Beloved, Ghana has won. NPP and NDC lost. My dear brother-friend, Bright Kwame Blewu said it best, “Ghana has been to the cemetery and back.” We were on a cliff and any little trigger could have pushed us down into the abyss. We rested precariously in a lion’s paw. Hail Ghana! This time last year, about 1,200 Kenyans were massacred during election violence. We almost lost our shine too, but regained it. Once again, we’ve role-modelled for Africa.
Imagine: first, the machetes, the stones, the sticks and anything sharp and hard and blunt. Then, the youth – sweaty, hungry and lean. Deer-in-the-headlight look of emptiness in their eyes – restless, piercing, directionless, and lost. Calling each other cockroaches – on rampage, raping, marching-on – to nowhere in particular. Then, with goodness lost – the carnage, the death fields, the carcasses, the stench, the skulls, the desolation, the G-word – Genocide! God saved us!
The matter is now settled that Ghana too has the potential to descend into such low levels like troubled African countries. From the past two weeks of heightened emotions, we now know that we too have deep fault-lines of tribal, political and social divisions that could lead us to potentially go down an ugly path. The next time anyone holds on hard and fast to a political party or a tribe, yell so hard at him/her that you could rupture your hernia and/or lungs and say, ‘Stop it! It is unnecessary to die for a politician or tribe.’
It was with these stormy thoughts that I set out in senseless high-heeled shoes, fastened in well-engineered brazier, to attend the presidential swearing-in ceremony to bring closure to the extraordinary election drama so that I’ll have stories to share with my two grand-daughters in future. I attended the handing-over ceremony of then Flt Lt Rawlings to Dr Hilla Limann. I can still see, in my naughty mind’s eye, a tear in the seam of the upper region of Rawlings’ trousers!
The crowd of January 7 was thick and rowdy! It was an NDC rally. So after waiting in a car at the Independence Square for more than one hour looking for a packing spot, I gave up and went near-by to watch the ceremony on TV. When the President was repeating the Presidential Oath of Office after the Chief Justice, my brain went into over-drive; on a perfect storm. I was restless and my internal dialogue was fast and furious. So dear reader, please come along with me – deep into my brain – to listen in on my thoughts.
I, JOHN EVANS ATTA MILLS: “I can see ghosts! This is change! Some erstwhile PNDC/NDC public folks who have not been seen in public for ages have resurrected. Hail some ghosts – Kojo-T, PV, ET, Totobi, Yahaya, CK, S-Ayittey, V-Gbeho. From the beyond, some look older, greyer and weirder! Politics is an ass; an ugly contact sport. When your time is over, it’s over. When you lose, you lose big. Winner takes all.”
HAVING BEEN ELECTED TO THE HIGH OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF GHANA: Prez Mills, what’s the matter with your eyes? When would you reduce the price of petrol as promised? Dr Afari-Gyan and the EC staff deserve national awards – Order of the Atlantic! Konadu’s head-gear is magnificent! Madam is back!”
IN THE NAME OF THE ALMIGHTY GOD SWEAR: “This administration should not dream of touching the press freedom we have enjoyed under the Kufuor administration. Twenty-three million Ghanaians, split in the centre – half NDC, half NPP. One president! Go figure! Presidential narrow win is statistically insignificant! God bless Ghana. Dear God, if I’m ever tempted to get into politics, select a kind person to give me a slap to knock the thought out of me. Amen!”
THAT I WILL BE FAITHFUL AND TRUE TO THE REPUBLIC OF GHANA: “So how are NPP financiers who invested in campaigning doing? Lost investment? This must really hurt. How many are on admission at hospitals due to high-blood pressure? Any election-related heart failures and deaths that journalists, the first drafters of history, should chronicle? But the NDC investors will recoup their investment quick-quick, in one swoop! Hmmm! We must have a national conversation on campaign financing because what we are doing now leaves much room for corruption and for foreign crooks to buy our country. Scary!”
THAT I WILL AT ALL TIMES PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF GHANA: “Why do they call you professor? Is a university teacher who is out of the classroom forever a professor? How come Obama is not called Professor Obama? And Hillary Clinton, Professor Clinton? Oh, Africans and titles! My brazier is stabbing me! Who invented this strange contraption for women to hold up innocent girls! A man! How so cruel! But I look good!”
AND THAT I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE SERVICE AND WELL-BEING: “Please keep far away from the public arena, characters in your camp with the tendency to trample over us. We might be damn broke dirt poor, we might not have had much education to brag about, but we know the power of the thumb. During the elections, Koku Anyidoho was rude to Ghana. We’re yet to receive an apology. Don’t unleash him and others like him on us. NPP’s Asamoah-Boateng wore us out and we don’t want his replacement in your administration. Hannah Tetteh is superb. Hugs! Let her be your voice to us. Please!”
OF THE PEOPLE OF THE REPUBLIC OF GHANA AND TO DO RIGHT TO ALL MANNER OF PERSONS: “Hale estrogen! A woman Chief Justice! A woman Speaker of the House! But fewer women made it to this parliament. Hajia Alima Mahama, the out-going Minister of Women and Children, was too busy crying her own cry to become vice president so she took her eyes off the women’s ball; forgot the bottom and zoomed her focus on the top. See how women ended up?”
FURTHER SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT SHOULD I AT ANY TIME BREAK THIS OATH OF OFFICE: “Really? I’m touched by your words! I just wiped a few drops of tears. I’m struggling to stop a downfall of tears. I’m sure my make-up is messed-up. Who cares! These are tears of joy. After all, Ghana just returned from a stinky cemetery! But we had no burials. No; one person was stabbed to death at Agbogbloshie on December 28 over a senseless election-related matter!
I SHALL SUBMIT MYSELF TO THE LAWS OF THE REPULBIC OF GHANA “How many relatives, friends, friends of friends, relatives of friends and friends of relatives who are damn broke and desperate are salivating right now over this new administration? Oh Lord, please don’t let Ghana be raped by political predators – again!”
AND SUFFER THE PENALTY FOR IT: “President, please muster all the goodness and spirit of inclusion. Ghana is one country; not Ashanti or Ewe. Govern from the centre; push away all the characters that will push you to govern from the left, the very far left that is reminiscent of PNDC terror. Oh, the P! The heartless P! How the P terrifies those of use who lived through it.”
SO HELP ME GOD!: “You can get it if you really want. You can get it if you really want. But you must try, try and try. You’ll succeed at last!”
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
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