Nusosro Bada Kple Adanuvodi: Dr. Kofi Aprakufe Hadzidzi Gbale

Dr. Kofi Apraku’s recent comment that Ghana owning a presidential jet “is necessary for Ghana to acquire one to lift the image of the country among the countries of the world” is quite interesting. Was I really reading the above from one of the nation’s astute political leaders? Or was I dreaming about an imaginary politician who has nothing of substantive value to say, yet chose to say something, anyhow, because he was being interviewed? Is Dr. Apraku’s self-centered statement is a cursory insight into President Kufuor’s property-owning democratic governance? My questions are endless and I need unscripted answers from the honourable Member of Parliament.
Dr. Apraku’s comment must not be taken lightly. It is one of the many sad episodes in Ghanaian politics. In twenty-first century democratic Ghanaian politics, some of our respected leaders have the habit of intellectualizing idiocy. They speak ill of commonsense where their nascent ideas are laid bare in the face, and their intellectuality questioned. If the acquisition of planes was/is the best way to elevate a nation’s international image, then suffice me to say that, Ethiopia would have been crowned, by now, as the best African nation-state. To the contrary, we know, for a fact, that Ethiopia’s peripheral economy, like Ghana’s, is sustained by Western charity. In an unrelated anecdote, I am beginning to understand why some educated Ghanaians, in the diaspora, would think that the Ghanaian economy could become Africa’s Singapore if the government allows them to flood our ports with rickety automobiles. These “anansesem adisua” is the source of our nation’s underdevelopment.
Where was Dr. Apraku’s conscience when the made his bizarre remark on jet acquisition and the nation’s image enhancement? Am I am truly hearing this comment coming from Dr. Apraku, the pauper-politician, who once thought that he possessed the magic wand to wish away the nation’s problems. Is this the gentleman the same reputable “scholar” who once argued that Chairman Rawling's administration was too extravagant and insensitive to the needs of Ghanaians? Is Dr. Apraku currently content with the infirmed state of our nation’s economy? Did I hear, again, hear Dr. Apraku say(ing) that the current administration has halved the nation’s poverty rate in seven years? If half of our nation’s poverty-stricken population have actually bid farewell to poverty, which I doubt, why then would our president travel to Western capitals, with a bowl in his hands, to beg for foreign charity to address the nation’s socio-economic problems, many of which could have been solved had we been governed, in the past and present, by competent leaders and not rulers?
I thought that the current administration was averse to waste. Wasn’t the preceding their reason(s) for imprisoning Kwame Peprah and others on charges of causing economic loss(es) to the state? Wasn’t Dr. Apraku part of the clique who condemned Chairman Rawlings for buying the Gulf-Stream presidential jet? So what happens to the yet-to-be-purchased presidential plane if the NPP government is shown the door in the December 2008 elections? Are we going to see a replay of President Kufour’s untenable excuse, by the new leader, that he campaigned against the purchase of the President Kufuor’s presidential jet, and would therefore not use it for his unnecessary foreign excursions? How many times are we going to allow ourselves to be victimized by the unbridled folly and extravagance of our experimental politicians? Dr. Apraku, and many who think like him, should be voted out of office. Thereafter, they will come to appreciate the daily experiential of those on the fringes of society who have never tasted the prosperity and privilege that Dr. Apraku presently enjoys as a politician.
Ghanaian politics is becoming “weirder” with each passing day. First, came the allocation of US$20,000 car allowance to the nation’s Members of Parliament when our schools could hardly afford the rising cost of textbooks and other teaching aids to nourish the starving minds of our students. As a poor nation, we sat in leisure when our leaders spent US$20 million dollars on our fiftieth Independence Day anniversary when expectant mothers were dying in our hospitals because the nation does not have competent medical professionals to perform caesarean operations. In the last few years, the government has spent more US$60 million on building a presidential Taj Mahal. This cited project is taking place at a time when many of your nation’s youth have to sell drugs on street corners and/or engage in computer fraud to survive. Would Dr. Apraku describe our nation’s emerging generation of young drug peddlers as street chemists and credit President Kufuor’s Golden Age of Business” and Capital Production for the melees on our streets?
In an era when a fraction of our nation’s students can hardly write a coherent sentence, why should the purchase of a presidential jet, for a leader’s personal convenience, become our nation’s number one priority? In a century where our university graduates puke at the sight of research work, and opt for multiple choice examinations, how can be preserve our place in the club of competing nations with second-rate future leaders? Since the inception of our nation’s parliamentary democracy, not only have I personally witnessed, in disbelief, the unintelligibility of some of our politicians, in all fairness, I have also questioned their capabilities, as leaders.
Isn’t it sad to hear a Regional Minister argue that the country’s Nima mosquitoes cannot be controlled because they don’t need passports and exit visas to migrate across the nation’s porous borders? Since when did mosquito management require the application of international passports? Maybe, the preceding is an interesting proposal the Honourable Regional Minister would like to suggest to the US Department of Homeland (In)Security. In my opinion, our leaders have let our nation down. Like criminal entrepreneurs, they have perverted the values of good politics. They have bought the soul of the hungry public whom they constantly perceive as an army of fools, on whose back they can ride their way to power. Is our nation’s becoming another Orwellian failed state, where a few belly-jiggling squealers in the administration would come out in public to sing the hymns of “atiyie” with the thought that the desperate public will open their choked throats to swallow the foul-smelling droppings? Delusion is no(t) sanity, and Dr. Apraku’s comment on the acquisition a costly president jetliner, in the midst of growing human misery, is morally revolting to me.
While Ghana is poor, which I sincerely admit, the resources at our leaders’ disposal are enough to promote an intellectual culture in our schools. In my inexpert judgement, the nation’s scare resources are enough to make basic healthcare accessible to Ghanaians. Should we eliminate the increasing waste in the form of free accommodation for our nation’s enervated ministers, the purchase of deluxe automobiles, among other wasteful shopping lists, we can provide drinkable water to our Northern siblings many of whom may not live to see the beautiful northern scenery, again, because they have been afflicted with river-blindness. With the resources that are current available, we can put the nation’s poor girls through school to steer clear of another reenactment of late Akua Ofaribea’s tragedy; a story that was brought to my attention by my dearest mentor, Wofa Okyere-Bonna, and for which I am extremely thankful.
I would also like to inform the Honourable Member of Parliament that national security is essential to economic growth and development. In a nation where armed banditry has become a lucrative industry, I would like Dr. Apraku to channel his expertise into how best we can address the insecurity that is slowing swallowing up our peaceful nation. Should we leave the preceding to God, as our politicians have always done, not even the president, or his ministers, would be immune to the growing anomie that is slowing eating the moral pillars on which our country rests. Change must come and it surely will. Hope all is well. Good day and cheers.