To Opanin Kwame!

Opanin, I refer to your 7th August, 2008 comment ("Only a phone company") on my comment of the same date: ("Tell the Western media!"), which was also a comment on the http://www.ghanaweb.com// general news web page feature story with the rather longish title, "Legal Highlights of Vodafone Press Conference...
PRESS STATEMENT BY CONCERNED GHANAIAN CITIZENS ON THE SALE OF 70% SHARES IN GHANA TELECOM AND THE CREATION OF ENLARGED GT FOR PURPOSES OF SALE TO VODAFONE,
DATE: AUGUST 6T" 2008VENUE: INTERNATIONAL PRESS CENTRE"

Opanin Kwame, being a little senile, I am not sure which particular year I am actually "stuck in" - as you put it.

However, on a more serious note, I am afraid you miss the point, completely: Were BT and the other telecom companies privatised in the West, sold off under such an egregious example of a one-sided agreement?

Were they not all offloaded on the stock markets by their respective governments initially: when the time came to sell them to private sector investors - in London; Frankfurt; Paris; Madrid; Lisbon; etc. etc.?

Opanin, unlike me, I am sure that you are firmly stuck in the year of our Lord, 2008 - and are au faith with the financial services industries in the UK and the US: and the rest of the globe.

With respect, tell me just who has been pouring UK taxpayers' money into the erstwhile privately-owned Northern Rock Bank: because it was in the overall interest of UK plc as a whole?

Pardon my ignorance, Opanin; but with respect, surely, is the point, Sir, not that even a fool and and ignoramus like me (a mere semi-literate and a nobody in Ghanaian society!), understands perfectly that this is the most dishonest and one-sided sale and purchase agreement ever put together, to privatise a major state-owned entity, in Ghana's history, thus far?

Furthermore, it might not yet have struck you, but there is general consensus amongst many independent-minded Ghanaians, who, by the way, will decide who wins power in December 2008 (not the vociferous and fanatical party supporters of the various political parties in Ghana!), that it is by far the most self-serving wheeze ever dreamt up by any group of rogues, amongst our our political class, Opanin!

And that, Opanin Kesie, is why every objective and independent-minded Ghanaian who has taken the trouble to read that outrage and pure nonsense on bamboo stilts, which the sales and purchase agreement represents, will tell you that it is the worst of such crooked undertakings they have ever seen in our long and chequered history, of bad and self-serving privatisations!

Surely, a clever and well-educated man of importance in Ghanaian society like you cannot possibly fail to see that?

And finally, Sir, with respect, are you not being a little disingenuous when you try and give the impression that BT's privatisation can be compared to that of GT?

Opanin, have you not yet cottoned on to the fact that even a fool and an ignoramus like me in the Ghana of today knows that BT was sold on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) - not to a private company colluding with British government ministers to rob her Majesty's government and her subjects, as is the case here?

Although power appears to have gone to their heads, it will serve the crooks amongst those now in power in our homeland Ghana well to always remember that very wise oldbGhanaian saying: "No condition is permanent."

And I refer especially to that tiny but powerful cabal of Akan tribal supremacists, who now dominate the ruling party so completely (and are our local version of the odious white supremacists of the Western world!) and have succeeded in somehow becoming (together with their crony-oligarchs and their family clans!) Ghana's wealthiest dollar zillionaires.

Let them ask Mr. and Mrs. J.J. Rawlings, who are still in shock that their party was turfed out of power in December 2000 (shattering their dream of retiring to Australia House, renovated by the NDC regime, at great cost to hapless Ghanaian taxpayers: as a departing "gift" and retirement home, given them by a "grateful" nation and people!) and was again rejected by Ghanaians in December 2004.

Opanin, I boldly predict that as sure as day follows night, all those who have participated in the brutal gang-rape of Mother Ghana, which this monstrous deal amounts to, will be tried and convicted for recklessly causing financial loss to the Ghanaian nation-state, in the years to come - so mark my words!

Is it not so sad that our current leaders have apparently all forgotten, so soon, that Tsatsu Tsikata is languishing in the maximum security prison at Nsawam, for a financial transaction far less injurious to our country, than the crime they have conspired with greedy foreigners and propose to perpetrate against our country? Opanin, ordinary Ghanaians are not nearly as stupid as their rulers seem to think they are, you know.

Anyhow, at any rate, hopefully, you do love your country - and aren't one of those tiresome and clueless "My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong" myrmidons, Opanin? "Massa, hmmm, atiyie ema awerafire, oo!" Do do stay blessed!


Hmmm, Ghana - ayeasem oo! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!