Features
Office of the Speaker writes to The Spectator, saying: George Frank Asmah’s aspersions on Speaker exposes his ignorance
Mr.George Frank Asmah, in his column in The Spectator newspaper of Saturday, August 28 2021 titled, “Parliament: When Bagbin decides to tell a ‘red’ lie”, sort to cast aspersions on the integrity of the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin.That direct and baseless attack on the integrity of the Speaker is not only an affront to the Office of the Speaker of Parliament of Ghana, but also hypocritical and shameful.
It is a known fact that Mr. John Boadu, in the heat of the 2020 elections, made a categorical statement which was captured on video and has since been trending allover the internet saying that President Akuffo Addo had won the Presidential elections but the NPP lost the parliamentary elections to the NDC.
The Speaker only re-echoed what Mr. Boadu said on tape but strangely, the only one who didnot hear that was Mr.George Frank Asmah.It is important to state however that before I made this decision to write this rejoinder, I called Mr.George Frank Asmah to enquire from him if he had watched the video or seen a transcription of it and his answer was a definite No.He had not seen the video: he only heard Mr. Boadu deny ever voicing out those words attributed to him and decided to launch his attack.
In the writeup, he stated, and I quote; “Rt. Hon. Bagbin: you are known as a very competent lawyer. Not so? In the ‘game of law’ is it not the case that EVIDENCE is supreme? So where is the evidence that what you told the Ethiopian Parliamentary delegation actually happened?”
I get the impression from the above quote that my senior,George Frank Asmah, has forgotten that it is not only in the “game of law” that EVIDENCE becomes supreme. Even as journalists, we are required by our code of ethics to ensure fairness, equity, balance and establish the truthin what we write. The evidence Mr.George Frank Asmah is looking for is allover the place and in every newsroom. There can only be one conclusion to draw from this behavior and that is mischief or a crave to use his column in The Spectator newspaper to court the attention of whoever will get him appointed into political office.
One can understand the frustrations of Mr. George Frank Asmah, who in 2005 was lifted from the newsroom of the New Times Corporation to become District Chief Executive of the Komenda-Edna-Eguafo-Abirem (KEEA) District Assembly under the NPP administration. This has been the NPP’s way of encouraging journalists like George Frank Asmah to be wayward and unprofessional against the opposition and in turn, they get rewarded with juicy appointments. There is a plethora of such journalists around today on different appointments.
George Frank Asmah’s frustration is a result of waiting in vain over the years for another juicy appointment which has since eluded him.So in his imagination, Mr.George Frank Asmah thinks he can now court the attention of the appointing authority by defending leading members of the ruling party, in this case, the dishonest and devious behavior of Mr. John Boadu, General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party(NPP), to court attention.
Even before his election into the high office of the Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Bagbin had committed himself to the cause of the nation building and has exhibited high moral integrity at all material times.It is with this same standard that Mr. Speaker spoke to the Ethiopian Parliamentary Delegation when they paid a courtesy call on him in his office. He spoke from the perspective of many issues known to him and it was with this conviction that he admonished the Ethiopian delegation to emulate only the good sides of Ghana’s democracy.
I have no doubt about the unwavering devotion of the Speaker to the collective cause of building a prosperous nation. He has no intention whatsoever to do anything that will jeopardize the successes that this country has achieved so far.Perhaps my little advice to George Frank, who wants to use this antiquated style of directing attention or traffic to himself for political position, to use his energy, time and column provided for him to tout his legacy for the people of KEEA during his stewardship as District Chief Executive.
How many lives did he transform with his leadership in KEEA? What impact did he make? I believe if he is able to do this honestly and effectively, he would not need to destroy the reputations of others or be seen hopping or jumping to defend dishonest men whose words do not mean anything to them and who cannot defend their own words when it is played back to them.
I will come back and discuss the extreme trauma that the chiefs and people of KEEA have been made to suffer following the refusal of the powers that be to put to use the Komenda Sugar Factory which was commissioned in 2016 by the government at the time.This facility was built from loans that would be serviced with tax payers’ money and one would have expected people who claim to hail from the area where it is built to join calls for it to start operations, to produce the sugar for which it was built, and not bad mouth it or sit aloof. That should be your focus, George Frank!
Peter Bampoe
Communication Officer,
Office of the Speaker
By G. Frank Asmah
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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