God - I am just so fed up with rampant online 'Nigerian' 419 fraudsters. Why should imbeciles like that be allowed free rein to roam the internet insulting decent folk: with infantile emails asking them to take part in some fraud - which by the way, almost invariably involves millions of dollars, which they want to transfer to you (supposedly from a dormant account: whose long-dead owner has no traceable living next of kin!)?
It simply makes my blood boil that some bloody fool sitting in an internet cafe somewhere in the world is allowed by Yahoo, to affront the sensibilities of decent and honest folk, thus. Simply outrageous! (And in my case, it almost always is Yahoo they are sent from. So much for that internet giant's much-vaunted email security!)
Which brings me to Ghana's "too-clever-by-half" political elite. Where in the civilised world, dear reader, would a member of parliament, just released from prison by a presidential pardon, after being sentenced by a court of competent jurisdiction to a jail term (for supposedly dipping his hands into the public purse), have the gall to go straight back to reclaim his seat in parliament as a representative of the people - and be welcomed back by jubilant colleagues?
What do our politicians think we are, one wonders - that ordinary people are fools, perhaps? Just think for a moment, dear reader, of the tens of thousands of innocent Ghanaians currently languishing in prison, serving long jail sentences: hapless victims of a cruel criminal justice system, who are incarcerated simply because they did not have the wherewithal to give them access to lawyers.
Are those poor wretches not deserving of a presidential pardon far more than sophisticated politicians who have abused the trust of the people of Ghana - and had been imprisoned for being reckless with the public purse? And were some of our past leaders not executed in public, in 1979, for alleged instances of even lesser degrees of greed and corruption?
This is the third such occurrence since this regime came into power - and there are the cynical who say that it is merely a self-serving gesture by those in power today: who fear that they might also end up in prison too, were they to lose power in December - for wilfully causing financial loss to the Ghanaian nation-state. Makes you sick, does it not, dear reader? Hmm Ghana - ayeasem oo!
Which brings me neatly to the biggest pink elephant in the rubbish-filled chat-room that is Ghana: the touchy subject of the medical condition of Professor John Evans Atta Mills, the National Democratic Congress' (NDC) presidential candidate for the December 2008 presidential elections.
Clearly, the health of a man, who could, in six short months, be elected as Ghana's next president, does matter a great deal to all Ghanaians. It is not just his private affair (nor that of the political party he leads, for that matter!) - for he could end up becoming our next president, who in the end is constantly ill: and unable to perform his official duties.
So, if indeed he is suffering from some debilitating illness, then allowing him to stand in the forthcoming elections, would amount to a conspiracy against the Ghanaian people and their nation, by his party.
For, it would mean that we would end up being saddled with Mr. John Mahama as Ghana's de facto president: when in fact we were not voting for him to come to power that way, when we cast our votes! So let the NDC do the decent thing - and come out with a full and truthful account of exactly what ails (or dos not ail: if that is the case!) the good professor.
John Mahama is doubtless a very fine gentleman indeed - and of that there can be no doubt whatsoever. But, with the best will in the world, he is not presidential timber. Period. Ghana needs someone with an underlying streak of sufficient ruthlessness in him: to bring about the kind of disciplined nation we ought to become - if we are serious about becoming a wealthy nation within our lifetime.
We can never move forward as a people, if we don't end the culture of indiscipline and impunity that pervades our nation from the very top to the lowest rungs of the social ladder. It is this collective indiscipline that has made it well nigh impossible for us to move ahead since the 1966 military coup.
There is yet to be discovered anywhere on the planet Earth, the evolution of a successful social model, of a prosperous and civilised society, which wasn't built on a firm foundation of discipline and honesty. John Mahama, is no Osagyefo Dr. Kwme Nkrumah; General I.K. Acheampong; or Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings. And that is precisely what this largely lawless society needs now: A strong leader. Period.
Which brings me to the nonsense on bamboo stilts, which the prevailing neo-liberalism that has kept the vast majority of our people enchained in poverty, since Nkrumah's overthrow in 1966, represents (incidentally, it is by far the most difficult period in Ghana's history: in which only a very lucky and powerful few, have grown fantastically wealthy - whiles all else in our nation have seen their quality of life deteriorate steadily: in inverse proportion!).
We have marked time ever since Nkrumah's overthrow: because what he learnt between 1957 and 1960 (when he finally abandoned his neo-liberal economic policies - which weren't getting Ghana anywhere fast!), has escaped virtually all the highly educated "near-morons" (many with PhD's!) who either forced themselves upon our country through the barrel of a gun, or were elected by Ghanaians only to end up misruling our nation (whiles at the same time they very cleverly succeed in managing their own personal wealth creation ever so smoothly: transforming their negative personal net worth into exceedingly positive high net worth status, at the speed of lightning, in the process!).
As a result of their inability to think outside the box, over the years, that long line of well-educated and well-paid "near-imbeciles", who in the main have not been original thinkers, have made ordinary Ghanaians endure one dead-end World Bank/IMF economic experiment after another. Yet, all along, the stark facts of how to actually create prosperity in a sensibly-run poor developing nation, have been staring them right in the face!
Incredibly, whiles entranced by the wealth and achievements of the Malaysias and the Singapores, during their visits to those Asian economic success stories, it did not strike our myopic leaders that contrary to the self-serving strictures of the Western neo-liberal ideologues, Malaysia and Singapore, grew rich, not by unthinkingly and blindly opting to rely on their (largely selfish!) private sector businesspeople and foreigners to transform their economy and societies: but rather chose to use the power of their nation-states (through imaginative economic policies and honestly-managed and competently-run state-owned enterprises!), to develop their societies and turn them into prosperous ones.
And so today the hubris of our political elite has become obvious to even little primary school children (many of whom aren't getting the good school meals the MDG 's were supposed to deliver for them!); the poor who fall sick: and yet still have to fork out hard-to-find and practically non-existent cash, to pay towards the cost of their treatment at supposedly-free NHIS hospitals across the country; as well as those motorists who are compelled to pass on shoddily-constructed roads across Ghana (poorly constructed mainly because rogue contractors had to factor in biggish-kickbacks to the greedy and dishonest amongst our rulers: and hence had to change the design specifications!).
And all of them have now seen through the smoke-and-mirrors economics, which has impoverished ordinary Ghanaians and their country for decades: whiles making the politically well-connected and influence-peddling fat-cats of the land, grow uber-rich: well even beyond the wildest dreams of Avarice!
Clearly, most ordinary people recognise Ghana for the Hykle and Jekyll high-living, and hellish, "two-nations-in-one" democratic sham, it has become: and which enables a few well-connected and powerful tribalistic politicians, and their hypocritical crony-oligarchs, to enslave a whole nation - with ordinary people being constantly called upon to make sacrifices.
Yet it is all for the sole benefit of a chosen few - who choose to borrow money to build presidential palaces and to purchase luxury presidential jets: because for such obtuse individuals, that is what represents the dignity of a nation: not the quality of life of ordinary people. Literally. And in the meantime we are steadily being driven back into the dark-ages of our pre-colonial feudal past, by a few determined Akan tribal supremacists: for the personal modern-day aggrandisement of a few vainglorious, traditional-ruler megalomaniacs! Hmm Ghana - ayeasem oo!
And so today, dear reader, our country has finally been brought to its knees - and unbelievably, we are told that our rulers are now thinking of resorting to hedging: to counter the scourge of high oil prices. At this late hour? And with oil prices constantly hovering over US$100? Typical. What idiocy!
It is all simply a gigantic wheeze - just to enable a few powerful people and their crooked cronies in our financial services industry, grow even richer still: at mother Ghana's expense. And merely for the sake of those selfish buffoons, Ghana is apparently going to lock itself into the spot market for oil - because the respectable crooks whose greed knows no bounds, have spotted yet another golden opportunity, to rip mother Ghana off. Hmm Ghana - ayeasem oo!
In any case, do we not, dear reader, buy our oil from Nigeria (and sometimes from Libya)? So why are we hearing such self-serving talk about hedging? Precisely just where are we going to hedge for oil: which the goodwill of the Federal Republic of Nigeria apparently makes possible for Ghana to be supplied with, on 90-day credit terms (if what we were told in the past is true, i.e.!)?
And just why is a nation that in a few years hence (in perhaps as little as three years at the most: if our leaders are clever and sensible enough!), will become an important West African oil producer, mortgaging its future oil wealth, so recklessly? Why, are those future revenues not meant to be used to transform Ghanaian society when they come on stream: and turn our nation into one in which all the citizens, not just a well-connected, greedy and powerful few, have a good quality of life?
Instead of such short-termism by our rulers, ought we not rather to be planning to nationalise our oil and gas industries (like Saudi Arabia; Iran and Venezuela before us!) and replacing (after fair compensation for them: and when Ghana can afford it!) the private Western companies currently here to make uber-profits for their well-fed Western shareholders - and instead set up joint-venture partnerships with the best and most competent of the Chinese and Indian state-owned oil companies?
And can we not defer paying upfront for our 70% stake in any such ventures: with our shares being paid for, by issuing sovereign bonds to the sovereign wealth funds of China and India - when the oil finally starts flowing?
Why, do both nations not claim that they want an honest and mutually beneficial partnership with Africa (not the one-sided affairs we have had over the centuries with exploitative Western nations: and their greedy multinational corporations in tow!)? And would such action not be a far more appropriate and sensible use of sovereign bonds for the sustainable development of our homeland Ghana, dear reader?
And finally, dear reader, when are we going to be informed by those would-be presidents tomorrow, that the first thing they will do upon taking office, would be to have web-cams installed at several strategic locations on all the oil rigs drilling for oil off our shores - so that for 24/7 and 365 days, ordinary Ghanaians will be able to go online and monitor what actually occurs on all those oil rigs?
We need to ensure that when the oil starts flowing in earnest, the shenenigans associated with past oil finds will not reoccur. We must check the movements, in future, of all oil tankers loading Ghanaian oil - so that Ghana is not shortchanged by smart Alecs (as has apparently happened on occassion: when oil tankers laden with our Saltpond oil-field oil, have 'disappeared': oil lifted by the well-paid incompetents who currently handle that lucrative contract. Hmm Ghana - ayeasem oo!
May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
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