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!