… Stoned.

“If you cannot tame the restless devil between your thighs (whether you are a young man or a lady) before marriage, trying to tame it after marriage will be more difficult than single-handedly carrying a man with a broken waist.”- Manasseh Azure Awuni

Lamptey Mills should shout hallelujah seven times. He should run down the street of his house and then return home to dance ‘galala’. He is a very lucky man. Why do I say so? The reason is simple. Just last week, a Somalian man who had been accused of committing adultery, was stoned to death. His girlfriend whom he had impregnated was spared. However, as soon is she is delivered of her child, she would be made to face the ‘stoning squad’.

So you see why I describe Mills as a very lucky man. His crime is even more grievous than that of the aforementioned Somalian who has already been stoned to death. Unlike the latter who committed adultery with a girl who was definitely older than 18. Lamptey Mills had not only committed adultery, he had done it with a sixteen year old girl who had been entrusted into his care as proprietor of the secondary school she attended. Were he in Somalia, his head would not have been spared. Somalians would not have hesitated to conclude that LAMPTEY MILLS DESERVES TO BE STONED. He would have been stoned to death. But thank God once again that he isn’t a Somalian; he lives in Ghana, a country where rule of law, due process, and law and order, are upheld.

Image is everything, as former world tennis star, Andre Agassi, who won eight grand slams once put it. Therefore when you are hit by a scandal of this nature, the image you spent years of hard work and perseverance building becomes tattered immediately. Those who respected and held you in high esteem in the past would suddenly begin to despise and treat you with contempt. Lamptey Mills in reaching an out of court agreement with the parents of his ‘baby girl’, has overcome the risk of either having to spend some time in jail or having to part with a colossal amount of money.

One would expect him as a free man to begin working assiduously towards rebuilding his tattered image. He has refused, however, to do so. Instead, he has launched a blistering attack on the Ghanaian media and the ruling NDC government, blaming them for his predicament. He has accused elements within the NDC of trying to tarnish his hard won reputation. It w ill only be proper to quote his exact words for the benefit of readers. “ I’m a technocrat and not a politician and all those who think by tarnishing my hard worn reputation by foul means in the media will cow me into ductility are wrong since I am not going to relent in my quest to assist the vast majority of poor Ghanaians to access education.” He went on to add that when Kufuor nominated him for an award, his detractors went around asking whether he deserved it. He said they did all they could to prevent him from receiving the award, Kufuor went ahead to award him. And that it was after he received that award that his problems began. People became envious of him and began making efforts to pull him down. He concluded that: ‘if it is the award my enemies want, they can come for it.”

According to the Daily Guide, he said all these at a press conference. Whatever the case may be, it is only in Ghana that a person as indicted as L. Mills would call a press conference and not only try to rationalize his actions, but also try to blame others for his shameful action. This can’t happen in Somalia. I’m telling you. If Lamptey Mills had called this press conference in Somalia, the journalists would attend alright, but it is their stones that will ask their questions for them. Some wicked journalists would even come to the event with about three or more stones and ensure that they inflict all of them on Mills.

Frankly speaking, it is unfair for Mills to blame his woes on the media and the NDC.

Obviously, NDC didn’t tell Mills to coax a school girl into sleeping with him; neither did they force him to impregnate her. As for media men, they go about like hungry lions ‘sniffing’ for news. Sometimes they find it extremely difficult to come by news; so when they are presented with scandals of this nature, they happily make ‘meat’ out of it. Needless to say, there is no news like bad and controversial news. The media therefore cannot be blamed for Lamptey Mills’ predicament.

Indeed this is what happens anytime public officials are indicted for malfeasance. They are quick to politicise every issue. They don’t hesitate to complain of witch-hunting and victimization, even when the money they embezzled is ‘relaxing’ in their bank account.

When his oral sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky was brought to the fore, the former American President Bill Clinton apologised to the American people. Yes, he acknowledged he was guilty, and apologised. This is what I expected L. Mills to do at the press conference. Why is he finding it so difficult to admit guilt? What prevents him from saying, “folks, what I did was shameful and totally unacceptable. I’m deeply sorry; it will never happen again.”

As Ghanaians, let’s endeavour to do the right thing all the time. Where we fail to do the right thing and as a result, fall foul of the law, we must never fail to admit guilt. We should rather make efforts to apologise to whoever we offend, be it an individual or an institution. We must also be ready to suffer the consequences of our actions.

Back to Lamptey Mill’s sex scandal, I would say this is an unfortunate irony. Mills is a man we see on bill boards and on national television singing and admonishing children not to engage in pre-marital sex. One finds it hard to comprehend why he capriciously turned around to engage in the very act he had been advising people against. Well, ‘no man is infallible’, someone would say. SAMUEL K. OBOUR Samuelkwason@yahoo.com