Opinions of Thursday, 2 April 2015

Columnist: Abdul-Fatawu, Fuseini

A humble letter to a member of parliament in deep slumber

Dear Honourable Alijata,

I write to you this humble letter with pain in my heart and disappointment in my face. I know you may not know me or perhaps remember me. I am the one of those little boys from Challu who you made numerous promises to in the 2012 electioneering period.
Madam Honourable, by your titles which you cherish very much, failure in fulfillment of promises must not be an option so also is lies. Unfortunately, both seem to be your special trademarks. Your constituents have totally been neglected and abandoned by you and your party, the NDC. All your numerous promises are now not only unfulfilled and but also abandoned. You actually seem not to care about any happenings in the Sissala East Constituency aside your ambitious desire to retain your seat. You are more concerned about your up-coming competition with the DCE (who is struggling to overthrow you) than the growth and development of the constituency.
Madam Honourable, I know you can remember how you promised to better the road from Tumu passing through your hometown in Pieng then to Challu and then to finally link it up to Bugubelle. Unfortunately, the road has gone worse than it was in the past. All the bridges that were constructed under the NPP to link these roads have been left abandoned and neglected. The people in those communities, who are mostly farmers, are now afraid of what will happen to them and the deteriorated roads come the rainy season. The question now on the lips of many is, if Honourable Alijata is punishing people of her hometown and surrounding villages who voted massively for her this way, what won’t she do to the rest? Your guess is as good as mine. It is therefore of little wonder that the roads in the Kassena areas (especially the villages in and around Tanvierri, Wuru and Piina), which actually is the worse in the country have been left totally abandoned and neglected.
Madam Honourable before you start telling us you are not a development agent, let’s first remind you that you made those promises even though you are fully aware of your functions if you should become a MP. Nobody coerced you to lift our expectations very high. We believed you and as such we expect you to fulfill what you promised us.
Madam Honourable, prior to you becoming the MP, you promised to champion the cause of women in the constituency. The women as usual believed you because you are also a woman like them. They know you cannot deceive them and as such voted in their numbers for you. It’s thus surprising that for three years now, they’ve not seen you doing much to champion their cause. The situation has grown worse to an extent that the women are now feeling ashamed to associate themselves with you. Even some of your own ‘azanto girls’ have not seen their lot been improved. Painfully, issues of girl-child abuse in the second-cycle institutions which have been raised by some writers have not seen any response from you. You remained mute on them like I wouldn’t want to say, a dead goat. Some members of your own campaign team were allegedly involved in such nasty sexual scandals and not a single word of caution or a piece of advice has been heard from you. Is it that you are pleased of those sexual abuses on those poor students or is a matter of you remaining and maintaining your silence since members of your own campaign team are allegedly involved? I don’t know whether you are aware these alleged sexual abuses have been affecting the performance of those innocent girls in those institutions? If the DCE is perhaps unconcerned and perhaps doing a cover-up for the alleged perpetrators of those crimes, why won’t you take the bull by its horn and protect the poor and innocent girls?
Madam Honourable, the saddest thing happening under your administration is your penchant of lies and distortions. Though the DCE is an expert in telling lies, you seem to be developing a strong profile of lies and if care is not taken, you may soon overtake him. Madam, your lies, especially that on Challu is becoming legendary. In September 2011, then as DCE, you lied of constructing a full-fledged dam in Challu when there was not even a rat-hole constructed by you there. That particular site where you claimed the dam is located is still there empty and dry though you made the media to report such lies and fabrications. The people of Challu have not gone over this when you lied again that you supplied farmers from Challu, Pieng and Nabugubelle with fertilizers and other farming inputs. You claimed that you did that with the support of a NGO called, Needy Ghana. Madam you know what you told the world is a lie and a fabrication. At least in Challu, leading members of the NDC are denying knowledge of what you claimed though usually it’s they that usually benefit from your ‘benevolence’. People are now wondering what the people of Challu have done to you such that you can continue lying of helping them when in reality you are praying for its destruction.
Madam Honourable, I have much to tell you about the sorry state of affairs you left the constituency in or making the constituency to suffer. You are not visible in the constituency or vocal in the House of Parliament. You don’t participate in Parliamentary debates neither do you send forward the problems of your constituency to the House of Parliament. You need to actually wake up from your deep sleep though the president by his position as the leader of the NDC and his Botswana inspired statement has encouraged all NDC MP’s including your very self to be dead goats. I hope to hear from you soon and I shall In sha Allah be back…

Yours sincerely,
Fuseini Abdul-Fatawu
A Suffering and Worried Member of the Sissala East Constituency