The Cryptic Text

The thing about prophecy is that it may be cryptic, begging understanding, yet full of meaning. Just hear the prophet in Isaiah 6


In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. ² Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one cried to another and said:


      " Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; 
      The whole earth is full of His glory!" 

 ⁴ And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
⁵ So I said: 
      " Woe is me, for I am undone! 
      Because I am a man of unclean lips, 
      And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; 
      For my eyes have seen the King,
      The LORD of hosts." 




Now hear me:


In the year that President Gaddafi died, I saw the gavel, high and lifted up, as my head trembled and knew no restrain. 


I threw my body to the floor and wrenched my clothes out of place. Sack cloth and ashes!
Holy Holy Holy the Apostle's garden! 
Woe is me for I am finished.
I am a poor man, and I live among poor people and I live in a poor country
Even though I run, Poverty gallops after me and even my abusua panyin he pursues.  
Who shall I turn to and where do I find Judas' shekels?
At your mercy! Oh Mercy! For your wisdom o Solomon!
Seventeen and eighteen, your instructions encoded.

 
And as it is with the prophetic, the generation that owns it, deciphers it. Those to whom  it is spoken, understanding comes. If you are not chosen, don't lose sleep of the words.

Arsene Wenger, Time to Join the Cheats

 Sometimes, we forget that football is a game with only one intrinsic value- entertainment. The extent of fanaticism in the game sometimes borders on lunacy. Without passion and the emotions the game will not be what it is, however, for some people, football is a perfect substitute for stupid sectional and ethnic battles of the middle ages . Arsenal fans chanting that Adebayor should have been killed in the unfortunate attack on the Togo team bus in Angola, to a lesser extent Real Madrid banning Shakira's songs from the Santiago Bernabeu because she was dating Gerard Pique who plays for rivals Barcelona, even though she is a Madrid fan, and the unbelievable pressures team managers bear to produce trophies, beg understanding to say the least.

I am not a gunner, but for me Arsene Wenger is the greatest football manager in the Europe. But as it is in life, the accolades are not reserved for the true heroes, but the pretenders that hoist the spoil. He has consistently made top 4 in the premiership without throwing millions of pounds at pampered egotists who will refuse to play a match because they were not started in the game. As if to prove that the wide gap in salary of footballers exaggerates the gulf between talents, he has achieved great results with previously unknown footballers in the premiership with his ability to organize and impose his philosophy of football on their game. 


Why do we love our football teams? Is it not for the joy of victories dished to us in style as the coach, like a master chef, with tenacity and great patience blends his talents and tactics together, spicing them with a winning mentality to produce a team of stars and non-stars that we adore for many years? But alas! The world has exhausted the patience to groom teams . The formula for success is simple, find a billionaire; Russian, American or Middle Eastern, who doesn't necessarily share the club values built over decades, but has a few millions, created in the oil fields rather than the football field to throw at overpaid and arrogant Mega stars groomed under other philosophies, then match them with a coach from somewhere, he may be a megalomaniac like Maurhino but that is ok, and voila we create trophies. To the billionaire, the football project is another toy. He will decide what to do with it once he is tired of it. It is amazing such cheats are not recognized for what they are. 


Thanks to Sheikh Mansour's millions, a Manchester City bench is an ensemble of stars that can easily form the spine of treble winning team. It is lighted by the likes of Dzeko, Tevez, Milner, Nasri, Richards, not counting the likes of Adebayor and Bellamy who were considered unmanageable and thrown out. It is just annoying that exciting young talents like Adam Johnson are robbed of games week in , week out, even though they have proven their mettle anytime they have the opportunity to play. Meanwhile, a few miles away, other clubs put out less talented players every week because for those clubs, life is not fantasy rock with billionaire owners. Football fans are thus robbed of the great contests that would have been if only money is used as an agent in the game to fairly distribute talents around. This can only happen if football like any normal business is allowed to pay for football rather than depending on benefactors from the oil fields. The Stars that light up the games should almost always be on the pitch doing just that, rather than warming benches. We want to see the best players first, and when they are unavailable, we will do with the talents a step lower. That is why I consign the projects at places like City, Chelsea and PSG into the same space as age cheating.


For the past six years that Arsenal has won no trophies, they have consistently made top four in the premiership, they have consistently performed well in Europe including an unfortunate 2-1 loss to Barcelona in the 2006 final, a match they mostly played with 10 men, and more importantly, they have always played good football. The reason we stay glued to out TV sets for 90 minutes and throng various stadia around the world to watch football is not to see team captains lift trophies, but rather to feast on the skills that dazzle the eye, the creative passes, the fluid positional play, the breath taking movement along the flanks, the great midfield battles, the resolute defensive work, the spectacular saves, climaxed with great goals that are savoured for years and ultimately crown football as 'The Beautiful Game'. Even the howlers and unbelievable misses push our adrenalins to the right level. Arsene Wenger's teams have given us all that and more. The trophies are just the icing on the cake.


The Arsenal system has an uncanny ability to identify talents even at tender ages and bring them through the ranks. There is no doubt about the talent and ability of Cesc Fabregas , but when Wenger threw him into the middle of his midfield after the departure of former captain Patrick Vierra , many considered it a gamble. But for young Fabregas, there was little motivation required for success than that vote of confidence from the gaffer. Ironically, it is this belief in talent that will cost Wenger the loyalty of the stars he created. Soon, they are household names, and the jackals descend on them with millions of pounds that have nothing to do with football. They abandon their mentor ostensibly because he doesn't invest in big names that translate to trophies. Without the nurturing Wenger gives some of these players, their talents would have been buried under the rat race for big names and trophies at any cost, long before they would learn to spell trophy. These players are not just turning their backs on the system that produced them, but also crashing Wenger's vision midstream. The other irony is that the vision is no different from the aspiration that ostensibly forces these players to leave- to build a winsome side that wins trophies.


The business side of Arsenal's game has also been well catered for. Player acquisitions have been sensibly balanced with youth development, salaries reflect the earning power of the talents on display and they have a great brand. At the time that Wenger was busily paying for the Emirates stadium, Manchester United, bought by the Glazers in a leveraged takeover in 2005, were reported to be considering selling old Trafford to raise money. Today, Barcelona produces the world's most exciting talents from their academy , but even they struggle with managing their finances. When Sandro Rosel took over the club's presidency in 2010, he announced that there were serious liquidity problems which required the club to take a loan to pay delayed salaries of their stars. Wenger has no such problems, but tell it to the fans.


I have no qualms against any player for selling his talents to the highest bidder. Samuel Eto recently admitted he signed for the previously unknown Russian side, Anzhi Makhachkala, because of the profane amount thrown at him. I suggest our own Asamoah Gyan borrows a leaf from his book of honest talk and admit that he joined Qatari side Al Ain because it makes economic sense, and not because he wants to play in Asia. It is the people that run the sport that must fix the relationship between money and the game. It is good to know that UEFA have stepped in with rules that enjoin clubs to abandon the wayward football economics from 2013. But that year might be too far away for Professor Wenger. Let's face it, some members of the team that was drabbed 8 -2 by Manchester United will not be selected to represent Ghana at an under-17 tournament. To make matters worse, it is now official, the soccer pendulum has swung in the direction of Spurs, they are now the Lords of North London. Even though the owners threw their support behind him, there is no doubt that if this trend continues, even the great Wenger, will be a candidate to be fired before the season ends, or Arsenal may even get relegated to the championship.


Unfortunately, just like in all human endeavors, results are celebrated not how they were attained. A graduate will flaunt a certificate acquired by buying exams papers before they were taken, and a football team will celebrate trophies acquired by paying referees and fixing matches. It is therefore no surprise that there is pressure on Professor Wenger to do everything and anything to win trophies. Until someone has the common sense to put a halt to the Abramovic and Mansour revolutions, listen to your fans, break the bank this winter, and buy your supporters a piece of silverware. It seems they will prefer an insolvent club with a cup at the museum to a thriving club with a great future. I believe Harry Redknapp is still a hero in Portsmouth for helping them reap where they have not sown. Sorry Mate, it's time to join the cheats.

The Prophet who failed to Die

Prophet Segbene Xenodzi

He was an unknown entity until a few days to the July 9 2011 congress of the ruling NDC. Somehow he managed to court the attention of the media by making the audacious claim that God had revealed to him that the premier first lady under the fourth republic would upstage the sitting president to become the flag bearer of the NDC in the 2012 Presidential election. It wasn't just the claim, but the fact that he staked his own life on the result of the congress. That alone exposed him for who he is- another charlatan ready to ride the wave of a momentous event into fame and prosperity. 

  
He was one person who took the former first Lady's call for boldness seriously. Boldly, he staked the success of his own con game on an event few thought was likely- Nana Konadu's victory at the congress. If the gamble had paid off, he would have won over a good number of gullible Ghanaians who will pin their hopes on a man who gambled on an event with a 50% percent mathematical chance of success. This mass of people would be the source of manner for the prophet. Perhaps the person who christened Segbene Xenodzi has better prophetic unction than the self declared prophet. He seemed to have seen into the future of the baby when he named him Segbene, a name that could mean rebuked by his destiny or denied by his destiny.

 
Prophets are usually in high demand for reasons not farfetched. What is not known to man inspires fear and anxiety. The prophet is able to speak the mind of God, who has seen what hasn't happened and heard the yet to be spoken. He who speaks for the gods must have his ears with the gods. So throughout history, Men of all persuasions will have a special place for the prophet, be he the Jewish prophet Elijah who executed four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal for failing to prove their prophetic worth (I kings 18:40), or Agabus, who predicted famine in the Roman world (Acts 11:28) and the tribulations of Paul at the hands of the Jews (Acts 21:10-11) in the early days of the church, or Chielo the priestess who declared the oracles of Agbala in the Ibo village called Umuofia (Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart) .


 
Even in today's world, few will doubt the fact that there are men and women with the gift to tell you of the unknown. But it is a gift with great attraction for con artists whose interests are in the recognition and rewards that come with the office. The foundation for the rewards is laid in Mathew 10:42- receive a prophet and receive a prophet's reward. Many of the Charlatans will fake prophecy and lay the needed emphasis on receiving the prophet, and soon it is the 'prophet' who gets rewards-for-prophets as the gifts come in thick and fast. Some of them will even tell you what 'seed to sow' for the measure of your prophesy.


 
The truth is that even the bible records many cases of false prophets and false prophesies. Jeremiah 28 Narrates the encounter between Jeremiah and Hananiah, a prophet who prophesied lies about the liberty of the Jewish people. Hananiah broke a wooden yoke that had been hanging on Jeremiah's neck, ostensibly to symbolize that God had broken Nebuchadnezzar's yoke of oppression over Israel. Even the Prophet Jeremiah said amen to his antics before warning him of the consequences of false prophesies. God later spoke through Jeremiah, passing the death sentence on Hananiah and replaced the wooden yoke with a yoke of iron.


 
The problem with false prophets is that there is no limit to what they would say to promote their self serving agenda leaving in their trail broken homes, battered lives, disappointments and many times death. The usual victims are the most vulnerable in society, old women, the sick, aspiring wives and kids. They freely appoint witches in the family and apportion to them any evil they create in their fertile minds.


 
There is no better litmus test to identify the false prophet than what was proposed by Jeremiah 28:9. If a prophet prophesies peace and his words come to pass, then we know God instructed him. With this yardstick, it is easy to weed out the likes of Prophet Segbene. Unfortunately, the followers of these charlatans believe in their prophets more than they believe in the bible or common sense. They refuse to spot cases of obvious fraud and manipulation. A lady received a prophecy that she would own a car by her 40^th birthday. When she woke up at 40 with no car, I thought that was enough for her to understand who she was dealing with. I was wrong. She concluded that her parents got her date of birth wrong.


 
With such unalloyed belief from their followers, the likes of Segbene will thrive for a long time in Ghana. The answers Prophet Segbene gave to the journalist who asked him to explain his prophetic faux pas were consistent with the con behavior of such people. Hear him - "God cannot lie", "She has won wonderfully but the NDC is so intelligent, NDC is a great party, you understand, so they have a way of uniting themselves, OK. So after she has won, they met and then turned the whole thing and put a different result out," – Outrageous!


 

For the sake of the vulnerable, I pray that the prophet will die. No, not his person, but the lying ministry in him that he calls prophetic. If prophet Segbene will stay true to his words and kill that man, many poor souls will be saved from earthly torture. He asked for a firing squad when he made the prophecy, but all I ask of him is to kill his ministry of lies to save the next victim of his self delusional rants.

The Cradle has fallen under the Rawlings Empire

The 9^th of July 2011 shall go into the history books as the day the Rawlings Empire was brought down to earth. It was the day the insipid presidential ambition of the former first lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings (NKAR) took a humpty dumpty fall with a spectacular crash before delegates of the NDC in Sunyani and millions of others following the election on TV, Radio and the Internet. It also brought down with it the myth that no one wins power in the NDC without the support of Mr. Rawlings. Not only did the professor go into the contest without Rawlings's blessing, but took on Rawlings himself. What Konadu's team had portrayed as a battle for the soul of the NDC, ended up as a no-contest as she only garnered a paltry 3% of almost three thousand valid votes against the Professor's 97%. The resounding thrashing should teach the former first lady two lessons. The popularity of one's spouse is not necessarily transferable in electoral politics. Secondly, a fly weight boxer does not take to the ring to fight a heavy weight just because she speaks faster than the big man.



The former first family and the FONKAR led campaign team threw all kinds of invectives at the sitting president to provide justification for attempting to deny him the opportunity to lay claim to a second term, a largess that was enjoyed by all his predecessors in the fourth republic. To Mr. Rawlings, the president has surrounded himself with 'greedy bastards' who used to be his whipping boys. He also wanted so many people associated with Kufuors eight years reign in jail for what they have been rumored to have done. Mr. Rawlings held the President and the judiciary responsible for the failure to deal with his political enemies, his own way. NKAR said the president lack boldness and thought it was time to take the party back to the rank and file. But the representatives of the rank and file delivered a stern rebuke to the former first family. By the massive rejection at Sunyani, they reminded the Rawlings' and the band of novices who championed their campaign that they are entitled to their opinions but not to their own set of facts in an information free society. They rejected politics of vindictiveness and vengeance and exposed Konadu's presidential ambition for what it truly is - an ill advised attempt to perpetuate a Rawlings dynasty to ensure an unending supply of the cult life style of the Rawlings'.



Suggestions that the congress produced no winners other than the NDC are just attempts to make defeat less painful for Nana Konadu Rawlings. But she is not fooled by the humility of the victors even though she failed to reciprocate that gesture by refusing to be gracious in defeat. She has been openly humiliated and she knows it. Challenging a sitting president against the good advice of your friends and wining only 3% does not flatter your political judgment. The defeat is made worse by the fact that you bear the Rawlings name. Suddenly, the illusion that Rawlings can win any election in the NDC is shattered in a moment of political naivety. I found it ludicrous that respected minds like Spio Garbrah seem to endorse such thinking. But today, the NDC has delivered a very important message; the party has outgrown Mr. Rawlings.

The comprehensive drubbing seems to have annoyed the former first lady who walked out on the President before his victory speech. She is not used to being rejected by her 'husband's Party'. Nothing is far from the truth, The NDC made Rawlings, and not the other way round. Konadu, borrow a handkerchief from Alan Kyeremanteng and wipe your tears. It is humbling to be openly rebuked when you think so highly of yourself, but it is good medicine for a haughty spirit.



I'm sure the Rawlings' were expecting some kind of beating at the congress. They set the tone to explain away imminent defeat when they accused the Atta mills camp of doling money to the electorate and intimidation through  sitting arrangements and the presence of CCTV. That perhaps would have been the basis of a break away party that will continue to sing the praises of the Rawlings'. If the margin of defeat hasn't taken away the winds out of their sail, then they are the dumbest students of politics. That might be the case as Mr. Rawlings had for many years expressed his disdain for democratic politics which perhaps is too cumbersome for him to get grips of. He wasn't smart to understand that he had lost the political master minds behind his own victories to President Mills, leading him and his wife into a kamikaze political mission in Sunyani. Mr. Rawlings is a class act in double standards. With a straight face he will accuse his opponents of acts he has committed with impunity. Can the Konadu campaign swear that they didn't pay delegates any money to get Konadu elected? They forget the delegates are witnesses. How does Mr. Rawlings who superintended the worst human rights atrocities in our history gather the courage to accuse Mr. Kufuor of human rights abuse and murder? If justice must be sought in this country, the indemnity clause in the constitution should be scrapped so Rawlings can face justice for toppling the Limann regime illegally.



It takes humility to know when one's time is up. The self proclaimed Junior Jesus (JJ) should have learnt from John the Baptist who testified of the real Jesus in John 3:30, ' He must increase, and I must decrease'- humbly accepting that the shine must leave him to another actor in the scheme of God's plans. The former first family seems to have forgotten about their very humble beginnings before fate smiled on them and snatched Mr. Rawlings from jail to the cover page of our political history. Since that fateful event on 4^th June 1979 and subsequent events of notoriety on 31^st Dec 1981, they had created a cult around themselves which was propped up by the State's instrument of terror. Goaded on by praise singers who clapped at every mundane joke by their Junior Jesus. They lost all traces of humility and all but declared themselves as gods. Rawlings slapped who he wanted to slap and kicked who Konadu thought was worthy of a boot. A sitting vice president, the late Arkaah, and Selasi Dzentu , a former boyfriend of one of their daughters, were recipients of their generosity in being mean and vindictive. There were many other grown men and women who were rumoured to have taken their slaps in their strides.



What they hadn't realized was that, the Rawlings phenomenon rested on two pillars- the state terror machinery and goodwill of Ghanaians, mostly NDC sympathizers. After Kufuor took away the former in 2000, it was held up only by the latter. It was not only dangerous but ill advised for the Rawlings' to toy with that good will. Perhaps they were fooled by Konadu's election in Tamale as a vice chairman of the NDC. When President Mills refused to respond to the daily insults coming from the Rawlings household, political common sense should have taught the Rawlings' that they were increasing the stock of sympathy accounts for a man whose very demeanor attracts sympathy. With such a resounding defeat, it must be obvious to the Rawlings' that the goodwill account has been expended needlessly on vituperations and insults. All dreams of a Rawlings dynasty must be shelved for now as the last cradle that props the empire falls flat.



One lesson the Rawlings' should never forget from the congress was eloquently delivered by the Vice President, who proved to be a master of communication, in three words- Taka, Tiki, Gangale. The attempt by Mr. Rawlings to match his wits fell horribly flat and was only outdone by the bigger fall of the presidential ambition. I'm not sure even NKAR understood what the Osu Alata Kolomashi joke was about. The difference in class was telling. Rawlings suggested in his speech that he might be attending his last congress. If he has thoughts of retiring from politics, I can assure him the body politic will not miss his destructive interference, good riddance! If he is thinking of floating a new party, then he certainly hasn't learnt the lesson of the three birds. But for now, the empire has been cut to fit the size of Konadu's scarf, a scanty 3%.


 

Take him on, Mrs. Rawlings

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.- Prov 16:18




The former first lady of Ghana, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings announced her resignation from her post as a Vice Chair for the ruling party on the 13^th of April so she can take on the sitting president for the right to represent the NDC in next year's presidential election. It is no secret that the Rawlings' have been planning this move for some time . The former president hasn't relented in his criticism of the government of his anointed successor for almost two years. He has gone to the extent of accusing him of surrounding himself with 'greedy bastards'.



It was obvious to any casual observer that the NDC was suffering from a leadership crisis. The party has been torn between the camp of the Ex President and founder of the party, Chairman Rawlings; and the camp of sitting President and leader of party, Professor Mills. Rawlings has been the more aggressive of the two even threatening to take back his party. There was only one way to end this contest – a leadership challenge. The NDC leadership scored full marks by calling for an early election. It is another way of telling the Rawlings camp to put up or shut up! As the ewe's put it, 'eze wu ze tɔ gbɔ wo kpɔ nƐ le'
(If you want to determine which pot is bigger, get to the river) .The Rawlings camp took up the gauntlet and nominated Nana Konadu for the contest, and hurray! We have a fight on our hands.



It is no secret that the blood of democracy does not run through the veins of Mr. Rawlings. It is to the credit of the success of our democracy, that a demagogue like him accepts an election to assert himself (through his beloved) over the party he is supposed to have founded. I am however worried that the wave of support for Prof. Mills coming from party executives all over the country may just pressurize the fire brand leader of the 31^st December women's movement to chicken out of the contest. Luckily for neutral observers who want to see the contest, the Rawlings' are not the type to be moved by such psychological shadow boxing. They believe the whole of Ghana loves them and the NDC worships them. To them, the former Chairman Rawlings is a larger than life personality, whose rants gets even the attention of the gods. He can do no wrong.



The Rawlings' have an enviable record of power acquisition in Ghana. Apart from the 15^th May 1979 faux pas, the army successfully got Rawlings out of jail on the 4^th of June 1979 to lead the country for three months before inaugurating the third republic, barely two years after handing over power to the late President Limann, he came back to overthrow him in a coup . He survived several counter coups until he handed over power to himself in 1993 after winning the first democratic election under the fourth republic in 1992. He subsequently won a second term under this republic in the 1996 election. He was very instrumental in the campaign that brought the NDC back to power with Professor Mills as the President. At a BBC debate on the university of Ghana campus in the mid nineties, one of the debaters, Dr. Audrey Gadzekpo asserted that the president's (Rawlings) career path was not what many mothers will advise their children to take, but of a truth, if you consider the end game, one can only admit that he has had a very successful career. Who will not feel invincible with such a career record?



What the Rawlings' fail to understand is that, this is 2011 and not 1992. Before the 1992 constitution, Rawlings has snuffed out any trace of dissent in the country. For most part of his eleven years reign as a dictator, most Ghanaians only heard and believed government propaganda disseminated by the state media, nobody was allowed to market alternate ideas. To many, let Rawlings be true, and every man a liar. An election right after this period of our history cannot be fair to anyone unless of course, you are Rawlings. In 1996, the situation hadn't changed much because the opposition stayed away from parliament through a boycott of the 1992 parliamentary election. After 2000, Ghana moved on without Rawlings controlling power, the NDC got used to the idea that they may have a leader other than Rawlings. It is only natural that your stock would depreciate with time.


Fast forward to 2009, and NDC is in power again but the President is Mills not Rawlings. The praise singers learn to compose new songs; the man whose eye you need to catch today is Mills not Rawlings, the signature that gets the attention of a foreign government to accept you as an ambassador for Ghana is that of Mills. If Rawlings goes about, insulting Mills and denigrating him, for once, even the people in the NDC will begin to recognize Rawlings for who he is. They have been in denial for a long time, but like magic, the scales are off. Do you believe you own the Party? Think again, it is made up of people with their own will, you own nobody. Madam, did you say you are standing because people having been calling and urging you to? The same excuse your husband used in 1992? Beware, they will reject you and make the NPP's rejection of Alan Kyeremanteng pale before your big humiliation. For the first time, a Rawlings will face an election without the advantage of incumbency and you don't do that with flimsy excuses. They may end up with a very useful political lesson for posterity- intolerance and excessive self aggrandizement kills a legacy.


Since Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings fail to recognize these signs, one can only encourage them to put their popularity to the test, especially if you want to be their friends. I certainly want to win the friendship of the prestigious former first family, so I say Go Nana, Go Nana, Go Nana…..

The Acts of the finger-thirsty Cavemen from Sarbah Hall

I haven't seen the video that made the rounds last week showing Students of Mensah Sarbah hall in the ONLY University of Ghana in a mad frenzy to poke their fingers between the thighs of an alleged female thief, neither am I interested in seeing it. If you have it, please keep it, don't send it to me. Just listening to, and reading the description of how our future leaders in a reputable university scrambled to get access to the holy of holies of a strange woman they knew not from Adam with their fingers, cameras and anything was repulsive ,repugnant, revolting and nauseous enough without the benefit of the pictures. The fact that the senseless act took place in the open and was not deterred by the presence of phone cameras and videos at the scene, says a lot about the IQ of our supposed best brains. This is another good reason to believe that our educational system is not producing the informed intelligent manpower required to operate in a knowledge society. You would expect that students at that level will recognize that what they were doing was a crime, and the cameras will only serve as evidence for the state against them.

The eagerness of the male specie to seek comfort in the holy passage that delivered humanity has long been recognized as potentially abusive to the female specie. Society has since made rules to obtain legitimate access, this fact must be known to every JSS student. What the finger-happy boys from Sarbah hall did is a throwback to the days of the pre-historic man who had yet to come to terms with the fact that he lived in a plane higher than the abode of the animals he shared the jungle with. I have heard arguments that what happened was instant justice rather than a crime against 'womanity', but the truth is, it was more of the latter. Was a single woman part of dishing out that senseless (in)justice? If a thief is polite enough to ask me to choose between losing my laptop and a one man attack , similar to what the lady suffered, on any female member of my family, I will deliver the laptop to his hideout with a tithe offering. The cavemen committed a bigger crime than the lady. The act of the Sarbah cavemen is indefensible, no matter how hard you try. The whole act is reminiscent of the early days of Chairman Rawlings's revolution, when stories that soldiers did not only strip market women naked in the streets but forced men to inspect what was in between their thighs, in the name of instilling discipline, were common. We have been hoping that those events will never recur in our society. But the appearance of computer savvy cavemen in Sarbah hall is a sharp reminder that we seem not be learning from our history. Back in the Vandal city in the days of yore, the boys from Sarbah were described as something police (I haven't learned to repeat the refrain without a prick on my conscience), it seems the Vandals were right after all. With all the faults of Vandals, such acts would be regarded as an abomination that causes desolation, and the perpetrators would pay with their 'blood' at 'Gono' where they will face all the three rudiments of shaboro- face up, face down and sub-marine.

The shameful act and the attempts to justify it by explaining that the lady at the receiving end is a repeated thief who has jumped bail, throws light on two evils in the Ghanaian society, namely , the penchant for instant justice and an overly casual attitude towards sexual violence.

Too many Ghanaians will join a beating party before asking what the chap did wrong. Not too long ago, innocent men were lynched because somebody said they caused their manhood to vanish. There were no attempts to verify that the manhood was gone. We saw people literally razing down a house occupied by a certain Dr. Beckley because the crowd believed he was an occultist who sacrificed children. A man appeared on TV claiming that a child was tied to a tree in the house and an angel came and untied her. The child was never seen, the parents were never known, and the angel refused to appear and testify against Beckley.  Yet people were ready to maim Beckley. Even though these people were shown on TV, not a single attempt was made to arrest and prosecute anybody. Many years ago at Legon, we chased a thief from Commonwealth and apprehended him in front of Legon hall. As we attempted to march him to the Legon police station, the crowd grew thicker with every step we took, and so did the beating. Yours truly attempted to stop the beating, but the few lashes that were thrown my way adequately exorcised my foolishness. I approached a security man at the gate for help but he was too smart to fall into such a stupid trap, he blatantly refused. In equal measure, he blatantly denied he spoke to me when I reported him to the university. As for the thief, he was left half dead at the gate, even though the police came for him, I don't think they got anywhere with a prosecution because society failed to help them. 'Enlightened students from Legon chose to exact justice the way of the caveman, instead of respecting institutions of civilization. If the police don't get into the habit of prosecuting the apostles and disciples of vigilante culture, they will never go away.

We trivialize sexual violence. Consciously or unconsciously, it does happen. In my teenage years in secondary school, I noted how conversations about 'gala' (gang rape) were well patronized. If young people get used to making fun out of such barbaric practices, they will do the Sarbah when they get to Sarbah hall. Remember Gyedu Blay Ambulley's song? 'Woman behind, something dey there, wey tin dey there,………' He successfully got ex President Rawlings to sing it at a show. Such lyrics can only serve to blunt the mind about the seriousness of sexual harassment. I hear that my fellow Vandals from Commonwealth hall are focusing the 53^rd hall week celebration on promoting women empowerment. Bravo! My V-mates. Please focus some of your effort on getting rid of all songs from your repertoire that degrade womanhood. That will be a practical demonstration of your good intention beyond the talk. Such songs do not help the course of 'womanity'. The guys in the colonies do not understand the mystery behind your lyrics; it will only spur on guys in Okponglo to get in touch with their animalistic instincts. As always, Truth Stands!

As for all my good friends from sarbah hall, it's time to go back home and talk some sense to those boys. Patrick Adjei (Mr. president '94/95), Patrick de Souza, Barbados, and Elvies Afriyie Ankrah, boys Chaaaarge . To all of us in the larger society, we need to get it into the heads of our sons, nephews and brothers that the residual remains of Oedipus complex will always take boys back to where they came from, but guys, there are rules of engagement, Respect!

 

The Tragedy of undiagnosed Madness

On the Campuses of Legon sometime in the 90s, the student body was excited by the appearance of a claimant to the SRC presidency. Even though the election was a semester away and most students were struggling to come to terms with the newly introduced grade point system which had already classified many students as average performers, news spread quickly of a midget whose pre-occupation was to let everybody know, he was the SRC president in waiting. He underlined his presidential credentials by formally adding the official title and name of a former European leader to his beautiful Ghanaian name. The student body thought he was eccentric or funny, few really gave him a dog's chance of winning an election in Legon , but as we approached election period proper, the final year students thought it would be cute to vote him into office and throw the university into chaos and they made this known especially at the observatory of the Vandal city. Even though he didn't win the election, he gave a good measure of scare to the other aspirants (ask one of President Mill's deputy's) and came a respectful second.



About a decade later, a UK based University in which the young man had gone to further his study had him checked into an institution because he was mentally sick, a claim the young man still strenuously contests. Since the claims were first published in a Ghanaian newspaper, I have wondered if the young man was a sick man begging the system for help through those unorthodox antics on campus, a situation we took for comic relief as we cheered him on to entertain us with his unimpressive additions to the English language. If that was the case, then the system failed him massively.



It is unfortunate that in Ghana and many African countries, mental illness is ignored or trivialized until the sick man strips and takes to the street in protest. Even then, you will only see the consulting room of Dr. Allotey if your family thinks the family name is worth protecting by throwing you out of public view or if you threaten the rest of society with mortal danger. The situation is no different from the way children with learning disabilities are thrown in together with the others in the same classroom with one verdict from our society- 'wa bong' or 'e sha' (he is a dunce ). But unlike their colleagues with learning disabilities, people with undiagnosed and ignored mental diseases who don't make it to the streets have an equal chance as anybody to be successful in our society with the problems intact and locked in the brain. In the past few weeks I have been convinced that if we run the rule on some African leaders , we will find one or two who belong this group.

How else can one explain the sickening craze with which guys like, Yoweri Musevini (Uganda), Teodoro Mbasogo (Equitorial Guinea), Paul Biya (Cameroun), Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Fasso), and Yahya Jammeh (Gambia) try to outdo the longevity of monarchs in their executive offices? Why does Lauren Gbagbo think his personal ambition overrides the safety and unity of Ivory Coast? Ghanaians have for many years put up with the incoherent ramblings of a revolutionary leader who pretends he is God's gift to Ghana. He seems totally oblivious of his own bloody past as he constantly accuses others of human rights violation and calls for justice. How does the octogenarian Mugabe manage to comfortably live in the past totally oblivious to present day realities? Even when he is voted out of power, he craves relevance through violence on his own people whiles pointing fingers at Britain.

When I watched the ex Egyptian president in his last address to the state, I wondered if he is one of those guys who escaped the attention of a psychiatrist. It was clear to every observer that Egyptians had had enough of this guy who had monopolized power for three decades. He couldn't stop the internal revolt by sending security forces to murder some of the protestors. When he had the chance to make a graceful exit in his last broadcast as president, he read out his CV to the people, reminded them that he was their grandfather, recounted war stories that were four decades old, and promised to deal with the people, who he had sent in the first place, who murdered the protestors. He even tried to convince the people who had massed up in the now famous Tahrir Square that they were being manipulated by foreign elements. The impudence of a dying cockroach! Ex president Mubarak was the only one who believed his address and the people made that very clear to him as he was seen off to Sharm El-Sheikh to live with his personal demons out of the public eye.



Muammar Gaddafi is another guy that never ceases to amaze me. After sponsoring revolutionaries in West African countries including Ghana, he embarked on two parallel projects to extend his dynasty. He attempted to revive Nkrumah's dream of a united Africa with him as the champion, and then he had himself crowned King of Kings of Africa by traditional rulers. Not long after, Gaddafi called for the division of Nigeria into Christian and Moslem States . I struggle to understand how a champion of African Unity can be professing for a split of one of the States he wants united. At the time of writing this piece, he has been busily killing unarmed demonstrators in the hundreds for embarking on an Egypt styled revolution to bring an end to his dynasty. Amazingly, he came out to blame Osama Bin Laden for the turmoil in Libya. Is he so naïve to believe that he can court the sympathy of the West and the rest of the world my invoking 'Osama'? Or it is the case of the demons in his head toying with him? May the Almighty strengthen the people of Libya to throw off this yoke of madness that has festered for more than four decades, Insha Allah.



Maybe Africa could be saved from leaders who operate on the fringes of lunacy by improving the mental health delivery system.

Why okada will not go

Four hundred bikers under the umbrella of Ghana private motorbike operators union (GPMOU) paid a courtesy call to members of Ghana's parliament on the 1^st of February 2011. They had a simple message. They know very well that the laws of Ghana prohibit the use of motorbikes for commercial transport, but that is exactly what they have been doing. Listening to the leader justify their trade on radio, I'm convinced he could easily have read the following speech to the parliamentarians:



Let Parliament the citadel of Ghana's law live forever. Please be informed that we are law breakers, but due to extenuating circumstances we do not intend to repent. We are here to petition you, and therefore be petitioned, to remove our offense from the law, extricating us from our consciences that we may indulge, in peace. We appreciate the fact that we are a nuisance to most of you on the road, but we're sure you and Ogyakromians, who you represent, prefer this small menace on the road to armed robbery the other appealing option prohibited by the law. Okada provides us with employment and acceptability in society. We can also pay tithes when we go to church, we can do Zakat, the girlfriends can introduce us to potential mother-in-laws without shame, some can take second wives, and after a hard day's work, we can buy a bottle of overtaxed beer. On the subject of taxes, please remember that if you legalize our trade, our taxes will increase the money in the national kitty, and you will have less hassle approving 200% increase in your own salaries. It is worth mentioning that there are thousands of unemployed youth in Ghana who will gladly join GPMOU, and these are all voters. Be reminded of this important fact when you debate our petition, because we will be listening. Lastly, kindly tell the over-zealous MTTU to back off as you consider our petition.



I have never been a fan of Okada for a number of reasons. Firstly, motor bikes were not created for commercial transport. For safety reasons, the rider and the passenger on a bike are required to wear crash helmets. But this is almost impractical in the commercial arena as few people will want to share a helmet worn by thousands for obvious reasons. Neither is it practical to sling a personal helmet on your shoulder, next to your beautiful Gucci hand bag in anticipation of your Okada hops on your journey. The only realistic option is to avoid a helmet with its consequences. I can jump on any public transport without worrying about what I choose to wear on a day, but with Okada, a skirt or kaba slit may create balancing problems that will precipitate the crash, not to talk of the revelations and visions underneath that shall be savored by guys nearby when you attempt the jump that puts you in the passenger seat. Secondly, motorbike accidents break more limbs and kill more people per unit distance than cars. Put a thousand Okadas on street and surely you would have created lots of jobs, not only for the riders but also for the carpenters that will make the coffins. A study in the USA some years ago showed that for every one hundred thousand registered riders, almost seventy will end up in fatal crashes, compared to fifteen automobile crashes for the same number of registered drivers. It is unfortunate that in Africa, useful statistics are difficult to come by, but I will bet my last cedi that the statistic for bikes in commercial transport will be worse. The people who cite Benz 207 accidents to push the case for okada should have a rethink, because Okada will beat those accident rates hands down. Maybe find out from our Nigerian brothers why some hospital wards are called Okada wards.



I do not believe that any Okada association can regulate the activities of their members not be a bother to the rest of society. We shouldn't fool ourselves; Ghanaians are not the best example of order and discipline. We may be doing better than some neighboring West African countries, but these are bad bench marks. Okada will jump red light at will, squeeze into cracks too small for their size in regular traffic, get many decent road users to frequent the parish to confess to swearing and the dozens of expletives they are forced to utter in disgust. Okada will just make tro-tro and taxi drivers look like the long lost Saints of Ghana highways. One Okada will carry an entire family, the father, the son, the daughter and mother with baby at the back, basket on the head. Their union will only serve one purpose- a rallying point for them to gang up and beat up any driver who accidently knocks down an out of control Okada rider, just as they do in Lagos.



With all the 'wahala' okada conjures in any society, why is there no shortage of willing commuters ready to hop on? The answer is simple- Okada is simply goosing into a huge void created by the lack of decent public transport system. Our roads are so congested that, it is not fun commuting to and from the office on any day. Many are forced to leave home at 5 a.m. or earlier, to get to the office on time. The situation is not helped by our un-planned development that has forced residences to be located far from the business district without a public transport system to aid travel. If you attempt a tro-tro ride during off-peak hours, you may have to endure a long wait till the bus is full. The other option is a more expensive taxi ride. What do rational people do in such circumstances? If okada can drastically cut down the hours on the road, why not, and that is the value proposition of Okada. Don't mind the risk, we are very religious, God will take care of that. I have just returned from a funeral in the Volta region. When you mention transport, the first response is 'zémidjan', another name for okada borrowed from our Togolese neighbors. They are doing some 'wonderful' work moving people from homes, to hospitals, markets, schools, and even moving corpses to their final resting place. Many in the population they serve have no other form of commercial transport. In fact there are no access roads to many of the villages they serve. Thanks to technology Okada is a phone call away. Stop Okada, and the villagers will have to walk long distances to access services we take for granted in the city. Okada is simply a common sense reaction to a real problem. In other words, the growth of okada in Ghana is being fueled by demand. Attacking the supply may not get us the result we want.


I hate the idea of using motorbikes for commercial transportation of humans. I will never support legalization of the system, but by leaving such a yawning gap in our transportation system, we are giving a tacit approval to the okada business. Okada is not addictive, if people have better alternatives okada will be out of the news. We need a comfortable mass transportation system that our Ministers and MPs will have no problems using to get to parliament. We must be getting rid of the rickety tro-tros and uncouth drivers' mates and be replacing them with trains and buses whose calls at bus stops are timely and predictable. Under more professional guidance, these same drivers, mates and okada riders could be trained to be the backbone of a decent transport system, a system that makes okada unattractive and at the same time provides jobs. In the absence of this, Mr. Awuni, the MTTU boss, can read the riot's act seven times to all the three hundred okada riders that visited parliament, but it will be an effort in futility. Even the politicians will not back his efforts. For years, I commuted between my Accra New Town home and Burma Camp primary in a mummy truck (bone shaker) we called Agege. As better alternatives appeared on the Ghanaian market, the bone shakers receded into the background. There was no strenuous campaign to get rid of them in Accra.



Yes, I know the Vice President recently cut the sod for a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Accra, but the name of the game is result not intention. Even If a successful public transport system is the only legacy Egya Atta presidency will bequeath to Ghana, posterity will gladly borrow the words of the Adisadel College ode and say 'Atta Mills has labored and we share the glory, ours to do exploits and add to his gain….'. Until then, we may have to brace ourselves for a bumpy ride, because there is an okada near you that is goosing into space given up by common sense and good governance.


 

Actuarial Signs and the Wonders in tow

One lesson Egya Atta might have learnt midway through his presidential tenure is not to make promises by heart on the campaign trail. But for another lesson yet to be learnt, politicians would have taken this caution seriously. The Ghanaian electorate is yet to learn to take electoral promises uttered by politicians with a pinch of salt. Knowing the mindset of the people they represent, the Ghanaian politician has grown into a false prophet specializing in two types of miracles- Signs and Wonders. Let me explain.



Before the scientific method emerged as the de facto standard of testing knowledge, our understanding of the physical universe was consigned to 'Signists' who came in various shapes and guises. The wise men of the day were the Astrologers, Seers, Magicians and the ilk who could decipher the signs of the times. Thankfully, that era was upstaged by the appearance of the likes of Isaac Newton. The poet Alexander Pope aptly captured the moment in this heroic couplet;

"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light."



Somehow, Newton's light failed to illuminate our body politic resulting in over reliance on signs rather than science. There is no better example than Rojo Mettle Nunoo's debacle in Parliament. The NDC made a promise to Ghanaians to implement a one-time premium policy for the NHIS. In March 2010, Mr. Nunoo, the deputy minister of health, told parliament that each Ghanaian will have to pay about GHC600 premium to crystallize this promise. This he said was based on actuarial reports. Subsequently, Dr Kumbour, the substantive minister, apologized for what he described as misleading information given by his deputy. He explained that his deputy only read one of a number of options the party was considering. Determination of insurance premiums is guided by a well defined body of knowledge called Actuarial Science. One would have thought that such a bold campaign promise would have been the outcome of a rigorous scientific study using all the iterations known to the field of study. The deputy minister's assertion and the minister's subsequent explanation, only underscore the fact that the promise was first made, and they are only now scratching their heads looking for feasibility scenarios. If they don't find one, they will make a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea- either implement a bad choice or renege on the promise and blame it on the bad policies of the Kuffuor government and face the people's thumb.


 
Few people will deny that George Bush bequeathed a paralyzed economy to the succeeding Obama administration, but when the hard questions were asked less than two years on, Obama didn't blame the Bush administration for the slow recovery because he understood that he was elected to fix what was broken, not to pay tribute to his predecessor. As a result of the underperforming economy, Obama's Democratic Party received a thumping in midterm elections. In Ghana, the usual refrain from our politicians is 'we didn't know the past government had run down the economy to this extent when we made the promise'. Yeah, right! You didn't want to know. Any political party with intentions of governing the country, who cannot boast of a vibrant research unit that keeps track of the economy, is not worth its name. The fact is opposition Parties have mastered the act of winning power from a less than critical electorate. Look out for the Signs of dissatisfaction and keep shouting, keep matching, and keep promising, soon you will be in government by default. The problem with wrenching power by 'Actuarial Signs' rather than the Science is that, soon the electorate presents the cheque of promises but solutions are scarce to find in the vault. At this point, many politicians attempt a full re-incarnation of the prophet Joel as quoted in Acts 2:19:

"I will show wonders in the heavens above
   and signs on the earth below,"

Having identified the Signs on earth that won them the elections, the revelation is to protect your government with heavenly Wonders. This is the point at which they create solutions that are neither innovative nor found in any text book. In those days, don't be surprised if sometime, somewhere, someplace when you least expect it, a deputy minister steps up to you and says " we have created 1.6million jobs". Don't seek explanation for why you and all other unemployed foot soldiers are still without jobs, you must accept it by faith, it is a wonder from heaven. If they get more disingenuous, they will create National Youth Employment Program - the biggest Sign that the youth is unemployed and at the same time a Wonder solution to provide jobs. So this is the political rule of thumb; in opposition, gather all Signs of discontent among the populace, package them and have your propaganda outfits run riot with them; when in power, seek Wonders that can protect you from every irresponsible promise uttered  while in opposition and from the new "Actuarial Signists" in opposition. The winner is produced by the next line in the scripture- the party that produces more smoke to blur the truth.



I find it annoying that an important matter like Fuel is a favorite object of the Signists and Wonderers. The contradictory posturing of politicians depending on whether they are in power or opposition is robbing this country of rationally evolving a policy on how to deal with the ever fluctuating fuel economy. Recklessly claiming that we do not need taxes on fuel when in opposition, and acting contrary to that indication when in government, is a shameful legacy to bequeath to future generations. Blaming your predecessor for your vacillations only demonstrates ineptitude to say the least.



The lack of scientific depth in our political discourse is the bane to our development. I have always struggled to understand why our parliamentarians are asked to approve very complex deals like STX and Sale of Ghana Telecom, which take sitting governments months to finalize, in a matter of days. Not too long ago parliament was almost fooled to approve a 'loan' from a hair dressing saloon in London. Such embarrassments can be avoided if we respect the need for due diligence and arm our parliamentarians with credible research offices.



I yearn for the day when our political parties will invest resources and time into scientific research before they come out with their promises and leave the Signs and Wonders for Priests. But that will never happen until Ghanaians send the message to our politicians that every vote must be earned. A Party in opposition is not worth the seat of government because it replays our problems to us and castigates the incumbent. We must begin to demand evidence that critics who want the seat have a better plan. As for Egya Atta, he will have to account for the promises. Even his Chief foot soldier, the enigmatic former President Rawlings believed them. He expects all politicians who served in the NPP government to be in jail. He expects that Yaa Naa's killers would be found and justice served. Don't bore him with stories about evidence. He is not a law professor, he is a Soldier. He was shown the 'Signs' and as a faithful foot soldier he ran with it. Mr. President, produce the Wonder.