Oh, power! Thou get stuck in many ugly toe nails. You are like fungi infection that eats into the nail, discolouring it until rottenness becomes the essence. Our leaders forget that they are in public service, not in power.
Phrases like the following are commonplace in political discourse from especially the NDC and NPP camps while the lesser political parties look on with far-away dream looks. First, the jubilant NDC folks: ‘Now that we’re in power’; ‘When we were out of power’; ‘We will retain power in 2012.’ The NPP, on its part, caries on with: ‘When we were in power’; ‘Now that we are out of power’; ‘When we return to power in 2012.’ Oh, the year 2012! You make me nervous, beyond measure.
Power-talk is ego-filled audacious impudent unstoppable loose talk of the liquid waste family. Loose power-talk even comes from the Osu Castle Presidency, by way of Koku Anyidoho. It doesn’t seem to matter who is smeared and insulted, even if it’s the entire nation. Oh, power, how your embrace sticks! As if in a state of utter forgetfulness or cluelessness to the implications of the 1992 Constitution, references are carelessly made to these democratic times as a ‘regime.’
Power is merciless. Power is forgetful. Power is capital. Power is political. Power is drunkenness. Power is foolishness. Power is cruelty. Power is heartless. Power should be constructive and merciful. Power is a lot of things good, bad and at times, truly ugly. When bad men (and women too!) get power, they can use it for really bad things. Similarly, when good men (and women too!) are graced with power, they can use it for good.
Power endows gravy of wealth, flowing onto corruption corridors that are vainly paved with gold. Power-cut. Power-lines. Power-lust. Power-hungry. Power-poverty. Power-base. Power-grabbing that leads to property-grabbing, house-grabbing, vehicle-grabbing, position-grabbing, job-grabbing and anything-grabbing.
Power-point. Super-power. World-power. Higher-power. Lower-power. Powers-that-be. Powerful. Power is above the law. Power is might. Power is authority. Power grants control. Powerless. The absence of power is darkness. Oh, power, thou art stuck in funky nails!
Power can potentially cancel out press freedom and drag down free speech on its sticky stinky way. Power can constrict the voices of the populace. Censorship and the most insidious of all – self-censorship, can eliminate criticisms of the governors by the governed and silence opposition voices. The love-child of power is sycophancy. Oh, sycophancy! You sickening, gutless, fear-ridden, shameless response to power!
Power grants status and exaltation. Very often, power endows undeserved and unearned titles like ‘Honourable’ and ‘Nana’. Power grants privileges. The powerless extol the greatness of the powerful. Power over whom? Over what? Power from what? Power implies exemption from control; the sun flies over the moon.
Voting confers power; hands over collective power to a few. Boundless power must be checked. Watch out and cut off entangling and strangling tentacles of power. Once upon a time, in our utmost folly, clothed with blind hope that was decorated flamboyantly with deceit, we as a people recited the words, ‘Power to the people’ followed by the desperate but senseless rhetoric, ‘Let the blood flow.’ Pain and misery ensued, with some paying the ultimate price – death! This stain on our history remains, waiting for redemption.
Powerful people love obedience, the expected response to the might and authority and privilege. Power talk gives birth to phrases like ‘Greedy bastards.’ Guess who is speaking. Guess who is coming home for dinner.
What is it that makes a man so honey that he will rape a woman, even a girl, a fragile being? It could be just a child, even a child of his own groin, and a child of his pleasure with an older woman whom he loved once upon a time before he got funny ideas and became honey over a younger more vulnerable child. What is it? Power? Sickness?
A case in point. What is it which make soldiers and police officers on ‘peace keeping’ missions in different parts of the world, and recently, in our own country, get so honey during the course of active duty that they will have a quick reversal of purpose to pay attention to banal matters?
What is it which makes a man’s libido go hey-wire to the point that he would sexually violate a fragile being? What was behind the recent rape of girls by ‘peace keepers’ somewhere up north in our country? Power? Control? Rape and sexual violence can potentially transmit HIV and AIDS.
Watch as people you consider perfectly normal come to power, rise to positions of power. Something flips in them. They change, at times suddenly. They puff up. The alcohol of power over-powers them; intoxication that can only be caused by exceptionally high doses of power. Changes can potentially exhibit in autocratic tendencies. Power-drunkenness. Swollen-headedness.
Power is a drug. Power is an alcohol. Power is cocaine. Power is marijuana. Once power mixes up with the body’s mechanisms, a monster erupts, a horrible genie gets out of the bottle, ready to devour anything in its path – small, large, mighty, gentle, sorrowful.
Power is not only found in the elected and appointed in the political sphere. In job advertisements throughout our land, individuals are sought who can think for themselves, with excellent communication skills and are able to contribute toward organizational advancement. But in reality, in true practice, there is little room in the inn for innovators and thinkers.
Power, in all its monstrosity, is alive and kicking in the governmental and quasi-governmental arena. Power sits high and mighty. In the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, tyranny reigns supreme. Quietly, voicelessly, adults complain that they are treated like children. Creativity is stifled. Innovativeness and thinking tendencies are quickly and ruthlessly nipped in the bud with, ‘Who do you think you are’ syndrome. While democracy is supposed to be the practice on the national level, authoritarianism is common in government offices. Oh power, thou art an idol to be worshipped!
Foot-soldiers are soldiers on foot. But when power is won by their political party, foot-soldiers detest remaining on foot. They begin to dream of gaining vehicular status. Without it, acrimony gains ground and can fracture. Power not shared is privilege denied. Power gives vent to nepotism, cronyism, favouritism, tribalism and other unnamed ugly isms. Power loves patronage, belly-full of undeserved praises – on cue.
If there is re-incarnation, I’ll re-incarnate as a foot-soldier – that is, if or when I decide to return to this earthly playing field. But if or when I return, I must arrive with good legs. My current spindly legs would not do. Why? Recent pronouncements from officialdom suggest that NDC foot-soldiers are about to have easier access to power corridors; the flood-gates of privilege will be opened for them to enter to dine with power nyafu-nyafu. Clearly, good legs are assets in a better Ghana.
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