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!

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