HON. HARUNA IDDRISU: KOFI THOMPSON IS NO BLACKMAILER!

In a city in which water seldom flows through taps in properties across the filthy conurbation that unfortunately serves as our nation’s capital, one has to be extremely cautious where one eats, outside one’s own home, during the working day. To avoid trouble with possible food-poisoning, I simply skip eating out and restrict myself to some bananas or hot-off-the-fire roasted plantain, if I am peckish when not at home – so in the evening of 16th June, 2009, I settled down to my supper at home after a series of unpleasant experiences to do with endless day-long frustration with officialdom: trying to find, amongst other tasks on my to-do list for that day, a vital document that incredibly, apparently has disappeared into thin air, from the deeds registry of the Lands Commission, which, oddly, is still housed in the Land Title Registry head office building, near the headquarters of the Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) in the ministries area, instead of their Cantonments head office building.

It so happens that whiles doing my “rounds” for that day, I also passed by the ministry of communications to see if I could reach the minister to get a direct response from him, for a previous note I had left for him with his secretary, asking him to respond to a rumour I had heard about him, to the effect that one of the mobile phone companies had given him a Toyota saloon car as a personal gift. He wasn’t in, so I left yet another note with his secretary and departed – hoping to bring some sort of closure to that pure nonsense on stilts. Just after I had taken a few spoonfuls of the vegetarian meal I was having at home in McCarthy Hill, after having finally settled down in the evening to my supper after a frustrating day out in town, I received a telephone call from the minister of communications, Haruna Iddrisu, at about 18.30 GMT – the gist of which was that I was trying to blackmail him. I simply couldn’t believe my ears. I was so incensed that I immediately interrupted him mid-sentence, asked him to stop right there, and told him exactly where to get off – and that he ought to google the word “ghanapolitics” to read the article entitled: “Protect Ghanaian Consumers from Telecoms Companies in Ghana” that I had written and posted online (in which I had mentioned the confounded rumour – and had also gone on to ask him to share his response to the note I had previously left for him with his secretary, with the rest of the world), and demanded that he apologise to me after he had read the article in my web-blog.

I was flabbergasted that he was actually accusing me of blackmailing him. Just what possessed him to say such a monstrous thing, one wonders? The double-barreled-question an ignoramus and a fool like me would like that genius of a young minister to answer for me is: Since when did blackmailers start publicly asking about the veracity or otherwise of allegations against their intended victim, which they had heard of, prior to even meeting him or her – and why did he not just accept that my perfectly innocent query was in good faith, simply deny it, and move on? Anyone reading the article would not be in any doubt whatsoever that I did not believe the rumour in the slightest myself – so one can imagine my exasperation with him that he had had the temerity to accuse me of trying to blackmail him. Would a blackmailer leave an open note everyone could read, with the secretary of a minister in the government, whom he was querying about the veracity or otherwise, of a rumour he had heard about that selfsame minister? Why did it not strike him that not believing such a thing about him, perhaps I had only wanted to be in a position to quote his denial of the allegation in my article – and had therefore tried to contact him to confirm my disbelief of that rumour? Did I not say openly in that article that I did not believe that he would accept any such gift?

The annoying thing, dear reader, is that I had mentioned that darned grapevine story just in passing in my article merely to emphasize the point that the telecoms companies were more or less a law unto themselves: which was the subject of the article – and had gone to his office in order to elicit a response from him, so I could confirm his denial of the rumour in my article: whiles making my point about the not unheard of possibility, in our environment, of some of the telecoms companies buying public officials, to enable them get away with their perfidy (i.e. the rip off, on a massive scale, of mobile phone users in Ghana – with the far too expensive and atrocious quality service they provide Ghanaians). Indeed, so powerful are those financial behemoths, that they have even been able to get some well-educated buffoon in Parliament, to speak on their behalf – to try and get the “talk tax” that has apparently ended up being paid by those shysters, offloaded unto the weary shoulders of the already overburdened Ghanaian taxpayers, who have to shoulder the excesses of Ghana’s political class – including their obscene ex-gratia demands on the public purse – in addition to their everyday woes of having to put up with the lack of potable water in their homes and an erratic supply of electricity, as they see their quality of life deteriorate steadily before their very eyes whiles politicians blithely tell them they have never had it so good since Ghana gained her freedom in 1957.

Why, have the telecoms companies not sufficiently demonstrated their ruthlessness to the minister for communications, in the callous way they have been endangering the health of Ghanaians – as they site their masts even in the homes of people who are probably completely ignorant of the possible harmful effects of the radiation from those masts? But I digress. Just what is it about Ghanaian politicians that makes so many of them change so quickly when they come to power – and put on such airs? Why didn’t a highly intelligent politician, who is noted for being so incredibly media-savvy, simply not tell me that the rumour was without any foundation – and leave it at that and thank me for letting him know about it: and not to hesitate to seek clarification from him again, anytime I needed to do so, about any issue concerning his work and that of his ministry? I can perfectly understand a crooked businessperson who hypocritically presents a respectable face to the world, whiles secretly running a criminal syndicate engaged in say illegal logging or illegal surface gold-mining, who thinks a journalist or media house is on to him or her, making such an accusation: in the hope of destroying their credibility and possibly frightening them off permanently – but this happens to be a brilliant young man who is a rising political star widely respected and admired in the media generally for his affability and humility (and deservingly so – or at least, deservingly so in the past, when his party was in opposition, at any rate).

Is one to conclude therefore that he too has unfortunately been infected by that dangerous virus of invincibility that deludes politicians who win power into thinking that somehow they are the masters of the universe – and therefore cannot be queried or contradicted in good faith under any circumstances: especially by insignificant writers they have never heard of before? Well, personally, I have very little time for an over-pampered and largely-incompetent political class, which has superintended the steady deterioration in the quality of life of ordinary Ghanaians, since the overthrow of Nkrumah in 1966: whiles ruthlessly feathering their own nests, by providing themselves with perk after perk whiles in office: even as they slice up our nation for the benefit of the sundry foreign carpetbaggers they collaborate with to rip our nation off in the name of foreign direct investment and market capitalism. Consequently, the idea that a youthful minister in a regime with precious few truly world-class individuals in it has the impertinence to accuse me of blackmailing him is simply too much to stomach. I will not tolerate that kind of lip from any politician in Ghana no matter which side of the spectrum they come from or how important he or she thinks they are – as I am neither afraid nor in awe of any of them: most of whom one regards with a certain degree of contempt for their monumental incompetence in not being able to provide ordinary Ghanaians with a good quality of life over the years, because they are completely bereft of original thinking.

Let that cheeky sod read as much of my writing as he possibly can find the time in his busy schedule for – and then perhaps he will understand why Kofi Thompson is incapable of any blackmail. I shall wait patiently for an apology from him – for being so imprudent and arrogant as to dare accuse a patriot and a sincere individual (who wouldn’t even dream of hurting a fly) who treasures his free-spirit and takes an independent stance in all discourse in the public sphere (in an effete nation full of sycophants, mercenaries, and moral cowards) of blackmailing him. Whoever in the media it was that advised a decent fellow like him to place that outrageous phone call during which he had the gall to accuse me of blackmailing him certainly did him a great disservice – for it was a grave error of judgment on his part for taking the tack he went on. My advice to him – and to all the ministers in this regime – is to treat every Ghanaian citizen (including journalists) he interacts with, no matter how insignificant he might think that individual is, with some respect. If I had been Kweku Baako (God bless him) who left him that note ages ago, would he not have promptly responded to it? He must learn to be careful what he says to those who question him – for he and his colleagues are there to serve our country as members of a regime that says it wants to run a transparent system: not lord it over ordinary folk. I may be a complete nonentity, but the fact that he is a minister in the government, is of no consequence to me – as I am not and have never been beholden to those who wield power in our country. In any case it is only those who are afraid to die who are frightened of the powerful in society – and fear of death, fortunately for me, is not one of my many weaknesses. Above all, he must never to be so cheeky to his elders – and ought to remember that wise old Ghanaian saying: “No condition is permanent.” Kofi Thompson is no blackmailer, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu – and he always wants you to remember that bald fact of life as long as you are active in Ghanaian politics it. Massa, I beg, do not tread where angels fear to tread. A word to the wise…