Features
John Mahama’s claim to fame
Certain things or happenings and events we come across in life may be taken for granted but when carefully examined,they reveal useful lessons that may be needed to guide us in critical political decision making to make or unmake our beloved country.
There is a friend of mine who told me about eight candidates who were contesting presidential election in Nigeria. During an interview, one of them was asked that Nigeria was a big country with a large population and many problems,so should indicate how he would address the challenges in that country.
In his answer, he had this to say: “In Nigeria, anybody with two or more wives can understand the problems of that country. I have five wives and I cater for them well. They are all very happy and they do not fight among themselves. Each of them is well catered for so in the same way if I become president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I will be able to diagnose and solve its problems without any difficulty.”
INTERESTING ANSWER
The answer given above is interesting and can be compared with other presidential candidates on the continent of Africa. People should, therefore, be able to decide which of the candidates in Ghana should be taken serious in the next elections in 2024.
A startling revelation has come from former President John Dramani Mahama to the effect that he did not go to the Supreme Court to challenge the Election Petition of 2020, but rather to calm down his supporters and prevent them from disturbing the peace of the country.
This is shocking, coming from a former President who had earlier stated that they had won the election and had majority in parliament. What a shock this is!
NO CONSISTENCY
There is no consistency in this claim when compared with other statements he and his NDC cohorts had made about the 2020 general election. It was like saying something different when they meant the other. Can such contradictions come from a presidential candidate in the person of Mr John Mahama?
It is becoming clear that frustration is setting in their effort to recapture political power in this country. Politics of today is quite different from politics of yesterday. Politics in Ghana in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s is quite different from what is happening now. There is still a problem with lack of enlightenment and deceit on the part of certain people who can easily be deceived by the NDC through propaganda. However, there has been more improvement and when people see what is good, they are able to stand for it.
This explains why the NPP, despite all the lies spread about its presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, that he would never be president in this country, was able to win massively and become president of the Republic. There was a similar dose in 2020 when Nana Akufo-Addo, despite all the lies, again won by over 51 per cent compared with John Mahama.
DISTURBANCES
When the results of the 2020 elections were announced by the Electoral Commission, the supporters of the NDC took to the streets and disturbed the peace in various parts of the country the they had won the election not only at the presidential level but had won also 140 seats in parliament. As we all know, this has proved to be a big lie and the NDC today is not believable or credible when it comes to declaration of truthful matters.
Tyres were burnt across the streets in Ghana and most of the people engaged in them were the youth. Also, in certain parts of the country people, including women, collected rubbish and threw them on the streets to create an eyesore. One such incident took place in front of the Electoral Commission but the security officers prevented such miscreants from getting access to the Commission.
PATIENT SECURITY OFFICERS
The security officers, patient as they were on that occasion, skilfully asked the supporters with this unruly behaviour to go back to the streets and collect the rubbish they had spread to create the eyesore. This was a useful lesson to those irresponsible men and women who had been commanded by their leadership, including John Mahama, Asiedu Nketia, Peter Boamah Otokunor and the others to create disobedient and ugly behaviour in this country.
For John Mahama, therefore, to come out today and say that he did that to calm down his supporters shows that he is not consistent when it comes to decision making on his part. If the NPP and the security agency had resisted in the same way, many lives would have been lost on those occasions and the number of injuries of people and the destruction of properties would have been countless.
While all this was going on, the NPP and its supporters, made it clear that the Party and its presidential candidate had genuinely won the election. Well, after eight or nine months, Mr. John Dramani Mahama, has finally confirmed the assertion of the NPP that it is Nana Addo and his Party that won the election in 2020.
WHAT DOES THIS TELL YOU?
It points out that the NDC candidate was not sincere with himself and had only wanted to influence needless fighting in this country, especially at a time when our efforts should be directed towards rebuilding and reconstructing this noble country of ours. Mr. John Mahama made this declaration after the Supreme Court had delivered its judgement in line with the facts concerning what happened during the election outcome. This is shameful and it reveals that my friend, John Mahama, will have to reconsider his political tactics if he wants to be considered serious in this country.
Knowing that he had lost the election, he could have called the leadership around him to immediately calm down the supporters some of whom were not mature enough to understand what was going on as far as the election results were concerned. Indeed, the NDC did not effectively collate results at the constituency and regional levels to prove to its supporters that they had won or lost the election. He should have been decent enough to also congratulate Nana Addo on his victory. This is something he has not been able to do till now.
BEING WIDE AWAKE
Ghanaians must, therefore, be wide awake and stop following people of that kind whose only agenda is to create mayhem in this country. When it comes to peace in West Africa, Ghana comes first. The same Ghana occupies the second spot in Africa. It occupies an enviable position of peace in the whole of the world that is why countries like Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Peru and many others – all see Ghana as a dependable nation that must be embraced by all countries.
The embezzlement of funds amounting to US$200 million under the Saglemi Housing Project in Accra and other projects under which the money quoted has been embezzled shows that Ghanaians must be prepared to follow Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his hardworking government rather than allowing themselves to be deceived by the deceitful NDC whose only agenda is perhaps the destruction of this country!
THE journalist is a hunter. He goes after human rats and grasscutters personified, matters about whom he can salt and spice and present as news. The fatter and juicier the catch, the better, because sensation is essentially our cup of tea.
Our job is to sell news and sell it in grand style.
Because the journalist is a hunter and is created with a special kind of nose for sniffing out news, he is usually not welcome in many places. He is seen as someone who has been born to make people uncomfortable.
The problem is that some people don’t want things written about them even if it is promotional and favourable. When it entails publishing their pictures alongside the story, they are doubly scared.
“Please, don’t use my picture. People will think I’ve got money and come for loan,” someone told me.
Anyhow, journalists are seen as intruders, undesirables, born with plenty of okro in the mouth; maybe some also in the nose. Some of my friends are no longer too close because they fear I’d give them full coverage in the Sikaman Palava column. Ha ha ha! What a funny world!
Well, people like my Uncle, Sir Kofi Jogolo, my former classmate and born-mathematician, Kwame Korkorti, and ex-football star cum human-salamander Kofi Kokotako don’t mind featuring in the hilarious inches of this column. Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty is one personality who has to be mentioned in this palaver.
These are people who are going to live long, primarily because they see the world as one big ball of fun. When Kwame Korkorti was told that his dear mother was dead at home, he smiled and asked the bearer of the message whether his mother had cooked the afternoon meal before claiming she was dead. Until her death, Korkorti ate his lunch at his mother’s end.
When my Uncle Kofi Jogolo was picked and lost 1,500 dollars and a good amount of Sikaman currency, he didn’t lament the loss. Instead he was amused. In fact, he was almost glad about it, because he grinned from ear to ear, stroked his delicate moustache and congratulated the thief, adding that “He is smarter than I am.” Yeah, Jogolo is the man who employs a Swedish barber to trim his moustache.
And when Kofi Kokotako was unemployed and was nearly hit by an articulated truck, he called the driver a fool. “The idiot should have killed me,” he said to me. “Didn’t he know I was unemployed and suffering?”
Today, Kokotako is employed as a Reverend and is not doing badly at all. Thanks to the regular silver collection.
And what about Kofi Owuo, the celebrated poor man. His wife left him not because he was poor, but because he swore in front of her that he would never prosper.
The following dawn the wife packed bag and baggage and went back to her parents and told them all about her husband’s alliance with poverty. Her parents were bewildered and called the alliance unholy. They had no option than to send back Owuo’s drinks to end the marriage.
Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty did not contest the issue. He was more engrossed thinking about how to become poorer than to contest what he called a frivolous matter. The wife could go to hell, he said. These are people longevity smiles upon. Nothing worries them.
Getting back to talking about journalists. I’d say that anywhere there is journalism, the issue of press freedom is not too far away. Is the press free? That’s one question foreigners want answer to when they are on visit.
Well, journalists celebrate a yearly WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY to drum home the idea of press freedom as a very important thing in the practice of journalism.
This year’s was celebrated almost a fortnight ago but people didn’t see much of us because we are normally not good celebrants. We should have mounted a float to roam the entire capital, dancing asaboni to brass band music just like PTC did recently.
Although journalists are known to be very good dancers because they walk very much, on that day, they were all busy writing. It was the Minister of Information, Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi who saved the day by addressing a forum organised to mark the day.
He is a man I’ve always admired since his radical university days. He spoke much on press freedom, cautioning the press not to abuse the freedom granted by the Fourth Republican constitution, but to use it for the progress of society.
Well, press freedom has been defined by many journalists as the freedom to ‘write nonsense’. This definition is not quite accurate. I asked one staff reporter to define press freedom. It took him fifteen minutes to put up something.
“Press freedom is the freedom that is enjoyed by the press that enables journalists to publish or broadcast any kind of material so long as it is absolutely true, is not libelous and slanderous, and is not against the national interest.”
I gave him eight out of 10, a straight A. I guess every journalist is old enough to know that certain things he or she writes is for or against the national interest. We certainly must guard against writing against the national interest; that is very important.
There is also the question of criticising government. The government can be criticized, so long as the criticisms are genuine and the President and his ministers are not insulted and called names. Let us criticize, but let us do it decently so that the journalistic profession can be revered, and its nobility acknowledged. We are not war mongers, are we?
One area in which journalists are not spoken well of is the complaint that they misquote people. Journalists sometimes misquote people, but in four out of five complaints it turns out that nobody is misquoted after all.
When we interview people they say things unreservedly and we publish unreservedly. When the publication is out and their friends or superiors read it and accuse them of having said too much to the press, then they start claiming they were misquoted.
We have encountered these ‘misquotation palaver’ every now and then and reporters are usually accused of this transgression. However, when they bring out their note-books or recorders, it is realised that they wrote nothing out of the way. “Book no lie”.
My advice to people who deal with the press is that if they do not want anything written, they shouldn’t say it. What they want to say is OFF-RECORD, then of course, there is no reason to say it. When you say it, you’re taking a risk. In that instance, you can’t also claim to have been misquoted or words put into your mouth.
And it isn’t every journalist who would be circumspect in matters that are supposed to be off-record, because journalists often want to be as sensational as possible to make their stories saleable. So say just what you want to see published and you won’t later regret it and claim you were misquoted.
Well, I’m not holding brief for journalists, because a few of us are notorious for colouring our reports sometimes sand-papering the words so much that they look very bright in front of readers.
As I once said, when the police tells one such notorious pressman that the thief stole a brown goat, the pressman would want to know whether the goat was bearded. Of course, the police would say ‘Yes’.
However, in the press report, it appears, “A gang of notorious goat-thieves were apprehended in the early hours of yesterday. In the car in which they were riding was a brownish-red goat having a long beard. Upon further examination, it was realised that the goat also had a greyish moustache.”
When the story appears, the police are naturally disturbed. A single thief turns out to be a gang of thieves. The goat also becomes a chameleon and changes colour to brownish-red. And a moustacheless goat overnight wears a greyish moustache whether you like it or not. Luckily the journalist does not add that the moustache was trimmed by a Swedish barber.
Yes, we have a few of such mischief-creating, chronically notorious journalists. But they are one in a hundred. In any case, we make the world. And we shall always do our best to make it a happy place to live in.
This article was first publish on Saturday, May, 20, 1995
When I hear of people who are of the opinion that they cannot make it in life unless they travel abroad, l become sad.
Whenever I see on TV, news of people, that is migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, while attempting to cross to Europe, l become filled with sadness and then anger.
The underlying factor is desperation born out of loss of hope, in life. When an individual tends to believe that his only hope of making it in life is to travel abroad, the risk of dying at sea, does not deter him or her.
The role of some pastors on shaping the mindset of people, especially the youth, leaves much to be desired. You hear them declaring on various media platforms how they can pray for you to get a visa to travel abroad, instead of encouraging them to find something to do to improve their lives as the Bible teaches that God will bless the work of their hands.
The GREATER WORKS CONFERENCE is geared towards renewing the minds of people with a specific focus on people of African descent to rid themselves of the negative perception of lack of capacity to excel in life.
Pastor Mensa Otabil believes that every human being, no matter the skin colour, was created in the exact image of God and therefore has the capacity to do exploits.
The whiteman was not created in the image of God while the Blackman was created in the image of something other than God. The Black person therefore can achieve whatever the whiteman can achieve.
The development in terms of industrialisation that is lacking which has generated unemployment for the youth, is due to lack of effective leadership. The lack of moral integrity in society, is what is causing the lack of job opportunities, which is as a result of corrupt acts which drive away private investment.
A culture of inferiority complex exists which needs to be dealt with, so the African can develop the self worth necessary for personal development which can then result in capacity deployment to avhieve personal goals.
Success in life begins with the individual’s recognition that he or she is capable of achieving the dreams he or she has conceived in his or her mind. The Bible teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding according to Proverbs 9:10.
Christianity was the driving force behind the development of Europe because no society can sustain development without high moral values. GREATER WORKS therefore is a deliberate project to shape the minds of people, especially the youth, who will become the leaders of our future, to prioritise morality in their daily lives.
This is the only way to see a massive transformation in every aspect of our lives as Ghanaians and Africans in Ghana and the rest of the continent.
Since the inception of the GREATOR WORKS CONFERENCE, it has made a lot of impact in the lives of many people from the youth up to the senior citizens level. I recall the testimony of a church member who was motivated and pursued higher education and became one of the youngest Chartered Accountants in this country. Year after year, the impact of the conference has been enormous and lives in Ghana and across the continent, are being transformed.
Black people have started regaining their self confidence and the youth have started getting into areas that previously were considered out of bounds. At a personal level, certain ideas that some years ago, l would have not dreamt about suddenly has become realistic dreams.
The Christian lifestyle has impacted on my children and those close to me. Mindset change starts with one individual, then another and then gradually it spreads like a viral infection until a critical mass is attained and them a massive impact. There is hope for the future.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
