace-loving and non-tribalistic nationalist, Professor Mills.
As it happens, Professor Atta Mills is unquestionably one of the most honest politicians in Ghana’s history - and at a time when many Ghanaians feel that corruption in Ghana has reached its apogee under the NPP, his character and reputation for honesty have combined to make the NDC such a formidable force in this particular election.
The NPP is compounding its woes by the many amazing and incredible u-turns it is making all of a sudden: like a wounded elephant thrashing about in desperation - all of which only serve to reinforce the image many Ghanaian have of them as a cynical and dissimulating party full of ruthless and greedy individuals prepared to do anything to hang on to power.
Blatant tribalism is also not something that most Ghanaians, irrespective of where they hail from, are particularly enthused about - as they recognize the danger it poses to the unity and stability of their country. The country is rejecting the clear and present danger tribalism represents, by choosing to make Professor Atta Mills the next president - to ensure that there is no MK11 version of the blatant tribalism of the previous eight years, going forward!
In the year 2000, who would have thought, after hearing the criticism by the NPP of the sale by the NDC regime of a 30 per cent stake in Ghana Telecom to Telecom Malaysia that the NPP would end up asset-stripping Ghana, in one opaque privatization deal after another throughout its tenure?
To top all that it even went ahead and passed a law indemnifying those who set up the GT takeover deal from prosecution for any criminality associated with the deal - even though it is clearly an illegality as our constitution demands that all Ghanaians fight corruption, not protect those who engage in acts of corruption! Who wants leaders like that, I ask?
Who would have believed in 2000 that in what must rank as one of the most egregious examples of fraud in high places ever seen in Ghana, that in 2008 the NPP would railroad a bill through parliament sealing a sale and purchase agreement for VALCO by a “consortium” (grandly named International Aluminum Partners, by the crooks on the make, and on the take, who failed so miserably in putting the deal together!) made up of two foreign companies both of which publicly denied ever agreeing to purchase the company?
Who wants a political part that is full of such shenanigans? Ghanaians have simply had enough - and want change. Above all they want a president from a party other than the NPP who will ensure that all the crooked deals that have gone on in the last eight years are thoroughly investigated and that the perpetrators who sought to enrich themselves at the expense of Ghanaians and their country, are prosecuted and jailed. Period.
Even if the NPP had turned Ghana into paradise, they would have still been voted out of office for that reason alone. Ghanaians do not want their country to be taken for a ride ever again by any group of politicians they elect into office - especially as they want the revenues from oil and natural gas to be used to transform their country into Africa’s equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia: not to enrich Ghana’s crooked politicians!
Hmmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May Go bless and protect our homeland Ghana always. Long live freedom! Log live Ghana!
KWAME NKRUMAH’S CPP CANNOT AND MUST NOT REMAIN NEUTRAL – IT MUST SUPPORT PROFESSOR ATTA MILLS IF IT TRULY CARES ABOUT GHANA AND GHANAIANS!
For a left-of-centre political party, especially Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples Party (CPP) to state that it will remain neutral at this critical juncture of Ghanaian democracy's path to good governance is tantamount to a betrayal of mother Ghana.
Ghana cannot simply continue being ruled by an incompetent political party that has succeeded in piling up so much debt that today, Ghana, after having virtually all its old external debt cancelled, is again suffering "debt distress" - to use the World Bank and IMF's euphemism for debt that is squeezing the very lifeblood out of a nation crippled by a large and unsustainable external debt.
If, as the statement issued and signed by Mr. Ladi Nylander, the chairperson of the CPP says, the leadership of the party will continue to “explore its options”, then they had better do so quickly - and opt for change: and do so now. Period.
Remaining neutral will amount to giving succour to the incompetent and corrupt New Patriotic Party (NPP) to win the presidency yet again - and continue dividing our country with their outrageous tribalism and short-sighted and destructive policy of asset-stripping Ghana till kingdom come to pay for their life of Riley at the expense of Ghanaians. How can that be? Why, have they too been bought by the NPP?
Is such an outrageous position, adopted by the leadership of a political party that says it seeks the creation of an egalitarian society in Ghana, not a betrayal of the principles of Nkrumah our party's founder? Why, is the CPP leadership planning to sell their supporters and mother Ghana, out?
Some of us will quickly turn against them if they refuse to support Professor Mills - and they had better prepare "well-well" for a future of constantly being at the receiving end of our ire.
Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom and his colleagues can forget about any future in the party Nkrumah founded, if they refuse to help Ghana change its leadership in the run-off of the presidential election.
They are entitled to make their own choices, but they must not forget that some of us wield pretty mean pens - and we promise that we will make sure that they will never get anywhere in Ghanaian politics if they betray Ghana by remaining neutral in this election, for as long as we live. They had better revise their notes quickly. A word to the wise...
Hmmm Ghana - enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Ghana cannot simply continue being ruled by an incompetent political party that has succeeded in piling up so much debt that today, Ghana, after having virtually all its old external debt cancelled, is again suffering "debt distress" - to use the World Bank and IMF's euphemism for debt that is squeezing the very lifeblood out of a nation crippled by a large and unsustainable external debt.
If, as the statement issued and signed by Mr. Ladi Nylander, the chairperson of the CPP says, the leadership of the party will continue to “explore its options”, then they had better do so quickly - and opt for change: and do so now. Period.
Remaining neutral will amount to giving succour to the incompetent and corrupt New Patriotic Party (NPP) to win the presidency yet again - and continue dividing our country with their outrageous tribalism and short-sighted and destructive policy of asset-stripping Ghana till kingdom come to pay for their life of Riley at the expense of Ghanaians. How can that be? Why, have they too been bought by the NPP?
Is such an outrageous position, adopted by the leadership of a political party that says it seeks the creation of an egalitarian society in Ghana, not a betrayal of the principles of Nkrumah our party's founder? Why, is the CPP leadership planning to sell their supporters and mother Ghana, out?
Some of us will quickly turn against them if they refuse to support Professor Mills - and they had better prepare "well-well" for a future of constantly being at the receiving end of our ire.
Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom and his colleagues can forget about any future in the party Nkrumah founded, if they refuse to help Ghana change its leadership in the run-off of the presidential election.
They are entitled to make their own choices, but they must not forget that some of us wield pretty mean pens - and we promise that we will make sure that they will never get anywhere in Ghanaian politics if they betray Ghana by remaining neutral in this election, for as long as we live. They had better revise their notes quickly. A word to the wise...
Hmmm Ghana - enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Saturday, 13 December 2008
Re: “Kufour Is Almost Done Destroying The NPP Temporarily!”
What a brilliant article, Nii Okunka Bannerman! Massa, believe me, even if the NPP had succeeded in turning Ghana into paradise by now (which they most certainly have not!), ordinary Ghanaians will still vote them out of office on 28th December 2008, regardless.
Massa, Ghanaians, who aren't the "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidon-types (who wear blinkers permanently and are too thick to think for themselves and too blind to see what is going on in Ghana. today!!), simply want a new regime that will probe the NPP regime thoroughly - because they understand that that is the only way they will end corruption amongst Ghana's educated urban elites: some of whose greed knows no bounds!
As for the NPP propaganda designed to evoke fear in Ghanaians about any possible role that JJ Rawlings will play in an Atta Mills regime, well, who doesn't know what happened to President Chiluba, when he handpicked a man he thought was going to become his puppet?
Discerning Ghanaians understand that a President Atta-Mills will not be anyone's "poodle" (as some frightfully "meh" hack once had the effrontery to label him!). As President Kufuor's unremitting and unchallenged Kokofu-football politics has clearly shown, under our constitution, the position of president is a pretty powerful one. Anyone occupying the position of President of the Republic of Ghana, will never be the puppet of any Ghanaian – not even a J.J. Rawlings. Period.
In any case what stops a President Atta Mills from appointing Nana Kunadu Agyemang Rawlings as Ghana's ambassador to China - and delighting the Chinese leaders with being honoured with our former first couple as envoys of Ghana's new left-of-centre president?
Massa, as you so clearly point out, Ghanaians are no fools - and they will reject the dream some NPP members have of creating a MK11 version of President Kufuor's eight years of unremitting tribal-supremacist maneuvering and dictatorship by stealth, on 28th December 2008.
Who in this country wants to see another crop of insufferable traditional rulers and their sundry tribal-supremacist acolytes (our local version of the odious white supremacists of the Western world, who look down on any human being who is not white like they are!) with gargantuan egos, and full of overweening ambition, forever offending the sensibilities of a united nation of ethnic diversity, for another eight years - as happened during the tenure of the powerful tribal supremacists who hid behind the presidency to divide our country so badly with their nauseating Kokofu-football politics, under President Kufuor?
Massa, yes, we are all voting for change - to ensure that the last eight years of unbridled corruption are thoroughly investigated by a new regime from a different political party, the NDC. Ghanaians are simply impatient to see that all the powerful crooks who joined President Kufuor and Co. in the brutal gang-rape of mother Ghana, are tried and punished! Period.
Hmmm, Ghana - enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Massa, Ghanaians, who aren't the "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidon-types (who wear blinkers permanently and are too thick to think for themselves and too blind to see what is going on in Ghana. today!!), simply want a new regime that will probe the NPP regime thoroughly - because they understand that that is the only way they will end corruption amongst Ghana's educated urban elites: some of whose greed knows no bounds!
As for the NPP propaganda designed to evoke fear in Ghanaians about any possible role that JJ Rawlings will play in an Atta Mills regime, well, who doesn't know what happened to President Chiluba, when he handpicked a man he thought was going to become his puppet?
Discerning Ghanaians understand that a President Atta-Mills will not be anyone's "poodle" (as some frightfully "meh" hack once had the effrontery to label him!). As President Kufuor's unremitting and unchallenged Kokofu-football politics has clearly shown, under our constitution, the position of president is a pretty powerful one. Anyone occupying the position of President of the Republic of Ghana, will never be the puppet of any Ghanaian – not even a J.J. Rawlings. Period.
In any case what stops a President Atta Mills from appointing Nana Kunadu Agyemang Rawlings as Ghana's ambassador to China - and delighting the Chinese leaders with being honoured with our former first couple as envoys of Ghana's new left-of-centre president?
Massa, as you so clearly point out, Ghanaians are no fools - and they will reject the dream some NPP members have of creating a MK11 version of President Kufuor's eight years of unremitting tribal-supremacist maneuvering and dictatorship by stealth, on 28th December 2008.
Who in this country wants to see another crop of insufferable traditional rulers and their sundry tribal-supremacist acolytes (our local version of the odious white supremacists of the Western world, who look down on any human being who is not white like they are!) with gargantuan egos, and full of overweening ambition, forever offending the sensibilities of a united nation of ethnic diversity, for another eight years - as happened during the tenure of the powerful tribal supremacists who hid behind the presidency to divide our country so badly with their nauseating Kokofu-football politics, under President Kufuor?
Massa, yes, we are all voting for change - to ensure that the last eight years of unbridled corruption are thoroughly investigated by a new regime from a different political party, the NDC. Ghanaians are simply impatient to see that all the powerful crooks who joined President Kufuor and Co. in the brutal gang-rape of mother Ghana, are tried and punished! Period.
Hmmm, Ghana - enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Friday, 12 December 2008
WARM VISIT FROM THREE AGENTS OF DEATH – A PERFECT ILLUSTRATION OF HOW YESTERDAY’S CULTURE OF SILENCE IS NO DIFFERENT FROM TODAY’S CULTURE OF IMPUNITY?
Last night I heard long bursts of automatic gunfire around the fence-wall that encloses my house, which lasted for about an hour, all told. And I, who had always thought of himself as being exceedingly brave, was reduced to a shaking and frightened emotional wreck. “So much for your bravery,” I kept on telling myself.
Having considered the ordeal in the cold light of day, I have come to the reassuring conclusion that actually, I really am as brave as I had always thought I was. How do you defend yourself from myrmidon killers wielding automatic weapons - if you yourself are an unarmed pacifist?
Prelude to that brief midnight, hell-on-earth experience of mine; I had had two rather odd encounters with three strangers who called at my house, earlier that day.
Yesterday morning, an elderly gentleman wearing sunglasses (yes, what a dead giveaway - the poor clueless soul!), was led to my house, by the local busybody in my neighbourhood - the ever-friendly and ever-helpful kebab-seller, who operates from a popular drinking spot that lies due north, downwards of the part of McCarthy Hill where I live
But I digress, dear reader. I immediately knew something was up, when I asked the old man in dark glasses, who he wanted to see - as I had never set eyes on him before. He adjusted his dark glasses and mumbled something about being a Chief.
Well, to cut a long story short, I asked the kebab seller to take him to a house near Jayees Commercial Institute - where some NDC big shot lives: having ascertained that it was Jerry Nii Acquaye Thompson who he apparently was after. I felt that the NDC big shot would direct him to wherever it was that that Mr. Thompson, whom Mr. Dark Glasses was apparently seeking, lived.
As a parting shot, the dear old soul asked me to come out - so he could see my face: whereupon I promptly told him, I was wary of strangers, because of the constant stream of death threats I receive. “Ah, so you are a reporter, then?” Yet another clue - as I had not told him anything about myself. Perhaps he had been interviewing the ever-friendly kebab seller?
Well, it so happens that the previous day, I also received a message from my broadband internet service provider, Ghana Telecom, informing me that they were coming to change my phone. Naturally, my ears pricked up - and I said that it was better they came to change the phone the next day: as I was on my way to my village.
Well, not too long after the old man in dark glasses had departed, a lady and a gentleman then turned up - with a telephone (which weighed a ton and looked suspiciously like something from the stable of Lorraine Electronic Surveillance - and had the rather odd number: 021 9762238!). So, I welcomed them, by asking them if they were from the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) - which seems to think that critics of the government are enemies of the Ghanaian nation-state, for some extraordinary reason. Incredible.
So, why am I boring you with all this dreary stuff, you might wonder, dear reader? I acknowledge that all the events I have enumerated above, may not be connected - and could be a series of sheer coincidences.
If they are what I think they are - the hirelings of some faceless individuals who are the lackeys of the powerful crooks in the presidency whose greed knows no bounds and think they are invincible, and who are trying to intimidate me because of my outspoken views and refusal to heed the many death threats I receive - then I am outraged and livid at such monstrous impunity. Just who do these cowards think they are?
Perhaps the time has now come for the UN and the EU to put aside political correctness -and take a second look at the notion of sovereignty.
In the 21sth century we must let sovereignty lie in the people who are the citizens of nation-states - not the men and women who make up the government at any given point in time, in any given nation-state: some of whom are mass murderers who commit crimes against humanity, regularly.
The international community must always intervene to protect the citizens of nations around the world when the regimes that rule them, abuse their human rights in such egregious fashion, as is currently occurring in Zimbabwe and eastern DR Congo. Period.
Why should I and others like me be terrorized - simply because some powerful crooks who should be behind prison bars for the gang-rape of mother Ghana, if there wasn’t such a culture of impunity in this country, don’t like what I write and say on radio sometimes?
Why should millions of DR Congo citizens living in the eastern part of their country, today’s forsaken Africans, pitiful human pawns, be sacrificed daily as lambs to the slaughter on the alter of the tribal-supremacist ambitions of that cruel warlord, the self-styled "General" Nkunda, that narcissistic monster, who commits crimes against humanity with impunity, on a daily basis?
Must Africa and the rest of humanity continue to close their eyes to this pogrom because they are afraid to offend the sensibilities of Laurent Nkunda and Rwanda’s ruling elite - ruthless people who have dreams of setting up a Greater Tutsi nation, as a larger successor to the apartheid state they have succeeded in setting up, in that police state masquerading as a democracy and known as Rwanda?
Why should the sovereign people of Zimbabwe end up as slaves of Robert Mugabe and the greedy generals who hide behind him to gang-rape that once-prosperous African nation they have succeeded in destroying with their greed, selfishness and incredible stupidity?
Why should a law-abiding and ordinary Ghanaian be terrorized by agents of some powerful crooks embedded in the government that ought to protect its citizens - in whom sovereignty really ought to lie: just because he criticizes the regime in power today?
What is the difference between those powerful Mafioso embedded in the presidency today, who seek to terrorize law-abiding critics of their regime, such as Kofi Thompson, and the brutes who terrorized us in the days of the "culture of silence"?
Today, are journalists who speak the truth as they see it, as well as those who refuse to sell their conscience and engage in regime praise-singing, not intimidated subtly (as was the case in the firing of automatic weapons outside my house), all the time - and sometimes beaten up, today, too? I am sick and tired of the antics of these bloody fools who tricked their way to power in 2000 and now seek to enslave ordinary people permanently. What perfidy!
Hmmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Having considered the ordeal in the cold light of day, I have come to the reassuring conclusion that actually, I really am as brave as I had always thought I was. How do you defend yourself from myrmidon killers wielding automatic weapons - if you yourself are an unarmed pacifist?
Prelude to that brief midnight, hell-on-earth experience of mine; I had had two rather odd encounters with three strangers who called at my house, earlier that day.
Yesterday morning, an elderly gentleman wearing sunglasses (yes, what a dead giveaway - the poor clueless soul!), was led to my house, by the local busybody in my neighbourhood - the ever-friendly and ever-helpful kebab-seller, who operates from a popular drinking spot that lies due north, downwards of the part of McCarthy Hill where I live
But I digress, dear reader. I immediately knew something was up, when I asked the old man in dark glasses, who he wanted to see - as I had never set eyes on him before. He adjusted his dark glasses and mumbled something about being a Chief.
Well, to cut a long story short, I asked the kebab seller to take him to a house near Jayees Commercial Institute - where some NDC big shot lives: having ascertained that it was Jerry Nii Acquaye Thompson who he apparently was after. I felt that the NDC big shot would direct him to wherever it was that that Mr. Thompson, whom Mr. Dark Glasses was apparently seeking, lived.
As a parting shot, the dear old soul asked me to come out - so he could see my face: whereupon I promptly told him, I was wary of strangers, because of the constant stream of death threats I receive. “Ah, so you are a reporter, then?” Yet another clue - as I had not told him anything about myself. Perhaps he had been interviewing the ever-friendly kebab seller?
Well, it so happens that the previous day, I also received a message from my broadband internet service provider, Ghana Telecom, informing me that they were coming to change my phone. Naturally, my ears pricked up - and I said that it was better they came to change the phone the next day: as I was on my way to my village.
Well, not too long after the old man in dark glasses had departed, a lady and a gentleman then turned up - with a telephone (which weighed a ton and looked suspiciously like something from the stable of Lorraine Electronic Surveillance - and had the rather odd number: 021 9762238!). So, I welcomed them, by asking them if they were from the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) - which seems to think that critics of the government are enemies of the Ghanaian nation-state, for some extraordinary reason. Incredible.
So, why am I boring you with all this dreary stuff, you might wonder, dear reader? I acknowledge that all the events I have enumerated above, may not be connected - and could be a series of sheer coincidences.
If they are what I think they are - the hirelings of some faceless individuals who are the lackeys of the powerful crooks in the presidency whose greed knows no bounds and think they are invincible, and who are trying to intimidate me because of my outspoken views and refusal to heed the many death threats I receive - then I am outraged and livid at such monstrous impunity. Just who do these cowards think they are?
Perhaps the time has now come for the UN and the EU to put aside political correctness -and take a second look at the notion of sovereignty.
In the 21sth century we must let sovereignty lie in the people who are the citizens of nation-states - not the men and women who make up the government at any given point in time, in any given nation-state: some of whom are mass murderers who commit crimes against humanity, regularly.
The international community must always intervene to protect the citizens of nations around the world when the regimes that rule them, abuse their human rights in such egregious fashion, as is currently occurring in Zimbabwe and eastern DR Congo. Period.
Why should I and others like me be terrorized - simply because some powerful crooks who should be behind prison bars for the gang-rape of mother Ghana, if there wasn’t such a culture of impunity in this country, don’t like what I write and say on radio sometimes?
Why should millions of DR Congo citizens living in the eastern part of their country, today’s forsaken Africans, pitiful human pawns, be sacrificed daily as lambs to the slaughter on the alter of the tribal-supremacist ambitions of that cruel warlord, the self-styled "General" Nkunda, that narcissistic monster, who commits crimes against humanity with impunity, on a daily basis?
Must Africa and the rest of humanity continue to close their eyes to this pogrom because they are afraid to offend the sensibilities of Laurent Nkunda and Rwanda’s ruling elite - ruthless people who have dreams of setting up a Greater Tutsi nation, as a larger successor to the apartheid state they have succeeded in setting up, in that police state masquerading as a democracy and known as Rwanda?
Why should the sovereign people of Zimbabwe end up as slaves of Robert Mugabe and the greedy generals who hide behind him to gang-rape that once-prosperous African nation they have succeeded in destroying with their greed, selfishness and incredible stupidity?
Why should a law-abiding and ordinary Ghanaian be terrorized by agents of some powerful crooks embedded in the government that ought to protect its citizens - in whom sovereignty really ought to lie: just because he criticizes the regime in power today?
What is the difference between those powerful Mafioso embedded in the presidency today, who seek to terrorize law-abiding critics of their regime, such as Kofi Thompson, and the brutes who terrorized us in the days of the "culture of silence"?
Today, are journalists who speak the truth as they see it, as well as those who refuse to sell their conscience and engage in regime praise-singing, not intimidated subtly (as was the case in the firing of automatic weapons outside my house), all the time - and sometimes beaten up, today, too? I am sick and tired of the antics of these bloody fools who tricked their way to power in 2000 and now seek to enslave ordinary people permanently. What perfidy!
Hmmm, Ghana – enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Thursday, 11 December 2008
SHOULD THE CPP GET OFF ITS FENCE OF POLITICAL CONVENIENCE - AND SUPPORT PROFESSOR ATTA -MILLS?
One certainly hopes that all those in the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) whose task it will be to decide which of the two candidates their party ought to back in the run-off for the presidential election on the 28th December 2008, will take the national interest into account - and consequently opt for the National Democratic Congress’ candidate, Professor Mills.
Clearly, Ghanaians want a change of government. For, when Ghanaians voted for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in December 2000, they were full of hope that the party would set new standards of morality in our public life. Sadly, they did not deliver. Today, we have all seen the kind of “dog-eat-dog” society that has evolved in our country over the period the NPP has been in power.
The NPP has been very successful at scrapping the bottom of the pork barrel - and in the process they have created the perfect enabling-environment for the politically well-connected to prosper mightily these last eight years. Men and women, not previously known for their acumen in accumulating wealth, have successfully sent their personal net worth into the stratosphere at a dizzying pace, as they progress from deal to deal.
The nation’s collective jaw dropped not too long ago, for example, when Ghanaians were told of the latest caper pulled by some of the most powerful amongst the country’s influence-peddling and politically well-connected, upwardly-mobile deal-makers (classic examples of the financial equivalent of eager neophytes!): getting parliament to approve a sale and purchase agreement of VALCO by a non-existent consortium said to consist of Norske Hydro and a Brazilian conglomerate.
Sadly, greed has so infected our rulers that some of them can even succeed in getting Ghana’s parliament to approve a sale and purchase agreement for a consortium (grandly christened International Aluminum Partners to give it gravitas: so as to impress the gullible who fill the debating chamber of our supine legislature, to approve the sale of VALCO!) that existed only in the rather vivid imagination of the influence peddlers assigned the task of fronting for the powerful and ruthless crooks who dominate the NPP so completely, and whose offshore special purpose vehicles usually benefit from such privatization deals (according to the bush telegraph - not poor old me!).
Yet another example of the perfidy of some of our rulers these last eight years is the amazing story of Jake Obestebi-Lamptey.
That rather important personage (whom I have a soft spot for, although I loathe his party and all it stands for!) actually led the media to the official residences of ministers of the NDC regime in the early part of 2001, as part of his effort to get them to quit those houses - so that they could be renovated for him and his colleagues!
Incredibly, today, Mr. Obestebi-Lamptey has now ended up trying to acquire the house allocated to him when he was a minister - and on which a great deal of taxpayers’ money was expended: because he demanded that further changes be made to suit his taste, after the initial renovation work on the building was completed. The denouement of the amazing story of the official residences of government ministers, which started with that 2001 media-circus, neatly sums up the ethos that has underpinned this most self-seeking of regimes. Who wants such a political party to govern our country, yet again?
The CPP has no choice but to back the NDC - so that the nation can discover the full extent of the (mostly-secretive!) egregious asset-stripping of the enterprise Ghana that has gone on since the NPP came to power. It is crucial that the good people of Ghana get to know which of the members of this regime have benefitted from that outrageous and short-sighted policy of selling national assets - assets built with the blood, sweat and the tears of Ghanaian workers: just to fund those globetrotting-profligates’ life-of-Riley lifestyles at mother Ghana’s expense!
The question we all ought to ponder, is: when the NPP government finishes selling all of Ghana’s assets to the foreign collaborators with whom some of them are busy gang-raping mother Ghana, what else will they try and sell? Will they try to sell the entire landmass of our country, too, just as they have apparently sold off large tracts of valuable land belonging to the Ghana Armed Forces - or try and sell the ordinary people of Ghana into slavery, too? Such a political party definitely does not deserve to rule our country for another four-year term. Period.
The CPP must get off its fence of convenience immediately - and call on its supporters to vote for Professor Atta Mills: who without doubt is one of the most honest politicians Ghana has ever had in its entire history.
How many of the presidential candidates, apart from Dr Mahama and Professor Mills, showed any willingness to publicly declare the assets of himself as well as that of his spouse before coming to power - and to get all his ministers to do same too? Ditto after leaving office? That is exactly the kind of leader Ghana desperately needs now - after the unfathomable greed we have seen over the eight years that the NPP has been in power.
The NPP’s idea of developing Ghana is no different from that of a shortsighted entrepreneur who aims to grow his company through leveraged buy-outs - at a time the world is experiencing a credit crunch of global proportions. We do not need a regime that boasts of increasing Ghana’s GDP, when in reality all it has done is to simply pile up debt for future generations of our countrymen to pay off.
What sense is there in borrowing money just to build presidential palaces and purchase two luxury presidential jets at the same time - rather than building hundreds of thousands of good quality houses for ordinary people to occupy at affordable rental rates?
The dignity of the people of Ghana is not reflected in luxury presidential palaces - it is reflected in the good quality of life enjoyed by the ordinary people of this country. Period. We will never become Africa’s equivalent of the equalitarian societies of Scandinavia with leaders who have that kind of an elitist mindset. Professor Mills is the perfect president for our country at this juncture of our history. Period.
Hmmm, Ghana - enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana.
Clearly, Ghanaians want a change of government. For, when Ghanaians voted for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in December 2000, they were full of hope that the party would set new standards of morality in our public life. Sadly, they did not deliver. Today, we have all seen the kind of “dog-eat-dog” society that has evolved in our country over the period the NPP has been in power.
The NPP has been very successful at scrapping the bottom of the pork barrel - and in the process they have created the perfect enabling-environment for the politically well-connected to prosper mightily these last eight years. Men and women, not previously known for their acumen in accumulating wealth, have successfully sent their personal net worth into the stratosphere at a dizzying pace, as they progress from deal to deal.
The nation’s collective jaw dropped not too long ago, for example, when Ghanaians were told of the latest caper pulled by some of the most powerful amongst the country’s influence-peddling and politically well-connected, upwardly-mobile deal-makers (classic examples of the financial equivalent of eager neophytes!): getting parliament to approve a sale and purchase agreement of VALCO by a non-existent consortium said to consist of Norske Hydro and a Brazilian conglomerate.
Sadly, greed has so infected our rulers that some of them can even succeed in getting Ghana’s parliament to approve a sale and purchase agreement for a consortium (grandly christened International Aluminum Partners to give it gravitas: so as to impress the gullible who fill the debating chamber of our supine legislature, to approve the sale of VALCO!) that existed only in the rather vivid imagination of the influence peddlers assigned the task of fronting for the powerful and ruthless crooks who dominate the NPP so completely, and whose offshore special purpose vehicles usually benefit from such privatization deals (according to the bush telegraph - not poor old me!).
Yet another example of the perfidy of some of our rulers these last eight years is the amazing story of Jake Obestebi-Lamptey.
That rather important personage (whom I have a soft spot for, although I loathe his party and all it stands for!) actually led the media to the official residences of ministers of the NDC regime in the early part of 2001, as part of his effort to get them to quit those houses - so that they could be renovated for him and his colleagues!
Incredibly, today, Mr. Obestebi-Lamptey has now ended up trying to acquire the house allocated to him when he was a minister - and on which a great deal of taxpayers’ money was expended: because he demanded that further changes be made to suit his taste, after the initial renovation work on the building was completed. The denouement of the amazing story of the official residences of government ministers, which started with that 2001 media-circus, neatly sums up the ethos that has underpinned this most self-seeking of regimes. Who wants such a political party to govern our country, yet again?
The CPP has no choice but to back the NDC - so that the nation can discover the full extent of the (mostly-secretive!) egregious asset-stripping of the enterprise Ghana that has gone on since the NPP came to power. It is crucial that the good people of Ghana get to know which of the members of this regime have benefitted from that outrageous and short-sighted policy of selling national assets - assets built with the blood, sweat and the tears of Ghanaian workers: just to fund those globetrotting-profligates’ life-of-Riley lifestyles at mother Ghana’s expense!
The question we all ought to ponder, is: when the NPP government finishes selling all of Ghana’s assets to the foreign collaborators with whom some of them are busy gang-raping mother Ghana, what else will they try and sell? Will they try to sell the entire landmass of our country, too, just as they have apparently sold off large tracts of valuable land belonging to the Ghana Armed Forces - or try and sell the ordinary people of Ghana into slavery, too? Such a political party definitely does not deserve to rule our country for another four-year term. Period.
The CPP must get off its fence of convenience immediately - and call on its supporters to vote for Professor Atta Mills: who without doubt is one of the most honest politicians Ghana has ever had in its entire history.
How many of the presidential candidates, apart from Dr Mahama and Professor Mills, showed any willingness to publicly declare the assets of himself as well as that of his spouse before coming to power - and to get all his ministers to do same too? Ditto after leaving office? That is exactly the kind of leader Ghana desperately needs now - after the unfathomable greed we have seen over the eight years that the NPP has been in power.
The NPP’s idea of developing Ghana is no different from that of a shortsighted entrepreneur who aims to grow his company through leveraged buy-outs - at a time the world is experiencing a credit crunch of global proportions. We do not need a regime that boasts of increasing Ghana’s GDP, when in reality all it has done is to simply pile up debt for future generations of our countrymen to pay off.
What sense is there in borrowing money just to build presidential palaces and purchase two luxury presidential jets at the same time - rather than building hundreds of thousands of good quality houses for ordinary people to occupy at affordable rental rates?
The dignity of the people of Ghana is not reflected in luxury presidential palaces - it is reflected in the good quality of life enjoyed by the ordinary people of this country. Period. We will never become Africa’s equivalent of the equalitarian societies of Scandinavia with leaders who have that kind of an elitist mindset. Professor Mills is the perfect president for our country at this juncture of our history. Period.
Hmmm, Ghana - enti yeawiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana.
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
RADIO GOLD FM DID NOT MAKE UP THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE MIDNIGHT JOURNEY OF THE CONTESTED WEIJA CONSTITUENCY BALLOT BOXES TO AMASSAMAN!
Massa, with respect, do not be absurd - Radio Gold FM did not make up the extraordinary story of the mysterious midnight journey of the contested Weija constituency ballot boxes to Amassaman.
And let us be perfectly clear about this, too: Kofi Thompson is not one of those journalists who have sold their conscience - and is most certainly not in anyone's pocket (from across the spectrum). I am independent-minded in every sense of the word - and guard my independence jealously: because I am exceedingly proud of it. Period.
With respect, I resent your impudent attempt to make out that one is a person without a conscience - simply because one wrote about facts that you find politically unpalatable. I live by the ethics of my profession and never write things that aren't factual.
Talking about the conscience of others, and the lack thereof, I do hope that you have yours - as I certainly have mine, which is clear and is one that I am able to live with comfortably, daily. God and our fellow human beings are the judges of our actions (or inactions in this case!) - yours and mine : so speak for yourself!
Yes, politics is serious business indeed. Massa, do you seriously believe that the people at Radio Gold suddenly got up on the morning of 9th December, 2008, and decided they would write a skit for radio - and forced the EC official and the minister's hirelings : to move those ballot boxes at that ungodly hour; commanded a team of military and policemen to guard it enroute; take a series of dangerous and un-tarred back-roads instead of the main Accra-Kumasi road; stop midway to switch ballot boxes between two vehicles, one of which was awaiting that confounded convoy midway in the journey - and all that, so that it could risk the lives of two of their staff members, just to put out an early-morning tragi-comedy to its listeners, most of whom would be asleep at that unholy hour of the morning? Please!
Massa, the New Patriotic Party has just discovered that Ghanaians aren't fools - as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime discovered to its shock too, in December 2000.
Massa, let us be clear about one thing : People like me also fought Mr. Rawlings at the height of his powers, too - but unlike many others who did, I most certainly did not do so only to subsequently close my eyes and block my ears in order to allow a gang of incompetent crooks to come to power and ruin our nation, whiles enriching themselves at mother Ghana’s expense, because they had bought my conscience. I am not for sale to anyone, at any price. Period.
I had hoped that this regime would change our country for the better, by setting new standards of morality in our public life, when it first came to power. Like many other patriotic and nationalistic Ghanaians at the time, in the national interest, I too did all that I could to “cut down the NDC to size” as someone once famously said, when it was initially removed from power. So do not call me names, Massa. I did what I could, in the interest of our country, to enable this regime to find its feet at the beginning of its tenure and to survive its first few years in office.
I pray that you are not one of those tiresome "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidon-types who wear blinkers permanently - and are too thick to think and too blind to see the damage the unfathomable greed of our present rulers has done to our country. Let me humbly suggest that you remove your blinkers - for, this is the dawn of a new beginning that will see our country become a nation that refuses to tolerate unprincipled Kokofu-football politics, under any circumstances, any longer.
Massa, at this point in time in our nation’s life, a regime run by Professor Mills is a far better choice for our country than the present incompetents - so many of whom worship with such blind fervour at the "Cult-of-the-mediocre"!
Perhaps Nana Akufo-Addo would have made a far better president than that Kokofu-football superstar we elected to become our president in December 2000 - our “Hypocrite-in-Chief”, the lame-duck President Kufuor. If only his party had had the good sense to choose him in 2000, perhaps Nana Akufo-Addo would have left a legacy that would have assured his party of victory at this juncture for his successor in the party.
Incidentally, I recall telling him, when I saw him in his law chambers, shortly after Mr. Kufuor defeated him in the election for his party’s candidature for the presidential election of December 2000, that his party had made a terrible mistake it would come to regret. Massa, your party is now paying the ultimate price for that grave error of judgment it made then.
Unfortunately, for our country, President Kufuor has ran the most tribalistc and nepotistic regime ever known in this country's chequered history. Like many other non-tribalistic Ghanaians, if he had left his Kokofu-football tactics to simply favouring his own tribesmen and women, I would not have quibbled, even if he filled all the plum positions in the public sector with his tribesmen and women, as long as they were qualified - because they too are Ghanaians.
However, he rather chose to take to his Kokofu-football politics to the realms of treasonable behaviour : he, a man elected to defend our constitution and the territorial integrity of our nation - and like many Ghanaians, I finally drew the line when he started using the whole machinery of state to promote the monstrous and tribal-supremacist agenda of some of his tribal chiefs; some, men of questionable character, who, incredibly, in the 21sth century ICT age, apparently seek to superimpose the progeny of the ruling élites of the now-defunct tribal nation-states of the pre-colonial feudal era, on a modern African nation-state that has aspirations to become a meritocracy, and which is a nation that is also a unitary republic of diverse ethnicity, by stealth. What perfidy - who does not know that inherited privilege, is the greatest enemy of any meritocracy?
Why exchange our united country in which we are all free citizens, for an unstable one with an ethnically-cleansed state-within-a-state, full of serfs, which is an absolute monarchy run by megalomaniacs - who owe their positions in society to mere inherited privilege, in it? Why, are we fools, I ask?
The fact of the matter is that that is the unfortunate direction in which the few crooked, greedy and powerful tribal-supremacists who dominate the NPP have been steadily moving our homeland Ghana, throughout that party's tenure. Such a political party is just not fit to rule our united country of diverse ethnicity, under any circumstances - no matter what cloak of respectability they use to hide their Kokofu-football politics. Period.
Yet, that is precisely the end-game of what President Kufuor unwittingly (to be charitable!) worked so tirelessly, for, during his tenure - he, the president of the Republic of Ghana: an unwitting tool, of ambitious would-be tyrants. That, Massa, is the sorry pass our country has now come to, today. Why should a freedom-loving people who have no wish to become serfs in any confounded Mickey-mouse kingdoms in today's ICT world, elect a Mk11 version of the last eight years again?
Massa, Ghanaians have spoken out loudly and clearly that they do not want our nation to be run by a regime dominated by tribal-supremacists and an elitist crowd - some of whose unfathomable greed and incompetence has made them believe that asset-stripping Ghana (with the added benefit of sending their personal net worth into the stratosphere, through sundry privatisation kickbacks!) is a state policy worth pursuing: as a panacea to resolving the myriad ills of Ghanaian society.
Massa, with respect, please take this humble piece of advice in good faith - next time do not tread where even angels fear to tread. Mepawu acheaw, eyeaa cheki wohu ansa wa kasa ewo bedwa emu!
Hmm Ghana, eyeasem oo - enti yeawiaye paa enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
And let us be perfectly clear about this, too: Kofi Thompson is not one of those journalists who have sold their conscience - and is most certainly not in anyone's pocket (from across the spectrum). I am independent-minded in every sense of the word - and guard my independence jealously: because I am exceedingly proud of it. Period.
With respect, I resent your impudent attempt to make out that one is a person without a conscience - simply because one wrote about facts that you find politically unpalatable. I live by the ethics of my profession and never write things that aren't factual.
Talking about the conscience of others, and the lack thereof, I do hope that you have yours - as I certainly have mine, which is clear and is one that I am able to live with comfortably, daily. God and our fellow human beings are the judges of our actions (or inactions in this case!) - yours and mine : so speak for yourself!
Yes, politics is serious business indeed. Massa, do you seriously believe that the people at Radio Gold suddenly got up on the morning of 9th December, 2008, and decided they would write a skit for radio - and forced the EC official and the minister's hirelings : to move those ballot boxes at that ungodly hour; commanded a team of military and policemen to guard it enroute; take a series of dangerous and un-tarred back-roads instead of the main Accra-Kumasi road; stop midway to switch ballot boxes between two vehicles, one of which was awaiting that confounded convoy midway in the journey - and all that, so that it could risk the lives of two of their staff members, just to put out an early-morning tragi-comedy to its listeners, most of whom would be asleep at that unholy hour of the morning? Please!
Massa, the New Patriotic Party has just discovered that Ghanaians aren't fools - as the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime discovered to its shock too, in December 2000.
Massa, let us be clear about one thing : People like me also fought Mr. Rawlings at the height of his powers, too - but unlike many others who did, I most certainly did not do so only to subsequently close my eyes and block my ears in order to allow a gang of incompetent crooks to come to power and ruin our nation, whiles enriching themselves at mother Ghana’s expense, because they had bought my conscience. I am not for sale to anyone, at any price. Period.
I had hoped that this regime would change our country for the better, by setting new standards of morality in our public life, when it first came to power. Like many other patriotic and nationalistic Ghanaians at the time, in the national interest, I too did all that I could to “cut down the NDC to size” as someone once famously said, when it was initially removed from power. So do not call me names, Massa. I did what I could, in the interest of our country, to enable this regime to find its feet at the beginning of its tenure and to survive its first few years in office.
I pray that you are not one of those tiresome "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidon-types who wear blinkers permanently - and are too thick to think and too blind to see the damage the unfathomable greed of our present rulers has done to our country. Let me humbly suggest that you remove your blinkers - for, this is the dawn of a new beginning that will see our country become a nation that refuses to tolerate unprincipled Kokofu-football politics, under any circumstances, any longer.
Massa, at this point in time in our nation’s life, a regime run by Professor Mills is a far better choice for our country than the present incompetents - so many of whom worship with such blind fervour at the "Cult-of-the-mediocre"!
Perhaps Nana Akufo-Addo would have made a far better president than that Kokofu-football superstar we elected to become our president in December 2000 - our “Hypocrite-in-Chief”, the lame-duck President Kufuor. If only his party had had the good sense to choose him in 2000, perhaps Nana Akufo-Addo would have left a legacy that would have assured his party of victory at this juncture for his successor in the party.
Incidentally, I recall telling him, when I saw him in his law chambers, shortly after Mr. Kufuor defeated him in the election for his party’s candidature for the presidential election of December 2000, that his party had made a terrible mistake it would come to regret. Massa, your party is now paying the ultimate price for that grave error of judgment it made then.
Unfortunately, for our country, President Kufuor has ran the most tribalistc and nepotistic regime ever known in this country's chequered history. Like many other non-tribalistic Ghanaians, if he had left his Kokofu-football tactics to simply favouring his own tribesmen and women, I would not have quibbled, even if he filled all the plum positions in the public sector with his tribesmen and women, as long as they were qualified - because they too are Ghanaians.
However, he rather chose to take to his Kokofu-football politics to the realms of treasonable behaviour : he, a man elected to defend our constitution and the territorial integrity of our nation - and like many Ghanaians, I finally drew the line when he started using the whole machinery of state to promote the monstrous and tribal-supremacist agenda of some of his tribal chiefs; some, men of questionable character, who, incredibly, in the 21sth century ICT age, apparently seek to superimpose the progeny of the ruling élites of the now-defunct tribal nation-states of the pre-colonial feudal era, on a modern African nation-state that has aspirations to become a meritocracy, and which is a nation that is also a unitary republic of diverse ethnicity, by stealth. What perfidy - who does not know that inherited privilege, is the greatest enemy of any meritocracy?
Why exchange our united country in which we are all free citizens, for an unstable one with an ethnically-cleansed state-within-a-state, full of serfs, which is an absolute monarchy run by megalomaniacs - who owe their positions in society to mere inherited privilege, in it? Why, are we fools, I ask?
The fact of the matter is that that is the unfortunate direction in which the few crooked, greedy and powerful tribal-supremacists who dominate the NPP have been steadily moving our homeland Ghana, throughout that party's tenure. Such a political party is just not fit to rule our united country of diverse ethnicity, under any circumstances - no matter what cloak of respectability they use to hide their Kokofu-football politics. Period.
Yet, that is precisely the end-game of what President Kufuor unwittingly (to be charitable!) worked so tirelessly, for, during his tenure - he, the president of the Republic of Ghana: an unwitting tool, of ambitious would-be tyrants. That, Massa, is the sorry pass our country has now come to, today. Why should a freedom-loving people who have no wish to become serfs in any confounded Mickey-mouse kingdoms in today's ICT world, elect a Mk11 version of the last eight years again?
Massa, Ghanaians have spoken out loudly and clearly that they do not want our nation to be run by a regime dominated by tribal-supremacists and an elitist crowd - some of whose unfathomable greed and incompetence has made them believe that asset-stripping Ghana (with the added benefit of sending their personal net worth into the stratosphere, through sundry privatisation kickbacks!) is a state policy worth pursuing: as a panacea to resolving the myriad ills of Ghanaian society.
Massa, with respect, please take this humble piece of advice in good faith - next time do not tread where even angels fear to tread. Mepawu acheaw, eyeaa cheki wohu ansa wa kasa ewo bedwa emu!
Hmm Ghana, eyeasem oo - enti yeawiaye paa enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
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