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Whose voice matters?
Let me state why I would not fight for an elected political office: it is because I very likely would be treated the way the likes of Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Muamar Gadhafi and many other African leaders were treated.
I have a great deal of admiration for the Agogohene of Asante, Nana Akuoko Sarpong. He is a great statesman, lawyer, politician and traditional ruler. My first encounter with Nana was at a media encounter in one of the restaurants at Oxford Street at Osu. It was a forum at which public figures met with senior journalists to discuss background information on certain trending policies and events.
I cannot recollect the exact date because all my diaries were destroyed in the floods that hit my home in the night of June 19, 2009, here in Accra. But what I remember is that it was about the time Asanteman had lost Otumfuor Opoku Ware II and some names popped up as likely successor to the Golden Stool. After the death of the Asantehene there were rumours that the government of the time had a favoured candidate for the Stool. Also in attendance was Ambassador Victor Gbeho.
I cannot remember if I was the one who sought Nana Sarpong’s take on the issue, but the issue was raised and he responded in a manner that still resonates with me. Nana said no one, not even the government he served in, could dictate to Asanteman who should be Asantehene. He has won my heart ever since that statement. Only recently, Nana Agogohene made another statement to the effect that Ghana should consider moving the nation’s capital away from Accra. The media carried his call on front pages. Less than a few days later, three engineers picked up the tune in support of Nana’s call.
I take nothing away from Nana and his call, but I remember writing a comprehensive treatise on why the capital should move from Accra and had it published. The only person to call and congratulate me on that piece was the late elder statesman, Mr. K. B. Asante. My question, since after Nana’s call, is: do we have to be prominent people before our voices can be heard? Then I remember in the middle of 1986 after I had returned to Ghana, I wrote a letter to the then Ministry of Transport & Communications on the numbering of automobiles.
I suggested the numbering that is in place now, but with a system that would make identifying the Region, District or even local areas easily identifiable from the number plate. Till date, no letter came from that Ministry acknowledging receipt of my letter. Very likely, I am not considered prominent enough to have a voice. I still read many articles making very lofty and nationalistic analyses on which way the country can move forward, but because the authors are not names that evoke a certain presence, these beautiful ideas fade into oblivion.
Even when officialdom commissions fora for brainstorming on certain pertinent national issues, very little, if any, action is taken on their recommendations. How much more when a single person makes suggestions for national development? Visionaries hardly live to see their dreams come into fruition, but the first step is just as important as the realisation of their dreams. In our case, however, the visionary dies and takes his dreams along with him.
Listen to the people chatting away in commercial vehicles. Listen to the chatter in the marketplace. Listen to the conversation among students. These are our sources of inspiration. And listen to the ordinary people. These people speak wisdom and you are in awe of the depth of their wisdom. Officialdom is cocooned in their air-conditioned offices and cars; they shut the world of realities outside the door. The only issues that catch their attention are suggestions from ‘prominent’ citizens. But these people have become prominent because they achieved something for themselves or from positions thrust upon them. What about the ordinary man in the street on whose behalf we run the affairs of state?
Only recently, Sir Sam Jonah, at a forum organized by the Rotary Club, made a statement to the effect that authority is uncomfortable when truth is told them. This is very true, especially in an era where political activism is rife on social media and the hounds of the political class will descend on you like a pack of wolves for daring to speak truth to authority. Sir Jonah intoned that government policies determine whether or not investors would want to do business in Ghana.
He touched on a wide range of issues of national importance, but the question remains as to whether his voice goes far enough for us to listen. Listen to him: ”….what is baffling is that those who used to have voices on these things seem to have lost their voices. People speak on issues based on who is in power. Is our deafening silence suggesting that we are no longer concerned with issues that we complained about not too long ago, particularly when those issues persist…?”
Then he turned his attention on me and my colleagues: “Our media landscape is so polarised and partisan. There is hardly any objectivity, because a lot of the media stations are owned by politicians whose interest is in swaying voters one way or the other. Independent media practice seems to have faded into oblivion and journalism has become a conveyor belt for political propaganda, insults and acrimony.”
I can say, with near certainty, that Ghana’s capital will remain Accra for the next 100 years. Who would want their multimillion investments in plush real estate to go bust when the capital moves from Accra and their values tumble? Who would want their pet baby of a 5,000 capacity cathedral become only a tourist attraction if the capital moves from Accra? Instead of investing in industrial infrastructure to create jobs for our teeming youth, our priority is a cathedral for us to pray in for jobs. Now, to get the capital out of Accra? It will not happen, if I knew the mentality of our leaders and their captains of industry and influence.
I can bet my last pesewa that Nana Agogohene’s voice is not even powerful enough. The power is in the pockets of the moneybags whose economic and financial fortunes outweigh any national agenda for development. And they call the shots. Meanwhile, Accra has reached Kasoa and Gomoa Buduburam in the Central Region. Accra has caught up with the Akuapem Mountains and Miotso to the east. Truth be told, Accra has outlived its usefulness as a nation’s capital. Indeed, Accra is suffocating.
One reason the capital will move is when the realisation dawns on us that Accra has fallen below the level of the Atlantic Ocean. Even that will meet a resistance with the excuse that the Netherlands live under water. We cannot manage the annual deluge when the rains set in but we will quickly compare ourselves to the Netherlands. We are almost in the rainy season now and our preparedness will be put to the test once again.
The other reason might be only under a military government the way Abuja was created in Nigeria. I am by no means calling for a military regime for this country. Far from that, but it will take a revolution of the mind to get a movement of Ghana’s capital off the ground. As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand kilometres begins with a step. Nana Agogohene has spoken. Sir Sam Jonah has spoken just like many others, but whose voice matters?
By Dr. Akofa K. Segbefia
Writer’s email address:
akofa45@yahoo.com
All over the world, it has been recognised that nations who have developed, paid attention to education and continue to do so. If we pay lip service to the development of our educational system, we might as well forget about our development in the foreseeable future.
In order for effective teaching and learning to happen, the teacher who is the centre of it all, must be well motivated. Every person working in an office, every parliamentarian, every minister or deputy minister, all the way up to the first gentleman of the land, owes his or her status to a teacher.
Unfortunately, for some strange reason, our leaders who are the decision makers, do not seem to care very much about the welfare of teachers. The leadership of the various teacher unions, also appear not to be doing their job as is expected of them, leaving the teacher who had worked for over a year without being paid, frustrated.
The lack of seriousness that is attached to teachers’ issues is very worrying. My parents were teachers so I am very passionate about teachers’ issues. Gone are the days that we used to say that teachers will get their reward in Heaven.
Now those in the teaching profession are mostly youthful and they have a different mindset from that of our parents. They do not want their reward in Heaven, they want it here on this very earth.
A teacher sees his colleague who he was academically better than in school, from the same background socially, becomes a Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), an Member of Parliament (MP) or a Government Appointee and overnight, this guy becomes wealthy and you say he the teacher, should wait for his reward in Heaven?
His going there is not guaranteed anyway, so if he or she does not make it to Heaven, then what? Promises of government after government to teachers, remain unfulfilled and so they become disillusioned and demotivated to ensure effective teaching and learning.
I read a story of a lady, who as a child was suffering from Dyslexia but her teacher gave her the needed attention to help her and this even led her teacher to run into problems with the school authorities, resulting in the loss of her job. This lady grew up and became a famous actress and won an Oscar.
She then gave the prize money attached to the award, which was three million dollars, to her teacher who put her career on the line to help her out of her dyslexia challenge as a child.
There are many such teachers in our educational system because teaching is a calling, like medicine, like nursing etc. and therefore teachers who are the first point of call before we can climb the ladder to become the engineers, the lawyers, accountants and the rest, deserve special attention.
What is even important is the crucial role they play in shaping the moral character of future leaders which is invaluable.
Let us all, especially our leaders, place a high premium on the teacher who is at the centre of our educational system and who can make or unmake our future as a nation. How do you ask a teacher to go to a place, far removed from his or her parents and for a year and above not pay any salary to him or her?
How is the teacher to survive? If the same thing was done to any of our leaders, especially the leaders of the various teacher unions, will they be happy? How do they expect the teachers to survive and also be motivated to deliver quality teaching? Funds must be found to immediately resolve their unpaid salaries do they can be in the right frame of mind to do their very precious job. The teaching profession, in my view, is number one, when ranking professions because as an advert displays “If you can read this, thank a teacher”. Let us give our teachers their due. God bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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GREETINGS from Korkorti and from Kofi Owuo, alias Death-By-Poverty. When this column took a short break, the two friends summoned me. They wanted to know whether the column had gone on pension or was just on strike. I explained that the column was not on retirement and neither was it on a hunger strike. Rather, the column was of the habit of falling into coma for four weeks or thereabout every year.
Kwame Korkorti and Kofi Owuo (who is addicted to poverty and has sworn not to prosper) are two of my former classmates I cherish so much. And it was great fun to be a Nino in those days. In fact, on the first day on campus, Korkorti was bold enough to bully his own mates who tragically mistook him for a senior.
In fact, when the first-years arrived, Korkorti was one of them but quickly pretended he was in Form 2. So he began pulling the noses of his mates and brushing their faces when the real seniors were not quite in sight. It was when classes began that his victims realised the so-called nose-pulling senior was in fact their own classmate.
So Korkorti got famous for that gimmick. But his English was poor.
The English master was a tall, bombastic young man who claimed he was a former soccer star. In fact, he swore he had a magical left foot that was comparable to that of the legendary Pele. And his grandiloquence par excellence clearly distinguished him from other members of staff.
He did not quite like Korkorti because although the boy was stubborn and his head did not have a nice shape, the girls adored him. Moreover he never did his English Language assignments.
Stand up, you tall fool, the English master often ordered. Korkorti wouldn’t stand up but would just smile broadly.
“I say stand up” the teacher would bark now like a dog suffering from rabies “Get up and let me measure your stupidity.”
Korkorti would stand up this time round and yawn.
Certainly, lunchtime has been long in coming and a good yawn often relieved the young student’s stomach of gastronomic stress.
Invariably, the English guru did not like it when Korkorti yawned. For one thing, the boy opened his mouth too widely. For another, he yawned a bit too audibly and that caused laughter among his mates.
Certainly, the master must have figured out that the boy’s height was proportional to his stupidity. But there were no school rules against yawning
Merari Alomele’s
• A female student walking away from some male students
or wide mouth. In fact, there was freedom of yawning and snoring and Korkorti exercised both freedoms judiciously and democratically.
“Do you know when you yawn you look like a hungry crocodile,” the master once asked him.
“Yes sir, I am aware sir,” Korkorti confirmed and yawned again. This time he nearly swallowed the whole class. There was an uproar and the whole class reverberated in good laughter.
The English master shook his head and then nodded it like an agama lizard. This Korkorti boy was a real character, a phenomenon, a one-man thousand. Meanwhile lessons had to continue.
It was in those days when school was exciting and we often gathered and talked about girls. I had often dreamt of having a girl from Holy Child School because I had heard very saintly and curious things about them, I had learnt from a guy from Saint Augustine’s College that Holy Child girls were of a special breed, in fact a hybrid between the cultured home-bred variety and those of inner holiness. They were born of the Holy Spirit. The only thing was that they didn’t suffer under Pontius Pilate.
In short, they were angels in human form, spoke in a special way, walked with a unique and danced with heavenly steps. They were taught by Holy Nuns and so were quite different from us who had no hope of making any spirito-culturo-scholastic progress.
I confessed to Korkorti that I wanted a girl from Holy Child, not for immoral purposes but to partake of their saintly ways so that when it was time for going to heaven, Kwame Alomele could also be considered.
During vacations we met girls from Mawuli, Ola, Accra Girls, St. Roses, Wesley Girls but none from Holy Child. Then one day, Kwame Korkorti whispered into my ear that a Holy Child babe was in town and that he was sure my dreams had come true.
Korkorti organised it and we positioned at a spot, knowing the girl would traverse en route to the library or the market. After a boring period of waiting, Korkorti suddenly espied the child coming. I looked at her face and saw of an angel. What! This was the kind I always wanted. God bless my soul! This was really my chance and Korkorti had prophesied it.
“Hello Sister,” Korkorti called her when about to leave us.
The girl slowed down and looked at us. My heartbeat increased in tempo. What really was I going to tell this angel? Wouldn’t she think Korkorti was Satan and me a common red-eyed demon? I gathered courage.
“What do you want?” she asked in a sweet voice. My heart melted instantly. Spotless beauty with voice that did something to me. Good gracious!
“Eh-h, my friend says he likes you,” Korkorti to her bluntly.
At that very moment I felt as if a sledge-hammer had hit my chest with the force of a dynamite. What a blunder! What a shock! I felt dizzy instantly. My bosom friend had balked the whole agenda. Before I could recover from the shock, the girl had walked away. From that day. I never met another holy child.
In January, this year, I miraculously received a letter from an 18-year old Holy Child student who said she was my fan.
It was a nicely written letter and I enjoyed reading it. I then relived the Korkorti incident and laughed aloud to myself.
So when Korkorti and Kofi Owuo summoned me, I reminded them of the day my heart melted at the sight of the angel; that angel which disappeared before my eyes and made me go back home not crying and yet not laughing.
Proofread
Searching for the Holy Child
GREETINGS from Korkorti and from Kofi Owuo, alias Death-By-Poverty. When this column took a short break, the two friends summoned me. They wanted to know whether the column had gone on pension or was just on strike.
I explained that the column was not on retirement and neither was it on a hunger strike. Rather, the column was of the habit of falling into coma for four weeks or thereabout every year.
Kwame Korkorti and Kofi Owuo (who is addicted to poverty and has sworn not to prosper) are two of my former classmates I cherish so much. And it was great fun to be a Nino in those days. In fact, on the first day on campus, Korkorti was bold enough to bully his own mates who tragically mistook him for a senior.
In fact, when the first-years arrived, Korkorti was one of them but quickly pretended he was in Form 2. So he began pulling the noses of his mates and brushing their faces when the real seniors were not quite in sight. It was when classes began that his victims realised the so-called nose-pulling senior was in fact their own classmate
So Korkorti got famous for that gimmick. But his English was poor.
The English master was a tall, bombastic young man who claimed he was a former soccer star. In fact, he swore he had a magical left foot that was comparable to that of the legendary Pele. And his grandiloquence par excellence clearly distinguished him from other members of staff.
He did not quite like Korkorti because although the boy was stubborn and his head did not have a nice shape, the girls adored him. Moreover he never did his English Language assignments.
Stand up, you tall fool, the English master often ordered. Korkorti wouldn’t stand up but would just smile broadly.
“I say stand up” the teacher would bark now like a dog suffering from rabies “Get up and let me measure your stupidity.”
Korkorti would stand up this time round and yawn.
Certainly, lunchtime has been long in coming and a good yawn often relieved the young student’s stomach of gastronomic stress.
Invariably, the English guru did not like it when Korkorti yawned. For one thing, the boy opened his mouth too widely. For another, he yawned a bit too audibly and that caused laughter among his mates.
Certainly, the master must have figured out that the boy’s height was proportional to his stupidity. But there were no school rules against yawning or wide mouth. In fact, there was freedom of yawning and snoring and Korkorti exercised both freedoms judiciously and democratically.
“Do you know when you yawn you look like a hungry crocodile,” the master once asked him.
“Yes sir, I am aware sir,” Korkorti confirmed and yawned again. This time he nearly swallowed the whole class. There was an uproar and the whole class reverberated in good laughter.
The English master shook his head and then nodded it like an agama lizard. This Korkorti boy was a real character, a phenomenon, a one-man-thousand. Meanwhile lessons had to continue.
It was in those days when school was exciting and we often gathered and talked about girls. I had often dreamt of having a girl from Holy Child School because I had heard very saintly and curious things about them,
I had learnt from a guy from Saint Augustine’s College that Holy Child girls were of a special breed, in fact a hybrid between the cultured home-bred variety and those of inner holiness. They were born of the Holy Spirit. The only thing was that they didn’t suffer under Pontius Pilate.
In short, they were angels in human form, spoke in a special way, walked with a unique and danced with heavenly steps. They were taught by Holy Nuns and so were quite different from us who had no hope of making any spirito-culturo-scholastic progress.
I confessed to Korkorti that I wanted a girl from Holy Child, not for immoral purposes but to partake of their saintly ways so that when it was time for going to heaven, Kwame Alomele could also be considered.
During vacations we met girls from Mawuli, Ola, Accra Girls, St. Roses, Wesley Girls but none from Holy Child. Then one day, Kwame Korkorti whispered into my ear that a Holy Child babe was in town and that he was sure my dreams had come true.
Korkorti organised it and we positioned at a spot, knowing the girl would traverse en route to the library or the market. After a boring period of waiting, Korkorti suddenly espied the child coming. I looked at her face and saw of an angel. What! This was the kind I always wanted. God bless my soul! This was really my chance and Korkorti had prophesied it.
“Hello Sister,” Korkorti called her when about to leave us.
The girl slowed down and looked at us. My heartbeat increased in tempo. What really was I going to tell this angel? Wouldn’t she think Korkorti was Satan and me a common red-eyed demon? I gathered courage.
“What do you want?” she asked in a sweet voice. My heart melted instantly. Spotless beauty with voice that did something to me. Good gracious!
“Eh-h, my friend says he likes you,” Korkorti to her bluntly.
At that very moment I felt as if a sledge-hammer had hit my chest with the force of a dynamite. What a blunder! What a shock! I felt dizzy instantly. My bosom friend had balked the whole agenda. Before I could recover from the shock, the girl had walked away. From that day. I never met another holy child.
In January, this year, I miraculously received a letter from an 18-year old Holy Child student who said she was my fan. It was a nicely written letter and I enjoyed reading it. I then relived the Korkorti incident and laughed aloud to myself.
So when Korkorti and Kofi Owuo summoned me, I reminded them of the day my heart melted at the sight of the angel; that angel which disappeared before my eyes and made me go back home not crying and yet not laughing.
This article was first published on Saturday, March 18, 1996
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