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The wahala of Sikaman MPs (2)
Some Members of Parliament at a funeral
When the honourable Member of Parliament returns home after the visit to his hometown, he can breathe easily now. He could have died from financial strangulation or from Common Fund disease. He must give thanks on Sunday at the church service for being alive.
As for the next visit, unless the second coming of Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, he must reflect and reckon whether the visit to the constituency was a successful one, after all. It will then hit him hard that what he had wanted to do during the visit was quite forgotten immediately he landed.
The natives completely distracted him. For example, there was this man who said he had contributed to his castration, sorry circumcision. The man later added that he was his uncle called Koli Badu, although he has no such uncle.
IMPRESSION
He was also forced to chair a funeral gathering where he had donated heavily to impress the folks and to glorify the size of his briefcase. He had given money to others to pay school fees, communal labour default penalties, free palmwine and tobacco snuff, court fines, whatever.
What he had gone to do, however, was not to cure poverty or alleviate it. He was not a doctor and therefore could not vaccinate the folks against the poverty disease, Africa’s most widespread epidemic.
He had gone there to meet the constituents to tell them about how the government was faring, what had been discussed in Parliament and his personal contributions to the debates; government’s infrastructural programmes and how they relate to his constituency and allied matters.
However, when he got that the natives would not be in the mood for official briefs. It was not their immediate concern if government’s infrastructural ideas were growing or ‘slimming.
That was a secondary matter and could not be entertained now, May be, it could be looked at during the next visit.
What was exigent was the palaver of the stomach and the issue bordering on the back- pocket economy of the men and the financial health of the white handkerchiefs of the women.
That, was certainly more important than parliamentary news and the state of the Yamoransa or Aflao road or the Keta Sea Defence project.
The folks needed new funeral cloths, second-hand church clothes, new tobacco snuff containers and Charlie Wote, The MP must be able to address such pertinent issues first. If he couldn’t, then what was the use of the MPs Common Fund, they would reason?
So the petrol he had wasted brought no benefit in terms of his work as a parliamentarian.
EDUCATION
The people of Sikaman would have to be educated on the need for them to stop seeing MPs as their financial messiahs. MPs are legislators and are supposed to be making laws and debating them. They are not operators of charity homes and neither are they philanthropists.
The laws they make are not only for their constituencies but also for the entire territory of Sikaman. Their salaries are really not enough to finance school fees and frothing palmwine.
Because of the pressures on them, they cannot do their jobs the proper way.
They cannot even stay overnight in the hometowns. The Common Fund is not for palmwine and tobacco. It is to enable them to initiate constituency projects and fund them. They are not meant for poverty alleviation. The Poverty Alleviation Fund is got through the assemblies.
HARASSMENT
Ghanaians must also stop the habit of travelling from their hometowns to Accra to base at the homes of their MPs to look for jobs. It is worse than harassment. It is almost criminal.
Sometimes MPs host about six people at a time. They have to feed them three times a day, and they must eat what the MP eats lest they go back home and say the MP discriminates in terms of stomach matters. That could cost him votes at the next elections.
You can find that where the MP’s accommodation isn’t big, his hosts sleep in the living room, some with their heads under a coffee table, one leg in the kitchen, the other in the bathroom,
What is worse is that they can snore heavily and the MP can hardly have a sound sleep. Sometimes the building vibrates due to the combined forces of the snorers. The house dog is compelled to bark because it is not used to such resonance. It might cause an earthquake.
The wahala of MPs is not cheap. People think it is all glory being an MP. It can also mean sweat, discomfort and even the temptation to resign and be in a less stress-free vacation.
But at the next election, you’ll see all of them standing to be elected again. Such is politics.
This article was first published on Saturday, July 13, 2001
THE typical itinerant salesman in Sikaman is a herbalist. He is normally a slim macho with the capacity to perambulate the expanse of area covering the triangle of Accra-Tema-Ashiaman. In short, he can walk a total of 60 miles a day, marketing a product that cures every disease, including poverty. 
The door-to-door herbal pharmacist advertises his product by word of mouth. He has nothing to do with the Food and Drugs Board (FDB). After all, his concoctions do not feature on FM stations.
Those herbalists who cannot walk to propagate the herbal gospel, liaise with drivers of mass transportation and their mates. They are, therefore, given the chance to sell their products on Benz buses that ply the routes.
Normally, the herbalist starts his sales message with a prayer and Bible study. He asks the passengers to bow down their heads in supplication to God the father, the son, the Holy Spirit.
When a herbalist asks the passengers to close their eyes and bow their heads, Moslems on board naturally feel offended. They feel that the herbalist has no right to assume that every passenger is a Christian. They think such an assumption is an affront to Islam.
So a Moslem on board will raise the hand for a point of order. He’ll remind the herbalist that it would be in his own interest to mind his language.
“Be careful the way you address people in a public place. Not every person here is a Christian,” he’d state assertively.
Of course, the herbalist will promptly ignore him, but would all the same “watch” his tongue. Who knows whether or not the Moslem brother is inspired by Quoranic zeal to defend the tenets of Islam to the hilt?
When he starts saying, “Wallahi!” and “Inshallah!” it could be the beginning of proclaiming Islam as supreme, a point which must be driven home with talibanic precision.
So the herbalist must tread carefully lest he steps on fire.
The herbalist could even add a measure of mirth to it all, by announcing that Christians on board today have very interesting company on the journey, but that should not detract from the business of the day.
The Moslem brother will weigh the words carefully and offer a wry smile.
He must be careful the occasion does not degenerate into the use of semantics and proverbial oration to deride his conviction that public utterances must be mindful of religious sensibilities. He has made his point very clear and expects that it is taken in good faith in the interest of a peaceful journey.
The herbalist will now open the New Testament and preach salvation, stating clearly that salvation can come only through Jesus Christ and NOBODY else.
The Moslem brother will now start twitching his moustache. The visible and almost revolutionary reflexes of his upper lip can be an indication that sentiments have begun superseding reason, and the outcome could well be tragic now shift uneasily in his seat.
The time has come for him to also express his right to the religion of his fore-bears. He’ll put his hand into his pocket and rise to his feet. The time has indeed come!
This article was first published on Saturday, September 9, 2006
When the cause of a particular problem like sickness, disease, sudden illness, a social issue etc. are not known, it stands to reason that resolving it becomes a huge challenge.
Citizens would understand the government when public announcements are made to the effect that government is trying to find a solution to the issue, even though it is taking a while for it to be resolved because citizens are rational beings.
On the other hand, if the solution to a particular issue is known to everybody but the government for whatever reason, is dragging its feet in resolving it, citizens become frustrated and begin to lose trust in their leaders.
One such issue is the heavy traffic along a section of the Kasoa – Odokor road. A short stretch of bad road between the traffic light at the Weija Government Hospital and the entrance to the entrance of the overhead that leads to the N1, is the cause of the problem but nothing is being done about it, day after day, week after week, month after month. Thus is clearly unacceptable.
Another issue that requires urgent attention is the lack of pavements along a lot of streets in parts of the various Municipal Assemblies. Exercise is a prerequisite for long life and healthy living and for those of us who it has become a way of life, this issue of people putting up structures right to the edge of the drains beside the roads, are making life difficult for us.
We are compelled to walk along the roads, putting our lives at serious risk. Pedestrians should never be compelled to compete with vehicles on our streets and roads. Roads and streets are made for vehicles and pavements are made for pedestrians. That is the norm. Any attempt to normalise a situation where pedestrians are mingling with vehicles is insanity.
It is the road regulations that makes it so and therefore district or municipal assemblies are to take responsibility and ensure that spaces for pavements are not encroached upon. Citizens have rights that must be protected by their leaders and making pavements available to pedestrians, is one of them.
When we hear of teachers having sex with students, it appears it is something recent. It is not a new phenomenon. It has been there since Adam. Perhaps this issue is getting much attention due to the proliferation of social media. It was an open secret in times past when Teachers were in relationships with female students and some married them immediately after completion of school.
Some teachers were also known to be having unholy interactions with female pupils but due to the times that these acts occurred, human rights issues and the awareness around it, allowed such unscrupulous teachers to get away with their crimes.
Now we are in a different era and so a Headmaster is now in hot waters. He is alleged to have raped about 19 female students and as usual, some officials tried to cover it up and are also in hot waters and their actions or inactions in the matter are under investigation.
Why the man has been allowed to roam freely without being arrested is simply mind boggling. It appears that the law applies differently, depending on who you are. This issue came to public attention sometime in August this year, yet the police had not arrested or invited this man for question regarding the rape allegation.
It has come out that he is a Constituency Secretary of the ruling party and the question in the public domain is that, is it because he is a political figure that is why he is still walking around without questioning? I believe in the rule of law so let us hold our breadth and let the proper thing be done.
The police must however be seen to be active in this matter. God bless.
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