Features
Why vilify Jean Mensa? (Final part)
Jean Mensa & John Mahama
There is no doubt that Ghanaians are very proud of themselves as people who hail from a noble country and would therefore not want any group of non-Ghanaians to sneak into the country and vote alongside Ghanaians in national elections.
Elections help to decide on the preferences of people as far as the management of a country is concerned. If the election is entrusted to the hands of leaders who are not competent enough to meet the challenges of the times, it will be difficult to make progress as far as socioeconomic development is concerned. This explains why it is wrong to allow non-Ghanaians to take advantage of the voting system to decide on the future of the country.
If things go well, the world will praise Ghanaians as hardworking people, but if the country fails in its socioeconomic development, Ghanaians will be seen by the world as disappointing and as a group of people incapable of managing their own affairs.
At independence, the first national leader made it clear that Ghanaians were now prepared to manage their own affairs. If Ghanaians are prepared to manage their own affairs, then they ought to be allowed to do so in an honest and peaceful manner.
In light of all this, is anyone justified in the vilification of Mrs. Jean Mensa?
When Mr. John Mahama and his team went to court to challenge the results of the 2020 election, they insisted that the EC Chair be brought into the witness box to answer certain questions. The Supreme Court judges, however, felt that this was unnecessary because the NDC had not been able to justify its position. Even non-lawyers who followed the case realised that the NDC itself did not have any evidence to prove its case.
They had decided to go to court as a way of calming down their agitated supporters. Against this background, the party should be very careful about how it conducts itself in all future elections. The use of force and the absence of respect for opponents during elections would not help matters in any way.
What Ghanaians are prepared to hear are programmes that would transform their lives and attain higher levels of socioeconomic development? All parties must therefore take this advice and behave well during elections.
Again, quite recently, Dr. Bossman Asare and some EC officials went to parliament in response to a request by the legislative body for an interaction with them. On arrival, the parliamentarians asked them to go back, explaining that it was Madam Jean Mensa herself that they wanted to meet. All this was about the intended CI, which seeks to make the Ghana Card the only form of identification for voter registration.
As has been pointed out already, voter registration will not be a general one but rather a limited form of registration. This limited registration will give an opportunity to those who have just attained the age of 18 and want to register as voters. In the light of all this, it is clear that the EC means well and should be supported by all Ghanaians. If any group of people means well, they will quickly have to revise their notes to ensure that they have good intentions but not to be antagonistic and force their will on the country, whether right or wrong.
As has been pointed out already, the NDC should go back to the IPAC and take part in every deliberation so that they can make very strong arguments against things they do not support. In doing that, they must be well informed that they are doing so with the other political parties in the interest of the country. The use of intimidation in the form of “akakabensem”, “atuotuosem”, “bugabuga”, etc, will not work in this country.
Let us decide to do what is right for the country. Ghana is the only country for Ghanaians, so let us work hard and do well to preserve its dignity.
We must establish our country as a unique nation that is moving towards rapid socioeconomic development to enhance the welfare of the people. No one will come to Ghana to do this for us, so the earlier we put our heads together to do this for ourselves for the progress of the country, the better it would be.
It is programmes of development that are needed to convince people to vote in a certain way. This means that Ghanaians must feel free to make their choices based on alternative programmes that are presented to them. These programmes of development must be credible and acceptable to the people. If this is the case, then a major challenge facing political parties is the design of good products that will influence people to move to a certain area as far as voting is concerned.
There may be serious economic challenges today, but these can be well embraced by people who understand the issue at hand and will be prepared to support a government even in the face of certain challenges.
Let us come together as a people to streamline our behaviour and let the rest of the world know that we have come of age and are prepared to conduct ourselves in a mature way without unleashing needless attacks on people who have the responsibility to handle the election management body in the country.
Email address/whatsApp number of author:
Pradmat201@gmail.com (0553318911)
BY DR. KOFI AMPONSAH-BEDIAKO
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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