Opinions of Saturday, 9 February 2019

Columnist: Amos Blessing Amorse

Lydia Alhassan and the ‘Cultural Values Theory’

Lydia Alhassan Lydia Alhassan

Hirelings and lapdogs of the governing New Patriotic Party are belching uncontrollably over the Minority in Parliament's description of Lydia Alhassan, mother of late Emmanuel Agyarko's children, as "bloody widow".

According to these "moral preachers", our societal and cultural values abhor the conduct of the Haruna Iddrisu-led Minority in Parliament.

It is surprising that, despite all the red flags the NDC and its MPs raised over Lydia Alhassan's election, members of the ruling party expected them to cooperate with them in swearing in the supposed newly elected legislator.

Preachers of the cultural values theory, knowing the precedent they have set when it comes to swearing in of elected persons in this country, have not, for a moment, extended their theory to the minority's boycott. What is piercing their "testicles" is the bloody widow tag.

If there is any woman in Ghana, and by extension the world, that cultural values must be invoked to ward off attacks on her, it is certainly not Lydia Alhassan.

This woman is the first to destroy the non-tainted moral fabric of our cultural values by devilishly invading the late Emmanuel Agyarko's peaceful home, and at the end, setting it on ablaze.

If she must be a beneficiary of cultural values, then she must, first and foremost, tell the world which Ghanaian cultural value emboldened her to "snatch" a man from her colleague woman who had tied the knot with her man under the laws of this country.

Those of us who have tasted the brunt of wicked women like Lydia Alhassan know how it feels to live with your mother who is always pained because her colleague woman has snatched what brought joy to her.

The activities of Lydia Alhassan-like women have caused many children to drop out of school because their fathers became so attached to the "home wrecker" to their neglect. In this case, mothers who depended so much on their husbands, aside the emotional trauma, could not take care of their children.

Which cultural value allowed her to inflict such sharp emotional pains on Josephine and her children? Which cultural value licensed her coax the late MP to turn against his once beloved wife to the extent of initiating a divorce process in court? Would Lydia Alhassan be happy if it was Josephine that “knifed” her the way she has done?

Isn’t it against our cultural values for an unmarried woman to be going out with a married man; to the extent of bearing a child for him? Have the moral preachers averted their minds to the desperate manner in which Lydia Alhassan managed to get children for the late MP?

I have been a victim of the terror Lydia Alhassan visited on the home of the late Emmanuel Agyarko. I share the pains of Josephine, the late MP's legitimate widow, and her children.

I witnessed, first hand, the battles my mother fought in the 90s when Lydia Alhassan-like woman invaded our house and snatched our hitherto caring father from us. I saw a helpless mother who wiped every night because her colleague woman was "hording" her husband in her house.

I saw a hapless woman who struggled to keep my sister and I in school when our father was "stolen" from us. I saw how our happiness evaporated when a Lydia Alhassan-like woman nearly destroyed my family.

Unlike the late Agyarko, my father survived whatever spell that was cast on him and a new page was opened thereon. The story would have been different if my father had joined his maker like Agyarko.

The likes of Lydia Alhassan, under normal circumstances, should not be allowed to walk on planet earth, let alone given a space to make laws for this country. It is unfortunate a home wrecker now has a place in parliament and, very soon he will mount the moral high-ground to advice young ladies. Such characters should never serve as role models for the youth.

The fact that she schemed to get bigwigs in her party to "cook" the primaries for her at a time Emmanuel Agyarko's mortal remain had not found a befitting resting place justified the minority's description of her as "bloody widow".

Ominously, for her to have goaded marauders and brigands in her party to shed blood of innocent Ghanaians for her to seal her dream of becoming MP, further makes her blood tasty widow.

The minority's decision to boycott her swearing in, aside the reasons given so far, was in protest of home-wrecking antics of women like Lydia Alhassan. The female MPs among the minority are dreading a Lydia Alhassan-like woman their homes.

Their male counterparts are also kicking against what befell the late MP to rock their home. So if they are opposed to Lydia Alhassan, they are doing that for very good reason.