Features
The President’s special chair …and emerging controversies
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
In most general sense, a chair is a piece of furniture designed for the purpose of allowing a single person to sit or recline. It is an item of furniture that provides sitting for more than one person, often referred to as a sofa, settee, bench or so on.Sitting in a wrong office chair, can cause major health issues and one can simply avoid this by investing in an ergonomic chair. A good office chair can bear wonders for your back. It works by improving your posture, reducing unnecessary back pains and reducing hip pressure.
Research has shown that, slouching, and similar postures while sitting can cause backaches, headaches and poor concentration. Ergonomic chairs are more comfortable than normal chairs because they are user-friendly. You can adjust all features of the chair to fit your individual needs until you are totally comfortable.
SPECIAL
PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR
For some time now, there has been controversy from the point of view of the public over a special presidential seat being used by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at both state and private functions across the country of which viral photos keep trending on social media more frequently. The now famous seat of the President, has been spotted carried in a V8 vehicle that followed the president anywhere he attended public functions.
The brouhaha over this strange development on the part of the president, has imputed several rumours, speculations and conjectures about the motives behind the practice, especially when he has to travel to any public functions across the country with this special chair. Some have said that the practice, is purely associated with spiritual direction offered to the president. Rumours are that, the President’s personal prophet, had cautioned him to avoid publicly offered chairs and use his own private chairs anywhere he goes.
SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE SPECIAL CHAIR
Another strange reason is that the President’s special chair has a special purpose to perform while he sits on it. It is being alleged that the chair is not a mere seat, but an electronic device put together to keep him from fallen asleep.It is said that the seat is actually a contraption filled with a device that delivers mild electrical vibrations to keep the President awake. Explaining how the device works, an unimpeachable source within the presidency, was once quoted within social media circles to have stated that, “It is really a simple device that is remotely controlled. The trusted aides handling the remote control, are under instructions to deliver a certain level of electric shock to the President at specified intervals. The shock is not delivered to cause him to jolt, but rather, to deliver some vibration to keep him awake”.Whether this assertion is true or not, is something yet to be established and comfirmed.
GABBY’S
EXPLANATION
However, Mr. Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, a Special Aide to the President and his right-hand man, was quoted to have debunked all the conspiracy theories and assertions on his Facebook page, explaining that the roaming chair, was due to the deadly Corona virus pandemic which rocked the entire world in 2019, including Ghana.
It is recalled that during his official tour of the North East Region in 2020, President Akufo-Addo, visited PAD 95.1 FM for an interview along with his presidential seat and that was captured in the social media. The usual studio seat, according to the picture that made rounds, was shifted aside and replaced with his special chair. Also, during his visit to the Ashanti Region in that same year, his special presidential seat was taken along with him for an interview with Wontumi Radio Station among others.
PUBLIC CURIOSITY
ABOUT THE
Nobody is against the President carrying and using a special chair at any given functions across the country and even beyond the borders of this country, provided the costs involved in transporting this special chair will be borne or absorbed by the President himself. If for any good reasons regarding his health and doctors have advised that he should use a special seat as a means of dealing with his problem, that will be fine and also becomes a state funded issue since he is the president and the number one gentleman of the land as such, the laws will allow that to happen. In all these propaganda theories being bandied around in the social media by some personalities, neither the President nor any of his spokespersons, have given reasons as to why this special chair always has to travel with the President anywhere he goes to put an end to some of these mere speculations. It is on the basis of such development that one finds it difficult to comprehend what is happening in the face of the current economic challenges that has brought about high cost of living among the citizenry.
HUGE COST INVOLVED IN MOVEMENT OF CHAIR
The cost of travelling with this presidential seat on board the V8 vehicle to public functions across the country will be at a huge cost, running into millions of Ghana cedis at the expense of the state. Apart from that, the number of luxurious vehicles including V8 that follows the president in convoys during his local travels is another financial drain to the country which needs to be looked at with critical lenses. What is more disturbing, is the fact that a whole V8 is assigned to convey a chair with a driver and a guard. That is, indeed, very strange and difficult to imagine.
A vital question people continue to ask is that; If it is not for any good or tangible reason, why can’t the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDCEs), make available special seat just like what the President always travels with, even if it should be electronically manufactured, to accommodate the president in their localities anytime he travels to their areas and cut down the cost of travelling with this special seat on V8 from the presidency in Accra to the districts and regional capitals.
GHANA IN
COMPLETE MESS
This country is in a terrible financial and economic crisis, as the President himself has admitted when he recently came to our homes through radio and television broadcast to the nation.
There is high depreciation of the local currency against the US dollar, inflation keeps escalating to an unimaginable level, the cost of fuel is astronomically high, thus affecting the cost of transportation among Ghanaians, high level of state debt and heavy fluctuations in foreign direct investment, volatile prices of goods and services among other economic challenges. We have gone to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to seek a financial bailout to restructure our ailing economy. There is a general disaffection among the people as they continue to experience severe hardships.
AVOIDING PROFLIGATE LIFESTYLES
While steps are being taken to resuscitate our shattered economy and restore confidence in the economy, there is the need for the government and its appointees, to lead by example by cutting down all the unnecessary spending and also to plug all the loopholes in our financial management. Things that are not of essence and beneficial to our course of development must be got rid of, in order to conserve our meagre foreign exchange.
It is also important that, we downsize our government by cutting down the number of ministers of state and merging some of our ministries to avoid duplication of functions.There is a clarion call by Ghanaians to the President to sack or remove some of his non-performing ministers and bring in fresh minded people with ideas to help him to prosecute his development agenda which is a call in the right direction.
TOUGHER MEASURES NEEDED TO REVAMP ECONOMY
The going is, indeed, very tough, rough and, therefore, we have to adopt and apply stringent measures to resuscitate our ailing economy which is in a state of comatose. Ghanaians deserve better because they have sacrificed a lot for this nation to the present state, and the time to do this is now. Let those who have ears, listen now!
Contact email/WhatsApp of author:
ataani2000@yahoo.com 0277753946/0248933366
By Charles Neequaye
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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