The Grave craves our Saints- Fare thee well, President Mills

I have seen a few funerals in my few decades in the land of our birth, but one thing stands out at these solemn occasions- Only good people die in Ghana. Tributes, Biographies, and other narrations eulogize the spirit that once occupied human jacket lying in the casket. But the praises and genuine grief expressed by Ghanaians after the death of the third President of the fourth republic, Professor John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills, I dare say, are unprecedented. This is the man whose performance as a president was hailed daily by his supporters as much as it was berated by his political opponents in his three and half years in office. But the voice of the critics has suddenly fallen with the demise of the man. After his death, even his fiercest critics have something good to say about the man Prof. Mills. The glorious tributes to the fallen President do not suggest that he was infallible, neither are they hints of hypocrisy.  Our tradition has rather bequeathed to us wisdom that has bubbled up to the fore with the departure of the King of Peace in Ghana politics. There is no perfection in man, but there is great goodness in all Men that we can celebrate daily and reap great benefits as a nation. It seems our ancestors didn’t want anything to do with Shakespeare’s line in Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”. No, in Ghana we don’t bury the good with the man, we sing it at his funeral, because that is the meaning of tribute.

For a man I only knew through the scenes and acts of public office, I think President Mills broke the myth that our political space is a preserve of tough-talking firebrands. He has proven that humble men can win the applause of the people without wearing a false cloak of machismo. Many have come to assume that because of our past, one can only win an election by throwing tantrums and making a nuisance of all that is decorous.  He kept the arsenals of vile tongue darts far from his public discourse. He proved that soft power can be used to devastating effect when he ignored all the public insults and disrespect shown him by his former mentor, President Rawlings, and his wife, but crashed the so called invincibility of President Rawlings’s support in an election by handing his wife what is perhaps the most humiliating defeat in Ghana’s political history at the Sunyani congress that elected him as the NDC flag bearer  for  2012  presidential  election.

You can throw anything at President Mills, but you can never describe him as corrupt. Long before Prof’s demise, Kwame Pianim, a member of the opposition NPP, declared that there is no corruption found in him. That is the greatest tribute that can be paid to a leader from this continent where it is common knowledge that most leaders fleece the States they head. He never came across as a property grabbing president; neither did we hear rumours that his wife was stashing away wealth on his behalf. When Nana Konadu’s campaign team accused him of spending ninety million cedis on his campaign to get re-elected in Sunayani, he found it so amusing he couldn’t stop the ‘un-presidential’ laughter which he interspersed with words of disbelief in his native Fanti language. That laughter is one of the media’s favorite sound bites of him.

Of course, Prof was not a man without blemish. For his reputation as Asomdwehene (King of Peace), President Mill’s demeanor didn’t seem to have rubbed-off many of spokes-people as they traded mud with the spokes-people of the opposition NPP. Because there were no open admonitions of his own men, it appeared the young men and women who run riot with verbal diarrhea had the Prof’s tacit support. A few weeks before the Prof’s death, there were false rumours of his demise. In reaction to the rumours he blamed on the opposition NPP, Mr. Okudzeto Ablakwa, a deputy minister of information, was reported to have said, “anytime they say Prof Mills is dead, one of them dies”, in reference to the demise of Mr Owusu Ansah a member of parliament from the NPP side. He denied the departed MP the very courtesies President Mills is being accorded now. When Rawlings boomed several times in the Kuffuor regime using unsavory language, there was little or no effort to distance then candidate Mills from such trash talk. The NDC and the ex-president only found them unpalatable when Rawlings turned his guns on them.  

Perhaps the biggest blot on the Prof’s reputation is the difficult to explain judgment debt payment to business man and NDC party financier, Alfred Agbesi Woyome. Mr. Woyome is currently defending himself in court against accusations of fraud preferred against him by the State after fervent defense of his conduct from people very close to Professor Mills.

But all said and done, Prof was a model politician whose career path many young Ghanaians will love to tread. There is no doubt that he was a good man.  A man you love to love and hate to hate. Prof is gone to live with the fathers in a world where the aftermath of life is no more a mystery. As he yielded to the stroke that conveyed his spirit into the afterlife, he freed himself from all pain and every cancerous cell in his mortal body. He has played his part in the drama of life perfectly acting out his role as the Man John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills.

The grave has consumed another saint. But the greatest tribute we can pay to him is to make our politics cleaner and the insults leaner.  His death has reminded us that we only contest ideas in the political space but not the Men who carry them.  Like us, the conveyers of the ideas we detest are saints the grave is waiting to swallow.

Fare thee Well Mr. President.

The horses and the chariots of Ghana- A Lamentation in memory of President Atta Mills

“Man who is born of woman
Is of few days and full of trouble.
² He comes forth like a flower and fades away;
He flees like a shadow and does not continue"

Job 14: 1-2

The tintinnabulation calls, the students sit for the lecture, but the lecturer’s seat is empty

The castle doors open, the Press is ready to cover the news, but the microphone is silent

The program goes on air, the pundits are ready to debate, but the agenda sheet is empty

Suddenly, the quite is broken by the ominous tune of the sacred  bamboo

The atenteben is giving a message  “….Se ye de brodie ma asasea, asase yi no kain kain kain; se ye de abro ma asasea, asase yi no kain kain kain; na se ye di onipa ma asasea, na asase afa no kora kora kora”

The commander runs to the castle, ‘Chief, Chief where are you ?’

‘My men are ready to defend Ghana.’ ‘ We await your orders’. ‘Where is the commander in chief?’

The only response is the dirge from the atenteben, ‘asase afa no kora, kora kora’

Oh no! The horses and the Chariots of Ghana!

It is the visit we dread yet we know he will come. When I heard the ululations, ‘mewue, mewue’ I knew that my worst fear had overtaken me. Man’s nemesis, death, stretched his icy hand towards our house and what a wreck. He pulled down a great tree and took the shine out of a star. Oh how are the mighty fallen! It cannot be true, President John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana is no more? But alas! It is so.

Our grief is deep, our hearts are broken. There is no pond big enough to contain our tears, nor leaf bitter enough to take away our pain. But  for Prof, there is no more pain, he feels no more hurt. He succumbed to his physical frailties so he takes away their sting.  It is dusk. The argument is finished.

Asomdwehene Professor Mills, who will teach us tax law? Who will the opposition blame for Ghana’s problems? Who will the government communicators hold up as a symbol of integrity? Your final move is unprecedented and no one can challenge this one. As you take the lead to the village, we have been sobered, and it just sunk in, our differences and disagreements aside, we share one attribute- we are all mortals after all.  Hopefully we will debate with respect for each other, speak with humility, and serve with forthrightness, knowing that no one will be spared this journey, it is only a matter of time. We will miss your quips, - the cat hunter, dzi wo fie asem, gargantuan heckling and more.

Suddenly, for you this scripture is real

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:  

 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. (II Tim 4:7- 8).

Damirifa due! Damirifa due! Damirifa due ne amanehunu!

Adieu good Professor. May your soul find rest with the Lord.

A game of judgments, debts and a trophy

It feels like a nightmare, but the rooster's crow that will usually rescue me from the horror of a never ending bad dream remains deafening silent, a sign that this is for real. Any residual illusion that the sun would soon smile away the dark clouds and send me looking for my toothbrush was quickly dispelled when the words of a US Supreme Court Judge, Justice Louis Brandeis, were re-echoed – sunlight is the best disinfectant- to stress that that the sun will only bring more painful revelations of judgment debts. And after the learned attorney general of Ghana appeared before parliament's public accounts committee and told us to brace ourselves for more turbulence in judgment-debt-sphere, I have resigned myself to be drowned in screaming evidence that our elected officials, past and present, have failed to protect the public purse with our tacit support.

 
The nightmare began with accusations that business man and financier of the ruling NDC party, Alfred Woyome, was paid fifty-one million GHC he didn't deserve as judgment debt. Some government officials vehemently attempted to swear us to the belief that he had a valid contract with the republic which was broken by the past NPP administration, an argument that shamefully prostrates before the subsequent arrest and prosecution of Woyome for fraud by the NDC government and its efforts to retrieve payments already made to him. Since then, the judgment debt saga has taken enough twists and turns to take viewers away from the most enthralling soap opera.

 
As ordinary citizens struggle to come to terms with the fact that this and future generations have been mortgaged to the greed and misdeeds of the political class, NPP and NDC have shamelessly reduced our pain and anguish to a political game, so much so that the deputy minister of information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa , has resorted to producing, hyping and staging serialized press dramas of judgment debts to gain political equalization of whatever advantage the NPP got from the Woyome saga. To our politicians, the judgment debt brouhaha presents a unique opportunity to grab the trophy-political power. Every ace they strike is crucial to the outcome of the game. To them, it has less to do with opportunity cost of development of a poor country masquerading as a middle-income state. They find little connection to the many women who in the twenty-first century, lose their lives just for attempting to have babies, or the many villages and towns that lack potable water. That is the reason we do not have a single apology from any politician or their parties for the mishaps of Woyomegate, Waterville, CP, AAL (I &II) and Isofoton. There is nobody responsible for any of these! Their well-oiled communication machinery are encamped at every print and electronic media outlet to shout themselves hoarse till the pendulum of blame is magnetically attracted to the other party. Yet we all know that somewhere in the mist of the accusations, the counter-accusations, the insinuations, the politic of equalization, the spins and the outright nonsense, lies the truth, who is usually the first to be sacrificed when accountability calls.

 
What our politicians have successfully done so far is to get into the laboratory, crush what is good, what is bad and what is ugly about contract terminations, in a single crucible, creating enough smoke to keep us blind to the truth and choke the speech out of our vocal chords. But we have heard enough to understand that this nation has lost and will lose more millions through the actions and inactions of our elected officials. Without a doubt, there are good grounds to terminate contracts, and if the other party feels aggrieved and heads to court, we meet him there fully armed. But when there seems to be too many contractual disputes leading to too many awards against the state, it raises very serious questions. What we can glean from the current season of the debt soap opera is a series of events that leaves the nation bleeding.

 
Firstly, contracts are awarded to political cronies in such a hurry that important documentation and processes are overlooked. Then the opposition party takes the reins of government and introduces a powerful man who attempts to cut to size some untouchable suppliers to the previous regime. With reckless enthusiasm, he abdicates contractual obligations as if there are no consequences in law, and the supplier heads to court. Unfortunately for the State, some of these contracts will be found binding and we had no business tossing them into the sea water behind the castle. Then the first government comes back to power and feels a sense of responsibility towards their cronies whose businesses were affected, so they refuse to defend the State even in situations where the State may have strong grounds for defense, the result is gargantuan judgment debt and spurious settlement debts. Seeing that the new government is in a benevolent mood to dole out Ghana money at settlements, an opportunistic business man, being a good entrepreneur smells an opportunity to manufacture and sell some settlement debt to equally eager State and government officials, and he grabs it with alacrity. When the s..t hits the fan, the party communicators take care of the rest.

 
It is difficult to understand how partisan politics has become an alibi for criminal behavior and ineptitude, but the only reason people get away with this nonsense is that there are too many of us who will find excuses for the misdeeds of our party men, even when we have no benefits from the outcomes of their adventures. There is enough blame in this judgment debt saga to go round all the governments of the fourth republic, yet the architects of these gargantuan debts receive massive endorsement from their parties, underscoring the view that our political parties are mere electoral machines rather than any organization built around values. 

Until the rank and file of the NPP and NDC indict their own leaders, for their part in this mess, there is no pressure on the political parties to take this nation seriously. It will take an extra ordinary circumstance for the government in power to put their own on trial, and when a member of the opposition is prosecuted, his party will scream, Political Persecution! With this dichotomy, the climate is perfect for politicians to play their game, and what a trophy to play for- the key to a nation's safe whose contents will not be accounted for. Maybe, as usual, we need a solution from our so called development partners. When they cease all donations and loans to this country, then we will understand the value of every cedi and we will fight to retrieve every pesewa wrongly applied.

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.