Some cats are Sacred

Prov 30 ²¹ "Under three things the earth trembles,      under four it cannot bear up"



I love to draw inspiration from words of wisdom that have stood the test of time. The best place to find them is in the good old book. Proverbs 30 :21 says "Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up". I thought the fourth republic's scariest day would always be the day some people went into a radio station and called on NDC activists to match on the electoral commission building because they perceived NPP was about to rig the election of 2008. I kept praying that the hawkish elements in the NPP wouldn't join them on the streets around the EC because if they had, Ghana would have joined the African Hall of Shame for undemocratic practices in the 21^st century and perhaps we would have been hosting an African Union peace mission in the country today. But sadly, I have counted three panic-filled fear-stricken moments under which our democracy has trembled with great trepidation in the Prof's less than two year old administration. We do not need a fourth, because our democracy may not bear up.


The antics of the marauding NDC foot soldiers, relentless and irrepressible in seeking vigilante justice, are the ugly side of our democracy. In a misguided attempt to counter-balance acts of political patronage in the previous government, these political infantry brigades run amok, venting their spleen on anybody and everybody that does not wear the red, white, black and green NDC bandana. They takeover lorry parks and desecrate the unholy sanctum of human waste without shame. They lock out legally appointed public servants from their offices and "dis-appoint" DCEs appointed by the president. Some have the audacity to dare the police to uphold law and order. Some NDC loyalists can indulge themselves in sophistry, trying hard to justify this madness, but let the truth be told, it is a big sign that leadership is lacking in their party- perhaps this is the Prof's biggest failing.


 
No word, spoken or written, conjures images of fear and panic more than the law on causing fear and panic. Who said we have decriminalized speech in this country? When Ticolo got home with Yaa Beauty, the babe he had been hunting down for the past six months, he was full of expectation until the lady decided to make a quick dash out of the house for her own safety. Ticolo's next door neighbor, Kankama was in a more advanced stage with his own project, and the wooden wall dividing the two rooms did little to conceal the screams from the lady in Kankama's abode. Paralyzed by fear, Yaa panicked at the approaching trauma, a taste of which could be heard next door. She left immediately for her own safety. Ticolo is convinced that Kankama caused unnecessary fear and panic and is contemplating contacting the Ghana police. This law has assumed elastic properties stretching from fools who make wild allegations on radio to journalists who refuse to reveal their sources. It is scaring the hell out of our democracy.


 
Pictures of a slim macho man wearing an Aca P woven in the red, white, black and green, with an enema syringe in hand walking towards the Supreme Court is a nightmare that can force Auntie Georgina to abandon all thoughts of sleep for seven days. Knowing the antecedents of the NDC, threatening to purge the judiciary in the fourth republic is not the smartest "talk" that we expect from an NDC chairman, but when he decides to utter those words at a time when the Parties infantry brigade are on the loose, certainly not only Auntie Georgina, but all lovers of our democracy must be filled with fear, panic, trepidation and horror. Kwabena Adjei's speech of horror underscores one of two things. We either have a terrible judiciary that cannot be reformed using the normal processes or he belongs to a band of irresponsible politicians who talk before they think. Assuming without admitting that the former is the case, any discourse on the perceived bad judgment must focus on the shortcoming of the judgment. Without that, reasonable Ghanaians will struggle to associate with whatever course you want to pursue. Apart from hurling vituperation at the judiciary, Dr Adjei failed to tell us what was wrong with the judgment that necessitated the press conference.    Unless of course, there is no real problem with the judgment, and perhaps the judge is right after all; a case is a good as a lawyer's brief. Maybe the essence of the discourse is to execute a coup de grace to rescue the case on appeal by spreading fear and invoking memories of judicial martyrs, to strike panic. Some people may prefer this approach to appointing new judges to the superior courts to rescue a case. 


Dr. Kwabena Adjei has brought us to the point where no matter the ruling on the Ghana at 50 Case, there will be political meanings read. It will be " The judge has kowtowed to fear from the NDC" or "we said it, the judiciary is against the NDC" depending on which way the case goes. Recently, a judge in the United States discharged some young Somali men arrested in the gulf of Eden from charges of piracy because he disagreed with his country's prosecutors on the definition of piracy. If that happened in Ghana, Kwabena Adjei will call the judge a pirate. We have successfully politicized everything in Ghana including crime and justice. We do not seem to have values in this nation. Because our opinion on a matter is dictated by who is involved rather than the issue at stake, politicians easily find welcoming hideouts in our society to escape confronting the shame that accompanies acts of adult delinquency. With their penchant to have their way at all times, especially if they control power, these politicians care very little about the dangerous repercussions of their public tantrums. They simply have no shame. In support of Dr. Adjei, some NDC chairmen called for a debate on corruption in the judiciary. I wish to respectfully tell them that politicians are perceived to be more corrupt than judges. What will these Chairmen say, if a soldier, totally disillusioned with corruption and cronyism in our body politic calls a news conference and threatens to clean our politics? Does that remind you of our past? It may sound distant now, but if we encourage this kind of irresponsible attacks on the pillars of our democracy, this can be for real. Our democracy will struggle to bear any such attack.


Under three things our democracy has already trembled, perhaps if we all speak without looking at who is involved, we will have no cause to discuss the fourth. Yes, there are many ways of killing a cat. In the region where the cat is a great delicacy, nobody will touch the cat from the shrine. Kwabena, some cats are sacred, keep away your sack.   


 

 

 

 

 

 
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My Standards Board Mission

MTN's Charger sold with Nokia 2630

"When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him."-Isaiah 59:19b

Such scriptures give me the conviction that even the good old book will agree that Standards are a protection to a nation. Similarly, I harbor strong doubts that many will disagree with my assertion that the privileges of technological and market democratization must be tempered by strong regulatory regimes to protect nations from sub standard goods. Even with the knowledge that our markets are full of fake and sub-standard goods, several times have I failed to avoid paying for and picking the chaff home. I don't want to believe that I am the only one who scouts the market moving from one shop to another trying hard to convince myself that a gas regulator I want to buy will meet all safety requirements when used at home, or that the electric fan I'm about to pickup will not pack up before the first spin. Is this not why the Standards Board exists- To protect the ordinary man's exposure to such market derailments?


I admire the enterprise of many Ghanaians as they lay claim to their economic portion of the land by lining shops of different sizes with goods of all kinds from countries big and small once they can be located on the globe. Through these efforts, no matter how little, biblical miracle is recreated as bread is multiplied on the table to feed families too large for the spaces they occupy. I've always wondered how some of our kinsmen live on the petty trading that engage them. But poverty is no good excuse to innocently set our houses alight with substandard cables or to populate the intensive care unit of our hospitals with people burnt to several degrees because the wrong gas cylinders were sold. Our shops are filled with all manner of goods whose usages are not understood by the people who sell them. I hope I am not wrong in thinking that the Ghana Standards Board is the nation's armour bearer that must hold aloft the standards that protects us. This is what I was thinking when in early June 2010 I drove into their office in Accra to clear up a little matter.


I had purchased a Nokia 2630 from the MTN shop at the Accra Mall. That was my third time of buying a phone from that shop. The receipts usually bear the name Sell Phone even though the shop is MTN-branded. Three days after my purchase I realized that the charger included with the phone was a strange one I'd never seen. It has two plucks that look like an 'A' with the intersections removed. I took the phone back to the shop and wanted to know why they were selling phones in Ghana with strange plucks that will not fit into our electric sockets. The lady I spoke to didn't understand the fuss I was making since I could buy a converter in any electrical shop to help use that charger in Ghana. A gentleman stepped in to diffuse the argument by rendering an apology, and I left the shop angry. I can understand buying a phone outside Ghana and getting a converter to charge it, but for phones bought in bulk to be sold by a company like MTN, would that be right? Unfortunately, my many years of education both formal and informal in Ghana couldn't help me answer that simple question, and after making two calls to a Customs Officer and a lecturer who teaches electrical engineering in one of the nation's Polytechnic with the question still unanswered, I decided it was time to increase my knowledge with some basic fact that most Ghanaians should know by the time they go through high school. So I drove to the offices of the Ghana Standards Board not too far from the Mall.

When I posed the question to the first lady I was directed to see and showed her the plucks, she misunderstood it and thought I wanted to import phones that use that charger into the country. She was quick to advice that since that is not the nature of  sockets we use in Ghana, why import those chargers  into the country? Then I explained to her that I had just bought the phone and I needed to know if MTN had the right to be selling phones using those plucks, because if they didn't, I was ready to make a formal complaint to the GSB. Here again I couldn't get an answer to the question I thought was a simple one. In the thirty minutes that followed, I spoke to six other people , some at the engineering unit who claimed that was not their specialty and some people at Marketing where complains were to be made. The last person I spoke to has  a director (or deputy director) designation and his counsel was comforting in deed. He asked me "why not return the phone if you don't like the charger?" to which I smiled. Anyway, since the people who had answers to my question were all out of the office and could not be reached by phone, I was advised to leave and wait for a call. To be fair the last of three ladies that I spoke to actually tried hard to get somebody on phone that could speak to the issue but to no avail. She did call me again after a couple of days, I cannot recall her exact words but my question was yet to be answered because somebody wasn't available. It is almost eight weeks now since I went to the Standards Board with my question and it is still not answered. I still do not know if MTN had the right to import phones with the plucks pictured above, so I'm still not sure if I had any right to assert in that shop to ask for a change. If you know, would you be so kind to send me a response on ogyakromian@gmail.com. As for the Nokia 2630 I bought from the shop, I gave out in protest and know where not to buy a phone again.

The Plug

Moving away from my little question, I think our general attitude to standardization in this country leaves much to be desired. We have a huge informal sector oiling the wheels of our economy and daily lives, yet little effort is expended to encourage them to serve us with the right goods and services. The guys who build our houses, those that repair our cars, those that we entrust our hairs to, can we independently certify their knowledge levels and ensure that without the requisite certification they are kept away from the mistakes that spell doom for us? Can we ensure that the woman who sells tiles next door has the capability to advice on the usage of these tiles? We must get into the habit of driving mediocrity a small step away at a time from our culture by raising the standards. 


mail to: ogyakromian@gmail.com

If only I can find Balaam........

I have finally been able to overcome the inertia to take to the keyboard after that painful defeat handed our beloved Black Stars by Luis Suarez, the thief of Joburg. In my last blog a couple of weeks ago, I put out a sarcasm titled Bayie Kɔɔɔɔ III- The gods of the Game. I was basically questioning the role of superstition and religion in the game of football. The way and manner Ghana got kicked out of the tournament brought some fresh perspective to the subject through this one question- Did God abandon Ghana?


There are millions of Ghanaians who believe God is closer to Ghana than any other part of the earth. So strong is this belief that people actually dedicate valuable prayer time to make supplication for football victory, and they believe that the prayer of the rival team is discounted in the presence of the Ghanaian 'Shabalala' delivered in a fresh tongues of men and angels emanating from the bosom of the comforter. This strong force of prayer was deployed both on and off the pitch against every one of our opponents. Then comes Ghana Vs Uruguay on that fateful Friday evening. After taking the lead with Sulley Muntari's last kick of the ball in the first half, we thought we had done it again with the last kick of extra-time when Adiyiah's header headed goal wards, that was until Luis Suarez's hand popped out from the goal line with the ball in hand. The referee could have been excused if he had accepted it as a goal, but alas, he wasn't convinced it had crossed the line. Then comes the cruelty of football. After struggling to get the ball almost across the goal line but for an illegality, the ball is withdrawn 12 yards backward, and Uruguay has the luxury of a goalie to defend the resultant kick. I have followed discussions on the web with many arguing that if Asamoah Gyan had scored the resulting penalty kick, the story would have been different. This may be the case, but you cannot equate a penalty to a goal bound ball that is illegally detained by a man with kleptomaniac tendencies. Surely it is time to mend some of the rules of football, especially if the incident is viewed against the fact that Ghana did not benefit from the red card that was shown to Suarez in the last minute of extra time.


To add insults to injury Luis Suarez speaking before the world's media, ascribed his ignominious achievement to the Omnipotent. Listen to him. "The hand of God now belongs to me", "Mine is the real 'Hand Of God'. I made the save of the tournament."  His coach Mr. Tabarez gave a tacit endorsement to that view when he said "I'm emotional. We didn't play well, but we've gone through," . "It seems there's something forcing us on..." He wasn't finished, he continues:  "Those who believe in fate or destiny they might be able to explain it."  From an Ogyakromian perspective Luis Suarez is a cheat, 'dzulor', 'kubolo', 'dzimakpla' and  public enemy No. 1. But I'm sure many Uruguayans regard his action as a heroic act that delivered a nation, an action that  must have been inspired by God himself. So whiles Ghanaians weep bitterly about an opportunity stolen by the disingenuous act of a gifted footballer, Uruguayans can go to church and thank God for a great favor. This is reminiscent of the story of Jacob and Esau in the bible. Jacob stole Esau's birth right and ended up being the father of a blessed nation whiles his brother was left crying bitterly. In explaining pre-destination, the Apostle Paul expatiated on the situation of the twin brothers thus:

"¹⁰Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. ¹¹Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: ¹²not by works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger."^[d]
13Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." – Romans 9:10-12. (NIV). I'm sure many Christians have read this sentence many times without a drop of sympathy for Essau. Perhaps when we replace Essau with Ghana, and Jacob with Uruguay, the next time we quote the verse to justify anything, we will remember that Essau was a man and had feelings.


What did Ghana do wrong? We prayed steadfastly and played well and yet victory was stolen from us. If you will believe Luis Suarez, God stretched forth his hand and literarily appointed Uruguay into the semi final of the 2010 world cup over Ghana. It is as if he said "Uruguay I loved , Ghana I hated".  So that leads me to my big question, Did God abandon Ghana or this is evidence that God does not play football? 


For the answer why don't we draw inspiration once again from the bible. In the book of Numbers, we are told that as the Israelites journeyed from Egypt to the promise land, the Moabites got jittery and their King by name Balak called for a man named Balaam to curse the intruders. No matter what Balaam did, he did not find a curse tailored for the Israelites. Before he finally gave up, he declared in his second oracle in Numbers 23:23


 
'There is no sorcery against Jacob,
           no divination against Israel.
           It will now be said of Jacob
           and of Israel, 'See what God has done!'


If only I can find Balaam, I will ask him to search all the books of divination, if he cannot find a curse against Uruguay, then I will conclude that like Israel, Uruguay is a favored son of God. Then we can say, the  Lord has done this thing to Ghana. He has blessed Uruguay, and who he blesses, stays blessed. But if  we find just one curse, then I know it is not the Lord. If God hasn't done this, I will gather all the curses I can find  against Uruguay, and like the Ghanaian that I am, I will hurl all at Uruguay; that they will never qualify for the world cup for the next 70 years, Let Uruguay snatch defeat from victory seven times, What Uruguay has built in fifty years may the hand of Suarez pull down in a day, Kaita shall be the portion of Uruguay, Let the male Uruguay team lose to their female counterpart. As for Luis Suarez, may he carry seven portions of Asamoah Gyan's shame when he lost the penalty kick.

Ah , I'm beginning to feel better. The curses have assuaged my anger, I'm a Ghanaian indeed, an Ogyakromian.