Tuesday with Daddy President

It’s not everyday that one gets the chance to be under the same roof with a President. But on Wednesday, March 17, 2009, yours truly, together with 22 other media leaders ‘invaded’ the Osu slave Castle to meet with President Mills.

I set out all pumped up in a well-engineered brazier, a well-pruned well-primed Afro-punk hairdo, a pair of wicked high-heeled shoes and hanging earrings to complete my bold look.With the frightening December General Elections experiences as a backdrop, we were on a mission to touch on issues of national importance in relation to the media landscape.

Personally, I was excited because it marked the first meeting with my new Daddy the President; TV doesn’t count because it’s only technological magic. (He is your Daddy too. Remember?) But the visit was a fiasco. You know what they say about first experiences!

It was also my first time in the residential quarters of the slave castle. I felt haunted. I saw dead people. I smelt dead people. I felt the presence of dead people. Castles are horrible places. They constitute the belly of the beast – the very beast of our nation’s history. They mark the trauma of where we’ve been as a people. With even a dull sixth sense, you should be able to feel evil hovering over such strange places.

Castles and Forts are sites of murder and unsolved (never-to-be-solved) mysteries. They are also places of numerous imperialist, immoralist, beastly misbehaviours of rape that resulted in numerous unwanted pregnancies. Blacks in the Diaspora appear to have a more alert sense of this weird history because they carry the essential DNA of their ancestors, our kith and kin, who were snatched from our shores and used, misused and abused to build other people’s civilization while our rot in a developmental funk. But, I digress!

So while we waited in the slave master’s (Governor’s) quarters, now the President’s crib, trying hard to manage my ‘deer-in-the-headlight’ look and posture, wondering about Ghana’s past, present and future, and about the Golden Jubilee Palace – whether it will ever be used by President Mills or will be left to be burgled and rot (and as the spectacle of choice for motorists), Madam Zita was ushered in. No greetings with media delegation; nothing! That was my first red flag. I hoisted it. I should have run for my life at that point. But, I sat still, my brain running wild with questions, thoughts and ideas. I just sat there.

Then, my President, JEA Mills walked in. Very civil. He took turns to shake hands with each of us. I dropped the flag. After a few formalities by the Chief of Staff (was that him?), Ransford T and Bright B, just when I expected our agenda to be placed before the President of the land, he cut in to speak. My flag was still down.

Then, I began to follow the flow. President Mills had his own agenda for the scheduled meeting with senior media leaders. The President granted us audience just so he can preside to use media leaders as a megaphone to deliver an indirect message to his political rivals. He wasn’t there to listen to us. We could even have been lemon trees in well-tailored business suits and my Afro punk hairdo! His utterances were nothing but opposition politics all the way. He therefore delivered a message for the political opposition and imaginary rival, not to journalists, the proverbial ‘watchdogs’ of society and agenda setters.

Despite the apparent weaknesses of the journalism profession in Ghana, one cannot deny the fact that we have made substantial contributions to the development of our democracy. That is the reason we have a seat at the table, albeit at times, just to gather the crumbs from the masters’ tables.

A few minutes into the President’s tirade, I re-hoisted my imaginary red flag. Danger! I felt like a fish out of water. I felt like a complete idiot. Maybe I am an idiot to have set out to meet my President. As a member of the wrong audience for his message, I couldn’t help but translate it to mean, "Yaa Doris, get out of my presence, you despicable little woman." As soon as he was done with his ‘kasantwi’ invective, he insisted on taking some really odd photos for the sake of political posterity albums and before I could say hello Daddy, he had de-coupled from us. Daddy was gone! Just like that! We had no chance to present our agenda. We could not even ask him any questions.His approach was snobbish. It was a top-down outburst. It was debris flying out through words, from the thick privileged cloud down into the maddening inconsequential crowd.

It was a hawkish shrill-wagging teeth-showing who-the-cup-fits-let-him/her-wear-it moment. While listening, if you felt like a piece of crap, so be it; deal with it!Yet, we were supposed to be some of the leading media leaders in the country. What are the far-reaching implications of this incident for the future relationship of the media with the Mills administration? I don’t know.

What I know for sure is that what happened on March 17 was a poor sell by the President; a below pass grade performance. That incident was a lost opportunity for him to reach out and warm out to the media, the proverbial "Fourth Estate of the Realm". Instead of engaging us, he used the opportunity as a bully pulpit to settle political scores.Clearly, my President was on heat. From what? More than one full week after the fiasco media visitation, the true target of his message is still being deconstructed by his side-mouths – Ayariga-Anyidoho and disparate Company. The jury is not yet out; still struggling to make sense of the outburst.

For a developing country that, for all intent and purposes, is damn ‘broke’ in the midst of a global economic crunch, should we spend days of energy and brain power to second-guess what the President meant and who his message was directed at? Why did I have to struggle out of my home in the warm waterless armpit of Accra, with a widely open-mind open-heart and genuine professional excitement, just to engage in guess-work to glean meaning from a message?

But more especially, what is the communication strategy of President Mills? Is he even on message? If yes, what message? Or, he’s just floating in a grumpy reactionary mode? His communication efforts appear clogged like Ghana’s choked gutters, and crowded like heaps of trash by the roadside. Why does he have all these communication operatives hanging on, sending mixed messages, contradicting and stepping over each other, chirping chirping chirping?

Lousy communication management was one of President Kufuor’s (sorry, former President Kufuor’s) undoing. Don’t ever forget that, President Mills. Everything communicates. Everything!

OK, so the President tells us that he is tough, not timid. Now, what? Dear reader, if you’ve ever wondered where my edginess comes from, now you now. President Mills is my Daddy! I can’t afford to be timid. Periodic edginess and ranting is in my blood. I just can’t help myself.

So Daddy Professor President, the next time you feel very edgy, let me know. I’ll hurt all your ‘enemies’ with my wicked high-heeled shoes and Afro-punk hair-do. I promise on my honour, to be faithful and loyal to my one and only President JEA Mills. So help me God!

dorisdartey@yahoo.com