Features
When a fool takes ‘the microphone’
Readers, as for today, I am going to the outskirt of “the town”. One may ask: Why not the outskirt of “the village” or to “the town-centre “itself?
In “the village”, it is not common to locate many fools holding “the microphone” to be insulting the chief.
And at the outskirt of “the village”, it will be very rare to locate a fool sticking his neck out and insulting the chief, with the aid of “the microphone”.
At “the town-centre “, one needs adequate preparations to get there. Why? The “topography” and the general “geography” of “the town-centre” must be properly studied.
The government houses; the private homes; the commercial houses; the street names; the slums; the big names; the small names and the den for tramadol, ‘wee’ and cocaine peddlers and abusers, should be at your finger-tips before we venture into “the town-centre”.
However, because of the ubiquitous and pervarding social media platforms, a lot of youthful braggarts are heard and seen insulting and cursing, wielding “the microphone.”
So, without getting into “the town-centre” itself; one could hear damning insults “raining” from the mouths of some “boys” and “girls”, being poured on the heads of people, who could easily pass as their mothers and fathers. Indeed, some could even pass as their grandparents.
Such “torrential rain of insults and curses” were recently recorded on the online channel of Radio Gold and on YouTube Trending News TV 1.
A so-called radio presenter by name, Sammy Huntor, who runs the two news channels, is said to be a former staff of the defunct Montie FM. Readers, that defunct FM station gained notoriety across the nation a few years ago.
Sammy Huntor is audibly heard on TV 1 saying that, “any private plane that carries President Akufo-Addo abroad must crash and claim his life instantly.”
According to him, “God should make Akufo-Addo’s death through plane crash, more tragic to the extent that even his body will be burnt beyond recognition.”
He prays that “the body of our President should not be found for the country to spend any money to buy a coffin for his burial.”
Ghana and political insanity? What sort of nonsense is this?
Sammy Huntor says that he supports the North Tongu Member of Parliament, Mr. Samuel Okudzato Ablakwa’s claim that; “our President has abandoned Ghana’s presidential aircraft to rent a private plane at £15,000 an hour, thus, making our country spend millions of Cedis on his foreign travels.”
But if that was the case, is it the way to go? Curses and insults?
Is there no appropriate and decorous means to communicate our displeasure, dismay, discontentment and anger against officialdom?
In our traditional homes, are we brought up, insulting our parents and elders whenever we disagree with them or they incur our wrath?
And in our “school system”, are we taught to be insulting and cursing our prefects, seniors, teachers, lecturers and Vice Chancellors, whenever we are dissatisfied with their acts and omissions?
So, is it stupidity, insanity or foolishness that drives certain people to be raining insults and curses on the government or the Opposition? Can’t such people discuss national issues without insults and curses?
Trained brains and minds must wield “the microphone” to pour out what the people “detest” about the government or the Opposition.
In all honesty, for instance, can such braggarts migrate to China, Rwanda, Cote d’lvoire or even Togo to behave the way they do here; using “the microphone”? “Who born dog?”
Unfortunately, social media is “breeding” so many fools to take “the microphone” in Ghana, via the Internet.
And the earlier National Security and the Ministry of Communications and Digitisation initiate planned and concerted actions to address the menace, the better for our dear country.
By G. Frank Asmah
Contact email/WhatsApp of the author:
asmahfrankg@gmail.com (0505556179)
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
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