VooDoo Child

(By Dzifah Hiatsi

If you were called Busia or Nkrumah, that sure is an asset in Ghana

A name is a herald, announcing you, it could open doors for you, get you a good job, a date or get you into the prestigious schools and clubs. Your name could be a magnet, attracting all the right people to you. Then again that same herald could announce you in a bad way, closing doors in your face and restricting you from all the places you need or want to be. Your name could be so repulsive people would spit in disgust after mentioning your name

Your name could help buy you a grand hotel near the Tetteh Quarshie overpass or help you enrol briefly at the Ghana International School. There is no good or bad name, it is all relative unless you were called, say, Ahelege and you decided that not everybody liked okro soup which helps lubricate the tongue making it easier to pronounce it so you shorten it to Ahey. Yeah, that sounds friendlier.

If you were called Busia or Nkrumah, that sure is an asset in Ghana at any time now, more so if you were the real deal; that is if you were directly related to the two founding fathers of Ghana. There has always been pressure on these people to continue in he family tradition or stay out. The pressure on Samia and Sekou Nkrumah, and Frema Busia to carry on the torch of their fathers in politics or stay out of it like their other siblings is one only they can attest to.

To have a name like Nkrumah, Busia, Danquah, Rawlings, Kuffuor, may be an asset however assets have their downside and could depreciate and become a liability. In the case of Frema, it was obvious that the government would want such an asset around especially to reassure the diehard UP followers and that is all about it. Anything else is straying into dangerous territory.

When Frema Busia got to understand the workings of the game

An independent minded and educated woman named Busia holding a front line position in government, what are you nuts? Poor Francis Poku, the chief warden in that "political prison" called National Security should have just accepted his "prisoner" with humility instead of being "too known" about the security of the country and insisting on working with professionals. Whoever heard of people launching or boosting their political career as watchmen or watchwomen. Unless you were planning a Putin style political move. Then, being a watchman should have been a choice.

When Frema Busia got to understand the workings of the game, the players had already moved on and that must have been painful to realize. All that while, "damn I was the ball, I was the ball I was the ball?" Beware the scorn of woman; and she went to town, exercising that scorn, spilling the beans hitting where it hurts most. Her press statement reminded one of that letter written by the jilted angry girl from Besease who wrote, "God will beat you with a stick and eat my case for me" in a long letter to her ex. That letter actually ended, "I will show you wise, apiitor"

she redefined what a political prisoner meant

Frema’s own aunt sought to distance herself from her while implying that her niece’s head needed a little poking. Anyone who wants to judge Frema must remember his or her most painful and heartbreaking experience and remember whatever action he or she wanted to take. Frema did bravely and with a stroke of the pen she redefined what a political prisoner meant and promoted her status to that of people like Akoto Ampaw, Kwesi Pratt, and the number one former political prisoner, Nelson Mandela. It could have been worse, nobody died and all we had was a ten pager that was even easier to read than VooDoo Child.

Yes beware the scorn of a woman, but beware the wrath of man. Yet, mostly, beware the machinations of men.