Critical News, 20th January 2013

Sydney Casely-Hayford, sydney@bizghana.com

We are in dismal shape really. So much of what is happening in Ghana at this time makes for momentary reflection on what for and why a returnee would trip back home only to sit and wait for water to run through the taps and intermittent electricity hold you ransom in simple everyday tasks, yet saddled with the same level of workload you find in the West. I paint a positive picture when friends ask whether it was worth making the trip back home three years ago, but deep down, I think we lack the capacity to do the necessary to leapfrog the constrictions we face everyday. Some persons are fully loaded with aircon, generators, brand new cars, mucho cash from where you cannot tell, and they stroll through the challenge of Ghana with ease. In the middle-income bracket, it is a struggle. At the low subsistence end, it is ignorant bliss in church activity and community “nkomo”.
But wow, we are in a dilemma for legitimacy. Both political parties are looking to upend each other on the basis that what you have done we also have a right to do or even worse. No regard for the daily political diet of Ghanaians, our needs are subservient to those of the political elite, who think that insulting each other will eventually win them the Order of The Volta.
With this mood, we went to court to continue the saga of the NPP election petition. To move ahead, the Supreme Court must determine if the NDC have a right to join in the fight and support John Mahama. I understand from learned friends and also heard the basis for the arguments on air, that it is simple process but complicated because we have to be mindful of the political tension this saga is creating. The lordships decided to get some respite and give us a decision on 22nd January.
JDM filed his response to the NPP petition. Nothing much in there except he says he will call 4,800 witnesses to his defense. Allowing time to swear them in, ask the relevant questions and take statements, recording the statements by hand and maybe needing an interpreter or two, depending, each one could take 15 minutes before the bench. It could take 200 days to complete, give or take, so we can be at this through to the end of the year. That’s just witnesses. There are the other matters to deal with during this period. You must have a diabolical mind to come up with something like this. Me, I could only react after I heard the strategy. Good luck to the NPP, hope they find a way out.
We had more ministers offered for appointment, the tally is now at nineteen.
The Tamale South MP and former minister of communications Harunna Iddrissu is leaving a wake of violent supporter sentiment in the municipality. Left out from appointments, his supporters rampaged, took to the streets and started burning offices and any property they could sight. They insist their “man” be appointed as a minister by John Mahama or else they continue burning, but he dissociated himself from all the violence.
President Mahama has now appointed fifteen previous deputies and old ministers and created four new faces. It is still not very clear whether he is going for a younger brigade or whether he is rewarding loyalists in his campaign. Hannah Tetteh, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, Omane Boamah? They all played very active roles in his message to election. Can they do the job? Parliamentary vetting starts next week with the first six. You know, every time we have this vetting, I wonder if parliament will ever reject any nominee. With 120 NDC parliamentarians who only vote one way, I might never live to see the day.
Crime is headline news in Ghana, but we were not ready for the story of a boyfriend suspected of beheading his girlfriend. Francis Agbem-nya is a wanted man in Apremdo in the Takoradi area. Popular local comedian Agya Koo was nearly arrested, he managed to leave the country with the alleged ghc3,800 he duped someone of, an hour before an arrest warrant was issued. Some Military persons engaged land guards in a near bloodbath at Akokofoto in Dansoman. What were they doing out of barracks, hired by a private person to go and demolish property and “protect” someone’s assets? How did we regress to this PNDC tactics? Or did we never leave it behind us? An inmate at the mental hospital in Asylum Down, strangled another inmate in a fight that caused some human rights advocates to call for someone to sue the institution. I feel very sorry for my bosom pal Dr. Akwasi Osei. If he ever manages to decongest the place with the existing level of budgetary support, I will personally bless Government. Finally out of frustration, Prince Tetteh in Ashaiman had his scrotum slashed for “no reason” by a co-tenant; and the Asylum is full. Then we have the fires. Many of them these days and yet we do not hear a comprehensive plan to apply stricter regulation in the markets and congested centers. The after shock in this country just does not resonate any institution into action.
Meanwhile, Agbesi Woyome is walking the streets of Accra with allegedly ghc51.2million he took from the coffers of the people of Ghana, and even now openly saying he will win his case. He is emboldened by recent appointments. I think he has friends in the new A-G, Parliament and also his party is back. We still don’t know who received the largesse from his judgment debt, but every time he appears in court, some chiefs from the Volta Region show up to support him together with some NDC big-ups. It must be fair to conclude that they have a stake in Agbesi’s freedom?
You see, the caretaker Minister for Communications Harrunna Idrissu is a moderate NDC politician. I listened to him many times, making cogent arguments, speaking his mind and accepting fault where he saw due. The other type of NDC politician, who is more revered and re-elected at Congress is the Asiedu Nketia type. Not called General Mosquito without a reason, the Executive Secretary of the NDC was at his best on air after his foot soldiers had stormed the Supreme Court wearing smocks (his trade mark apparel) and flexing canes and whips, ostensibly to flog some NPP persons they said were giving the country too much grief. This is how he explained the show.
Some NPP persons had gone to the market, bought NDC clothing and canes and made it to the Supreme Court to flog their own party members and ultimately blame it on the NDC. All this because they wanted to cause mayhem and stop the court proceedings from going on because they knew they would lose. What kind of mind must you have to say something like this? How does anybody with some sense of decency come out with in-your-face blatant nonsense like this? I was musing the other day about where Koku Anyidohu has disappeared? Don’t we need a similar fate for the Mosquito?

We have to decontaminate our politics of the likes of Asiedu Nketia who justify mayhem with depraved antics under the protection of the Umbrella. Who will cane this mosquito? Not John Mahama? When can decent politics begin? Jato Julor responded to this on Ghanaweb and puts words to writing that I cannot even start consider writing.

But Saturday, South Africa drew nil nil with Cape verde, Angola held Morocco to an identical score. We play our first match against DR Congo in about two hours and we will beat them by at least three or more. If I get it wrong, too bad, I am done predicting outcomes in Ghana anyway, but I would like to see a win to cheer up. There are a couple by-elections coming up already. Kofi Adams, former JJ aide has decided to try and get into Parliament. Ah well, good luck to him, hope the election is free, fair and un-rigged.

Ghana, Aha a ye de papa. Alius valde week advenio. Another great week to come!