''When a subject is highly controversial...one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. One can only give one's audience the chance of drawing their own conclusions as they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker."
-Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).
Apparently, our blog post entitled, "The Inherent Dangers Associated With Our Byzantine System" made a few Chiefs in Kumasi apoplectic, when they got to know of its contents. If true, then that is most unfortunate.
They must not let their blood pressure rise on my account. Above all, they must not take all this personally. I have the highest regard for them as private citizens - but like many a Ghanaian progressive and nationalist, it never escapes me that the institution of Chieftaincy is a remnant of our feudal past.
That is why some of us despise it and want it abolished - because it blocks the path to Ghana becoming a meritocracy. Inherited privilege is the greatest enemy of meritocracy. So why should discerning Ghanaians who want our nation to progress tolerate it, I ask?
Perhaps Chiefs in Ghana who disapprove of my some of the opinions I hold ought to simply regard Kofi Thompson as their village idiot - if it will help them come to terms with my plain-speaking and refusal to be sucked into the absurd Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy world they inhabit.
With respect, they must rather be grateful that someone - who is clear-headed because he does not have the serf-mentality responsible for so many Ghanaians being in awe of Chiefs - was honest and bold enough to point out to them, the absurdity of Chiefs acting in 21st century Africa, as if they were the rulers of a sovereign state within the Ghanaian nation-state, when in reality they are citizens of the Leviathan that is the Republic of Ghana, and subject to its laws (which are disobeyed at the pain of imprisonment or death), like the rest of us.
In any case, all one wanted to do, was to help them understand clearly, the long-term risks posed to the institution of Chieftaincy, which their unfortunate confrontation with the Hon. Kojo Bonsu, actually entails.
As it happens, abuse from those one criticises in one's writing, it is par for the course, for this irreverent and cantankerous old fool, Kofi Thompson. Hmm, Ghana - eyeasem o: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.
The flak one has to take, and the collateral damage one has to endure, for being a patriot and nationalist, are many and varied indeed, in going about one's life's work as a full-time writer in a nation in which even the well-educated seldom read and writers are often held in contempt if they are not well-off.
However, the point needs to be made that the abuse of the Chiefs in question, is like water off a duck's back to me. But I digress.
The same reaction is apparently also evoked in certain political circles, over this blog's determined campaign to get Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom elected as Ghana's next President - which is also a real pity: although it is to be expected from those who think they must rule Ghana willy-nilly because they were born to dominate our nation and its people. What impudence.
For their information, the campaign to get Nduom elected President is completely altruistic, and is being undertaken for purely patriotic and nationalistic reasons only. Kofi Thompson's conscience is not for sale at any price to anyone. It has never been for sale and will never be for sale. Period.
I actually respect and like both President Mahama and Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo on a purely human level - surprising though it might be to some. Both are charming and affable gentlemen who are full of humour - but duty to Mother Ghana, alas, necessitates this blog's campaign to get Paa Kwesi Nduom elected as President.
The simple truth is that the election of Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom as Ghana's next President, will be in the best interest of our nation, and redound to the benefit of all its people, at this particular juncture of Ghana's history.
Having a truly world-class individual as our nation's next leader is critical and a must - if we are to move ahead as a people.
The people of Ghana deserve better than having to make never-ending sacrifices for the better tomorrow promised them by the NDC/NPP duopoly since the 4th Republica came into being, which never comes. Now they want their share of the democracy dividend.
That is why we must bring the era of the empty-promises-makers in our nation's politics to an end - and force the powerful and amoral thieves-in-high-places, who dominate the NDC/NPP duopoly from the shadows on behalf of sundry vested interests, out of both parties.
Electing Nduom as President will hasten that process - as both parties in the NDC/NPP duopoly will be forced to carry out reforms to rid themselves of the undemocratic and intolerant extremists, closet tribal-supremacists and thieves-in-high-places in their midst: in order to attract new members and supporters.
Amongst all the candidates running for president in this November's election, Nduom is the only candidate who can actually transform Ghana. All the others will only come to power and spend the best part of their 4-year tenure blaming the debt piled up by the NDC government for their inability and failure to turn our national economy round. Nduom knows exactly how to overcome that particular constraint.
At a time when our country is polarised as never before, Ghana desperately needs a unifying figure who can get the nation to unite, and use its brightest and best professionals - regardless of their party affiliation - to transform Ghana into an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia. Nduom is that unifier.
Nduom also dwarfs all the members of our nation's political class in terms of personal achievement and personal integrity. He has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that he is a focused and results-oriented leader who can effectively execute his own ideas and those recommended to him by other creative minds.
We must not darken the future of our potentially great nation, and blight the collective future of its well-educated and gifted younger generation, by risking the descent into violence and chaos that will follow - as sure as day follows night - if either the presidential candidate of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), President John Dramani Mahama, or that of the main opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, were to be elected as President on polling day.
That is why we must repeatedly drive home the point to Ghana's younger generation - whose future really is at stake in this year's elections - that they must not risk Ghana's future by voting for either President Mahama or Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.
To do so would be to literally write a blank cheque which would allow the corrupt NDC/NPP duopoly to destroy their individual futures - and in effect sanction a national disaster in the making and waiting to happen.
The writing is on the wall for all who have eyes to read to do so - and come to their own conclusions. Literally.
Today, thanks to the machinations of the NDC/NPP duopoly, ignorant villagers are being organised to pelt presidential convoys with stones, as part of a scorched earth political strategy of amoral and super-ruthless politicians, and myrmidon-hirelings of the vilest of the rogues in the regime currently in power, are issuing veiled death threats to members of the Judiciary on behalf of their paymasters.
The NDC/NPP duopoly's powerful and super-ruthless men and women of violence, who are feared by the moderates in their own parties, have made their intentions quite clear: They will only accept the results of the November presidential election if their own party's candidate, not that of their major opponents, emerges victorious in that election.
A vote for Paa Kwesi Nduom will neatly sidestep the slippery stone to that violence and chaos that the NDC/NPP duopoly's men and women of violence are predicting awaits Ghanaians.
Ghana's younger generation ought to avoid that predicted hell-on-earth scenario simply by not voting for either President Mahama or Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo in this November's presidential election. They must plump instead for Paa Kwesi Nduom: and vote for him in their numbers to become Ghana's next President. Just one's humble two pesewas. What is yours, dear reader?
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