Opinions of Sunday, 10 May 2015

Columnist: Frimpong, Joseph

Dumsor dumsor and insults from government.

If you are a Ghanaian, there is no need in being lectured about dumsor dumsor and how decadent it has made our society. Speak of the businesses that are collapsing, the people that are losing their jobs, children who have to use streetlights to learn, refrigerators which has become an apparatus for melting ice among others and you will be making allusions to the phenomenon which has come to inconvenience Ghanaians. Civil societies, politicians and religious leaders and societies have spoken up against this evil which is on the loose. But recently, "our celebrities" (entertainment industry) seemed to have joined the fight in the name of "#DumsorMustStop" and it has generated a brouhaha.
First of all, this is not the first time someone or a group of people have spoken against Mahama's government on how irresponsible it has been with the management of the power crisis, although the latter has always vehemently disagreed stating of the megawatts that is coming from here, there and here, and some sweeping changes that will end this dumsor. But whenever he promises an end to dumsor, the histories have told us that the issue gets worse.
Remember, during the World Cup and Easter festivities, he (Mahama) looked for auxiliary power supply from our neighbors now seemingly enemies, Cote D'Ivoire and it saw stability in the rate at which our lights were going off. These events reinforced the belief that the government was bereft of ideas and was intentionally not solving the crisis.

Now a group of celebrities (Yvonne Nelson, Sarkodie, Lydia Forson (YSL) joined the campaign, which started on social media, to tell the government to immediately end dumsor and this has been the most dramatic event ever witnessed in Ghana.
Whilst the celebrities were at one extreme end holding the government's neck telling them to solve this overly protracted sickness, government and its communicators are at the other end are seriously insulting these celebrities. The attack seems to be more centralized on Yvonne Nelson than the latter two, although the insulting tongues in the name of Alhaji Haruna,Atubiga and other government communicators,have not been spared the other two their poisonous love. This saw these communicators labeling Yvonne Nelson and Lydia Forson a prostitute!
So now clear events have showed Ghanaians that s/he who complains about dumsor is going to have, to the least of his or her worries, insults from government's communicators and vehemently threats against their lives as it is happening to Yvonne.
When I was a child, I thought like a one and I thought that lights were like air, it was given to us by nature. It was during my education that I began to learn of "Akosomobo nkane3" that I realized that indeed power doesn't come by itself and if you don't create power you don't get it. Now,I wish to come to the defense of the celebrities and tell the government that indeed, electricity is not created by lies and/or insults, if it were, we will all agree that we would by now have generated so much electricity that Nigeria and South Africa would now be begging us to supply them electricity.
The government of the day should know that we are bleeding from dumsor and whenever we speak up, it does not mean we hate them or we are all NPP sympathizers. This labeling has been the most disgraceful thing and pathetic insults meted out to Ghanaians by the government. Unlike these government functionaries, not even 30% of Ghanaians have a generator or money to buy one. The cost of fueling these generators is not a nut an old woman can crack. It is expensive and if they are living in a gold mines, we aren't and hence they most know that the ordinary Ghanaians are suffering.
These celebrities have a legitimate concern to hold the government to its words! Before they can survive, the people need to have lights. How can you listen to Sarkodie and watch Yvonne Nelson on TV when you don't have electricity? Like everyone, they bleed too and it is however shameless that a whole government can descend on decent people who earn their money by fair means and start calling them names.
How can we live in a nation were even a cry for help has been politicized? So right now, per the logic of the ruling government through its communicators, all the celebrities are NPPs, all the members of the Christian council and Christians in general are NPPs, all workers (by actions and demands of TUC) are NPPs,all ordinary citizens complaining about dumsor are NPPs. So I will end by asking, if they start by labeling genuinely concerned and affected Ghanaians as NPP sympathizers, in 2016 who will they (NDC led administrators) campaign to? Who will they expect to vote for them since per their narrative, we are all NPP sympathizers?