The art of communication is purely professional and not a ‘koliko’ vocation. There is a marked difference between the core ingredients of what a serious communication entails, and, incoherent rumblings of once irresponsible character that was being taking care of by his wife but now flaunting his over-bloated ego as a result of free asses to ‘edufudze’.

Communication, in its true sense, has absolutely nothing to do with having a puppet radio presenter giving you unlimited access on his jaundiced and intellectually constipated programme, to engage in ‘koku ananse’ diatribes and childish talk about the president cutting sod here, cutting sod there and cutting sod everywhere.

Is this what the likes of Alistair Campbell and George Stephanopoulos used to do for Anthony Linton Blair (Tony Blair) and William Jefferson Clinton (Bill Clinton) of Britain and America respectively? Do you ever see any presidential spokesperson throwing his amorphous body frame about and ordering members of presidential press team about when leaders of these civilized nations are addressing the media at the seat of government?

Why Atta-Mills won’t act

But under the Mills-Mahama presidency, because mediocrity and irresponsibility have become the order of the day, these errand boys at the seat of government are going about doing whatever pleases them without the recourse to existing protocols. These things are going on without those involved being suctioned simply because:

1. The president knows that it was the fraudulent activities of these vagabonds during election 2008 that made him a president and therefore completely scared of doing something to incur their displeasure.

2. The president is incapacitated to an extent, due to some level of ill-health and he believes that these foul-mouth hyenas around him are doing a pretty good job for shielding him from rather genuine criticisms with caustic insults. And this thinking of Atta-Mills was actually attested to by Chris Ackumey, when he said that “the insults by these deputy ministers, serves as a protective shield to the president” as he once revealed on Joy Fm’s news and current affairs analysis programme, ‘News-File’.

I have always maintain that Atta-Mills is certainly not the one currently running the affairs Ghana, and that, these gaping sycophants and intellectually bankrupt animalistic gluttons around him are simply capitalizing on his incapacity in all spheres of human-life, to make hay while the sun shines. The reason why I am convinced Atta-Mills is not in-charge of what goes on in Ghana today, is this: any conscientious leader worth his salt, would have gotten rid of Koku ‘the bull’ Anyidoho for such a communication fiasco and revealing Atta-Mills’ high taste for luxury.

Communication under Rawlings and Kufuor

Under the presidency of President Rawlings, who we have collectively described as someone with no big academic qualifications, there was never a time I can vividly remember when communications from the seat of government was ever disseminated in such a cow-dung-like fashion.

I very well remember efforts of the likes of Mrs. Valarie Sackey, Mr.Nyewolemah and so on, of then castle information bureau made to project the early years of the Rawlings regime during the first NDC administration. The elixir of the late Vincent Assiseh’s deliveries on both government and party positions were just impeccable. And how can anybody forget the skills of Dr.Ekow Spio-Garbrah and Dr.Nii Armaah Josiah Aryee, in the area of strategic and effective communication.

President Kufuor had Kwabena Agyei Agyepong and later, Andrew Awuni as spokespersons. And the performance of these two personalities are very much well chronicled.Kwabena Agyepong actually introduced the American style periodic briefings for the press at the presidency and by so doing, issues from the seat of government were always out there in the public domain. This made it possible for government to lead from the front in the area of agenda setting.

Communication under Atta-Mills

But today, we have a president, who is a professor of law, and by NDC’s calculation and warped understanding of how the law faculty of our universities operates, are shouting from the roof-tops to the effect that, Atta-Mills has single-handedly, trained all lawyers that were trained at the university of Ghana law faculty since the days of Don Diego D’azambuja. This is the man the NDC claim is claiming is the repository of every academic achievement the world has ever known, and yet, he has baptized and elevated some juvenile delinquents to go out there and project his professorial ‘asomdwee hene’ image.

And it is in the light of this that minions as Koku Anyodoho,Felix Ofosu kwakye,Samuel Okudzato-Ablakwa,Kobby Acheampong,Hannah Bissiw and so on, have been given a free range to go on rampage with highly stinking vituperative cacophony.

Under the current administration, what one needs to qualify as a presidential spokesperson, aide, a staffer and so on, is simply possessing a caustic lip, intensity of verbal venom and rapidity with which this potently poisonous concoction can be poured out into the faces of political opponents. A decent art of communication has now been reduced to bouts of plain insults by people with highly putrefied and gigantic mouths.

This group of people has never exhibited any modicum of politesse required of presidential staffers, because they have never considered a good personal image as a necessity due to their uncultured up-bringing.

Atta-Mills’ impression about jubilee house

Now, when the newly elected president Atta-Mills was given a tour of the jubilee house by president Kufuor, he lauded kufuor’s stewardship and contribution to national development and said it was “impossible for anyone to wish away what Kufuor had done to move Ghana forward”. He promised Kufuor that he would “complete the jubilee house project as well as all the developmental projects across the country”.

Beaming with smiles after touring the jubilee house, Prof. Mills remarked “this building is indeed an impressive and imposing edifice and monument of the country’s development". The question is: what has changed for president Atta-Mills to renege on this promise he made to the good people of Ghana, resulting in the current hullabaloo over a “token, gift, purchase and rent” of a security out-post from a private developer?

Social-democracy and socialism

My cherished readers have been bombarding me with questions about the meaning of my regular refrain “champaign-socialists” which I often use to depict the true political ideology of the NDC.

Professor John E. Roemer, who is an authority on political science/economics at the Yale University (USA), defined socialism as the allocation of labour where the outputs received by individuals are proportional to the value of the lobour they expended on production.

And he defined social-democracy as the redistribution of income through taxation, with a system of private ownership.

Now, from definitions of these two ideological concepts, as defined by the learned professor, it is evidently clear that socialism in its purest form is what used to be practiced in the former East Germany. This concept is currently being practiced by North Korea and until very recently, Fidel Castro’ Cuba. What normally happens in nations practicing this form of governance is that, the leaders, in the open, force down the throat of their people, the purest form of Marxism. They indoctrinate the people to believe that the state has the responsibility to cater for their collective need, and that, it is not worthwhile for individual inherent talents to be grown and natured for personal advancement.

The deceit in 2008

This is what Atta-Mills and his squadron of ‘nkwan deewa’ apologists succeeded in doing to the gullible members of our society, in 2008. They also lied through their noses, how they abhor luxury. But, they are revealing their true character of extreme affinity for wealth by way of accepting multi-million dollar mansions as “a token”, now that they are in power.

At creation, God in his infinite wisdom knew very well that, in diversity, lies the ability of a group to make advance in areas of all spheres of human endeavour by sharing divergent views on issues and arriving at a final consensus. And this is why even twins, who are conceived and delivered at the same time, never grow up having the same beliefs and thoughts.

This reality of individuals’ inherent energies being given the fertile ground to germinate and grow so that the total sum of such energies of the citizenry can easily propel a nation into an era of true socio-economic advancement, has even dawn on the leaders of Cuba. Cuba is now allowing its people to start their own small enterprises, acquire some amount of properties, use American dollar as a medium of trade in some cases and so on.

But rather ironically, people living in expensive ‘musuku’ mansions, running multi-million Ghana-cedi printing houses, operating from exquisitely furnished air-conditioned offices with Dstv/internet access and cruising on the streets of Accra in fuel-guzzling SUV’s, are still calling themselves socialists.

Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei

E-mail: justnoff@yahoo.com