By Sydney Casely-Hayford

I admit I have lived my whole life with very little violence. When I listen and see the devastation in Aleppo, Syria, Afghanistan, Mosul, Burundi, Somalia and Northern Nigeria, I thank my stars that I am far removed from these countries and I don’t look forward to any of the Boko Harams, Al Shababs and Al Qaedas coming anywhere near close to my shoreline.

Increasingly I wonder whether religion has not become a platform for violence and whether politicians using religion as a means of promoting a certain brand of occupation are not the bane of our society and we should take a little more time and examine the way we worship and practice democracy in Ghana.

The answer is certainly not a dictatorship as we have lessons from JJ Rawlings and his team of violent men, as well as the CPP/NLM fights of yore, which became a flat plain for leveling off all arguments for which is a better unit of people.

I am reminded constantly these days of all the violent noise in our country and the dominating silence of those who have the means to stop the cacophony and preserve our recent culture of peace in a country where we have a lot more to complain about than replace our voices with pretentious noises of democracy.

In the week gone by, Charlotte Osei the EC boss was in the international media wondering why we degenerate into a spate of violence in every election year.

As much as I don’t want to call the EC boss names, I wondered which planet she came from. Isn’t it possible that a disgruntled people who are suspicious of the way authority acts will make a lot of violent noise and fight for their right to correct the procedure?

When there are indications that we have a biased referee on our hands, we wait in the wings to pounce as soon as opportunity opens the doorway.
The recent one is the ballot papers that omit the abbreviation of the NPP on the ballot to the exception of all others. Nobody saw this? Boy oh boy!

I watched helplessly as the USA elected a president who said nothing but stoke his followers to consider many ways of creating mayhem in a country where tinder boxes are waiting to be lit, a country where the right to a gun has made it more violent than any peace-loving democracy in the free world.

That the US can be so screwed up as to perpetuate an Electoral College system that encourages the continued denigration of the black race, makes you wonder whether the greatest country in the world will ever sort out its prejudices enough to make equality a true rhetoric in the world’s largest economy.

I don’t ever remember a time when an elected head of state, not a usurper of the people’s mandate, has ever been called to leave office when he has not even sat in the chair of state.

I am seeing videos on social media with children no more than four years old have been coached by adults to reject Donald Trump as the incoming President. And he deserves it.

Nearly half of US eligible voters did not vote on November 7. 47% of them did not think it was worth the effort. We must ask ourselves in Ghana if the two leading candidates of the dominant parties are the right choice for our democracy.

This JM Toaso slogan by the NDC begs the question to voters; what has he and his NDC party done these last eight years, that they could not achieve and yet feel they deserve to continue to govern?

My count is in the number of jobs not created and the expensive improvement in utility services that make life troubling and discouraging as we go forward.

More roads, half completed schools, half completed hospitals and a flyover do not an economy turn around. At best it makes for illiterates to come and wistfully tell us the traveled class that they also can now boast of having seen “Dubai”.

Again, the empty pledge to include Arabic in our school curriculum and make it an examinable subject has all the hallmarks of bankrupt, ignorant ideas, an afterthought to gather votes in the Islamic community and compete for votes that might not even be there.

Why bring such an idea to the table at this time when we can’t even grade the children properly in the more accepted common languages of English and Twi? What possibly will it encourage other than another round of language confusion?

Islam fanatics have raised the bar of terrorism to another height in this world, in condemnation of the Western world, propagated by falsely concocted schemes that infidels are planning to destroy their faith.

I like what the Islamic schools teach. A real understanding of teachings of their faith and the right interpretation of modern Islam. How much better will our washed out schools sitting under trees be able to impart, in accordance with the true teachings of Mohammed, – May His Name be Praised, – such that we will not add to the offshoot grouse of their faith.

Better we leave the teaching of a religion to those believers who want it to be done in the true understanding of the Koran. And talking of that, we need to reexamine how we teach Christianity in schools and what message we part to the children. The world is moving on and we must define our future for ourselves and not for anyone else.

Will we ask the US embassy to shut down in Ghana and withdraw its ambassador when Trump carries through his promise to deport three million illegal immigrants? Especially when the one million Ghanaians come home? Where will they stay? Bole Bamboi is full!!

What has made America one of the best countries to migrate to in the world is about to be unraveled by a bigoted racist and misogynist.

Can we in Ghana figure a system that will ensure that we choose the right leader? Unlike America? One who is smart, intelligent and forward-looking, such that we will see our way clearer into a modern world focused on leading technology and change, with the resources we have and utilize our natural resource advantages in this world where just about everybody is searching for answers to make the next generation more super and worthy of commitment?

Where is the next solar energy breakthrough going to come from? And where should the next added value to Cocoa to lead a healthier world going to come from if not Ghana, once the leading producer of one of the World’s healthiest natural crops? And Shea Nuts and Soya? Ginger, Palm Nuts, Agushie and Mango?

Where are the thought leaders of our country? Those who can curtail the quadrennial violence and encourage us to use our heads to carry more than load?

I want to be a part of that revolutionary way of harnessing natural energy, which we have in abundance in Ghana. I don’t want to be associated with election violence as a mention in my accolades when I arrive at the end of my cycle.

This violence scourge we have defined over the past must come to an end. If both the NPP and NDC, but especially the NDC party cannot freeze all the hatred and stop the violence by their followers, we should find a way of dissolving the party; and the best way is for them to lose this election by such a margin and we continue to make progress determinedly that there will be no room in the future for their brand of violence and an ideology that generates no progress for Ghanaians.

President Mahama must call on his party leaders to forestall all the violence such as we saw last week in Nima. It is unnecessary, uncivilized and totally out of order. His frozen voice in this bad demonstration of destabilizing behavior is not acceptable in this Ghana.

“Toaso” indeed!

Alius atrox week advenio. Another terrible week to come!