The sun will set in the west tomorrow. The Pope will always be Catholic. Politicians will always make promises they know they can never deliver on. The Flag Staff Palace beckons and Cape Three Points grins. Before the December 7 elections, some presidential candidates will unravel, toasted black. In the 99 days before the elections, things are going to get really ugly and sticky. So while warming up for the upcoming fun fair, let’s toast and roast the three leading candidates – Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo, Professor John Atta Mills and Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, all non-ovary wielders. We could even roll down a slippery slope with them.
There will be Humpty Dumpty moments for some candidates after December 7. All the children of Ghana will have to learn and recite the old nursery rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
And all the King’s horses, And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again!
A good start is the running mates of the NPP and NDC. Who would have thought that finding individuals to mate-run presidential candidates would be tougher than finding the flag-bearers? The national lesson: those whose job it is to help the presidential candidates to carry the flag of Ghana (or of their political parties!) might be more important than the flag-bearers! Or, am I missing something?
Both Honourable John Dramani Mahama and Dr Mahamudu Bawumia deserve a toast. Without a doubt, and from the vantage point of a grown woman with pretty good vision and a fairly OK grip over such matters, these two men are heart-throbs. They are both tall, with pretty faces, just about enough flesh on their bones and with very fine gaits! They are breath-takers. They’re toasty. And with these handsome northern selections, relentlessly thirsty fully-breasted women were ‘dissed.’ That’s a roast.
The NDC was the first to select its running mate and with an added John, their campaign gloated and glittered, roasting the NPP to annoyance. It was as if suddenly, the NDC had succeeded in putting its best face forward. Not to be outdone, the NPP went to town with a powerful searchlight to find its own pretty face of northern extraction. After a long hard and roasty search, the glare settled at the BoG corridors and viola, old man Mumuni’s son popped up, with royal political blood boiling over in his 43-year old youthful veins. The NDC felt the roast. Ghana sighed in relief.
How I wish we could organize a beauty contest for the running mates! Let’s just line them up and whoever throbs my heart the most should be selected! But then, Na pretty face we go chop? Human face is not toast-friendly!
We’ve come far, this 51 year old country! Through the roast of Rawlings, the predator of freedom of speech and the frequent-flyer globe-trotting visiting-presidency of Kufuor, we’re now conducting a search for our next leader. If you were woken up from a deep sleep and asked to articulate the talking points of the top three presidential candidates, what would it be? Here is what I would say about the three candidates from my slumber.
Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo bears a name that is a complete sentence, is the son of a president and has been around for so long, hanging out, waiting in the political wings, just for this chance. He is therefore the best man for Ghana. Professor John Atta Mills is an ex-professor at law who still carries the professorial title. And, that he is not his own man so team Rawlings-Konadu will breath heavily down his thick neck and indirectly rule Ghana if the mantle of leadership is ever tossed to him. Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom is a successful businessman who somehow got his hands soiled along the way. Since then, something woozy appears to be hovering over him to haunt his image.
It is ninety-nine days to the election but the presidential candidates do not yet have sharp messages for the electorate. Or, am I missing something? No wonder that through a lousy voter registration exercise last month, the EC stole my vote! I’m toast! Which of the three candidates should be The Man? Everyone wakes up in the morning and does the same thing – enters a small room (or the bushes) to mind his/her own liquid waste business! When therefore some super-ordinary folks choose the path of the presidency, it is proper to question them deeply and to be sure that they truly have the calling, something special that all others do not have.
It’s official – Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s Flag Staff House is undergoing a major face- and neighbourhood-lift that will be envied by leaders of rich and mighty nations. It is now a palace and appropriately, should now be known as the Flag Staff Palace (FSP). If the old man, Nkrumah should peek down from the beyond, he would not recognize his house; he will miss his way home! He will be toast.
It is said that the face is a prism through which we can see the soul, mind and heart. Are there any hints on the faces of Nduom, Mills and Nana to guide us in our choice for leadership of soon-to-be oil-rich Ghana? Can we tell who is a straw man from the real deal? For a little gutter psychology, here is a quick analysis of some unique facial features of the three gentlemen.
Mills has bold folds on the forehead. He has a head full of hair and spots a good amount of grey, usually well cut with fades on the sides. Impressive! A toast! Is nana bald, balding or is just clean shaven? After all, it is fashionable for balding men to conceal nature’s hair-erasing process through voluntary shaving of the remnants of hair. This eliminates the annoying need to comb unhealthy scanty hair. Nduom spots a fine Nkrumah-ish balding, with remaining hair in a fainting mode; yet, he is no Nkrumah! That’s a roast. Of the three leading presidential candidates, Nduom spots a cute ‘5-5’. Should we toast or roast to that?
Mills does not wear prescription eye glasses; why not? He does not need help with his vision? Then I’m toast; I can’t see much on my own! But Nana spots those oval eye glasses. If he is to listen to me, I would give him a fashion tip, for free – please have an eyeglass fashion make-over and dare a notch up the eyeglass fashion ladder with something that is more today-ish. But it is unlikely that the son of a president will consider the fashion opinion of a fireman’s pint-sized daughter! He is roast.
From now till December, these presidential gentlemen should campaign hard and fair. Predicting and wishing to win will not bring about a win. There will be losers and one winner. But at the end of D-Day, the losers should have the decency to shake hands with the winner and afterward, go home to lick their roasting wounds and calmly, re-strategize for election 2012 and leave us peacefully in our oasis of calm and crude oil. If they don’t, but choose to hang around to engage in any post election hanky panky, we are all roast!
0208286817; dorisdartey@yahoo.com
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