Sunday 13 March 2022

Why the residents of Bogoso-Appiatse must take their destiny into their own hands

In any serious country, in which a truck laden with explosives, had been involved in an accident that wiped out a whole rural community, destroying about 500 houses, an architectural design competition, offering the winner GHc3 million, to design a new model climate-resilient village, made up of 500 homesteads, each surrounded by fruit forest garden compounds, and built using plastic building  blocks, with a network of plastic paving block community roads,  with both sides lined with fruit trees, would have been announced by now.
 
Furthermore, one wonders whether or not the hapless residents of Bogoso-Appiatse, have had any post traumatic stress disorder counselling, yet. Hmmm , eyeasem, ooooo...

Above all, one's humble advice to the residents of Bogoso-Appiatse, is that they ought to take their collective-destiny into their own hands, and contact the public interest the leading Ghanaian legal NGO, Centre for Public Interest Law  (CEPIL), and ask them to collaborate with the U.S. public interest law firm that won compensation for the Ogoni people of Nigeria, in the U.S. law courts, from oil giant, Royal Dutch Shell, and sue for appropriately large compensation, from the mining company, whose criminal negligence, has resulted  in the catastrophe, which has turned their lives upside down in such apocalyptic fashion.

Friday 11 March 2022

Ghana's Supreme Court ought to have been guided by the conventions surrounding the Deputy Speakers of the UK Parliament's House of Commons, not those of the House of Lords

It would definitely have served the longterm interests of Mother Ghana, best, had Ghana's Supreme Court been guided (in its latest ruling on Deputy Speakers' voting rights), not by the conventions surrounding the Deputy Speakers of the House of Lords, of the British Parliament, who can vote on issues, but by the conventions that ensure that like the Speaker of the House of Commons, the UK Parliament's Deputy Speakers, remain politically neutral at all material times, and don't vote on issues before the House. 


To quote an old fogey I know: "Kofi, this Supreme Court has mastered the art and science of giving judgements that give ordinary folk the unfortunate impression that they serve the the people now in power, not the Ghanaian nation-state." Hmmm, ey3nsem piiiii, ooooo...


My response: Now that darkies in the UK can suddenly be deprived of their citizenship, without any recourse to the law, simply because serving Home Secretaries demand that, on behalf of friendly criticism-averse foreign kleptocrats, whom their ruling parties are in bed with, as fellow travellers,  I will not bother myself any longer, responding to such issues, when they crop up.


Suddenly jumping on a plane to fly back to the UK has lost its attraction for cantankerous Grandpa Kofi Thompson. So, let the judges of Ghana's Supreme Court, do their worst. The sods. After all, none of them will be there forever, ooooo, will they, Massa? Yabr3 wormu nyinaaa, aafe. Eeiiii, Oman Ghana - enti y3wieye paaaa enei? Asem kesie, bi, ebeba debi ankasa, oooo. Yooooooo. Cool.

Kevin Taylor: A military coup in Ghana will only worsen matters

Yewura Kevin Taylor, nothing can justify a coup in Ghana, wai - because no matter what  those in power today, do, Ghanaians will still vote the New Patriotic Party  (NPP) out of power in December 2024. Who will hold soldiers with unfettered power to account? Haaba.

Simple question: Which institution in Ghana is free from 'protocol-admissions', I ask? Massa, easy, wai. Some crimes have no statute of limitations protection,  koraaa, wai. Cool.

What we need is consensus that Ghana must become a meritocracy - and, like India, take active steps to get rid of the Chieftaincy institution (the mother-serpant of corruption), to rid Ghana of inherited privilege: which is the greatest enemy of meritocracy. Simple.

It is instructive that India,which set out after independence, to rid itself of the baleful influence of its incredibly powerful Maharajahs,  is a global power today - while resource-rich Ghana, enthralled to Chiefs, because they apparently embody our traditions, has now ended up as  a mismanaged financial basket case: deliberately mismanaged through an orgy-of-borrowing that a powerful few profited mightily  from (in commissions and professional fees). Hmmm, ey3nsem piiiiii, oooo, Ghanafuo. A military coup will not resolve any of our hydra-headed challenges. It will only worsen matters.

Tuesday 1 March 2022

Ghana's ruling-elites must clean up their act fast

Ghana's ruling-elites need to clean up their act fast, to save Ghanaian democracy from being destroyed. One's  prayer, is that God Almighty intervemes in our nation's affairs swiftly, to make that happen.  A nation whose leadership face constant accusations (admittedly mostly unproven) of routinely harassing females, and, incredibly, even face bush-telegraph-sourced accusations  of the serial rape of women, too,  has become a decadent society, in need of change.  

 

(The rumours of egregious-victimisation swirling around Hon. Adwoa Sarfo, encapsulates this nation-wrecking amoral-phenomenon, perfectly, sadly.) 



If one adds the many rumours of sudden unexplained wealth acquired by Ghana's big-thieves-in-high-places, to the toxicity of the mix of serial-philandering and misogyny, and caps it with the destruction of the national economy, by greed for cash, from earned fat-commissions and juicy professional  fees, being made from the orgy of borrowing,  then only God Almighty can save our democracy from entering the realms of the possibility of enforced-regime-change (God forbid!), ooooo, Ghanafuo.

 

That is why it is vital that those amongst our  ruling-elites, who are still principled, and have kept their integrity intact, begin to stand up to their colleagues who engage in  constant-skirt-chasing, ditto compete with each other, in the egregious-pillaging-race to send their personal net worth to stratospheric heights, at society's expense. In light of all the above, Ghana's ruling-elites must clean up their act, fast, if Ghanaian democracy is to survive, ooooo. Yoooooooo....