Trivialities are breaking our backs

The mass media are guilty of propagating trivialities in our national discourse. But our leadership, also known as the political elite, are guiltier of pushing trivialities into our national discourse. The followership, also known as Ghanaians, especially the category known as foot soldiers, serial callers and their cousins the social commentators, are also very guilty of giving out little-thought-out, sensational, trivial, sound-bite, chest-clearing commentaries into FM radio space.

Trivialities are unimportant, inconsequential, insignificant, frivolous, marginal, petty, slight, minor, trifling and negligible issues/things. But considering our current state of national funk and under-development, our needs and our thoughts and our focus must be top-heavy on things that are critical, very important, necessary, vital, essential, crucial, decisive, strategic, as well as urgent and of the essence.

Come along with me for an eye-popping eavesdropping session on conversations in Ghana, a country that God in His own wisdom and kindness has chosen to bless and maybe, just maybe, make great and strong. Be a fly on the wall, but don’t sit still. Periodically, shine your eyes like flies do with their ‘forearms’. Have you watched flies lately? They are fascinating. Listen in below.

Honourable Avleh: “How dare anyone give us larger than life Honourable parliamentarians grades? We would stop any journalist who tries to touch us even if he/she is from the New York Times, Financial Times, BBC, CNN or Al Jazeera. We are powerful and would stretch forth our long hands into the world to teach journalists a big lesson. If anyone touches us, we would explode to boiling point, with temper tantrums and egos flying very high. Do they know who we are?”

Eva Amponsah: “Oil will come soon. Then, all of Ghana’s problems will be solved. But have you heard the latest news? The President returned to Ghana so Dr Grace Bediako, the female statistics ‘whiz kid’, can personally count him. Wow! How nice! This country is really getting somewhere. Ghana is better. Join me to sing the Better Ghana Agenda mantra. La lala lala. See? It’s a cure-all for our ills.”

Kofi Zuzulibubu: “I say Taflatse taflatse ten times to crude oil. Let’s just go shopping with the crude oil money. Let’s spread our country’s wealth. Let’s shop until we drop. A little from China. A little from India. A little from Korea (South, that is). Sorry, we already have the STX housing ‘deal’ with Korea so we’ve already shopped out and dropped on hard floors of Korean corridors with land, access roads, bla bla bla all free of charge!”

Naa Amakey: “But this flood in the north! His Very Excellency Mills has not gone there yet. But who cares! During the former Very Excellency President Kufuor’s time, he too did not visit the north during the flood. So it’s a one-one draw! Kufuor had an accident. Rawlings had an accident too. Or, he didn’t?”

Musah Alhassan: “Our Mother the Madam should become the President of Ghana. Look at Madam Rawlings. So gorgeous! Even her head gear alone can solve all of Ghana’s problems. Our Father the Founder ruled for only nineteen and a half years. We need more. We no go sit down. We shall fight until our Mother takes over the throne.”

Nyarkoa: “Our Presidential Palace should not be called Jubilee House. Flagstaff House is better. We should make the residents of the capital city of the American state of Arizona jubilant by naming our ‘state house’ after their city. Do you know that most North American residents on the East and West Coast know next to nothing about Arizona let alone its capital city Flagstaff? So we should glorify Flagstaff.”

Kwaku Ofori: “Our two leading political parties, the NDC and NPP, are very much like the Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko. They are our political Hearts and Kotoko. Rivalry between them is stiff and ruthless, but fun. Eh, so when are they going to settle down to the real and urgent task of nation-building?”

Paulina Bansah: “Our big men are buying state lands left right and centre. Some of them are knuckle-headed, with stomachs like that of pregnant women, with heads as ugly as dry coconuts. When would they ever learn that Ghana belongs to all of us? Greedy Bastards! Na who born dog?”

Teacher Appa: “I’m an opinion leader of foot soldiers. It’s true that some bands of young men could on any day sweep through town to ‘seize’ public toilets and lock out a government office. But it’s a legitimate thing to do. Our party is in power. After all, the NPP people did it to us, so this is our turn. The toilets belong to us. We would show them power.”

And so goes our trivialities-charged national discourse, day in and day out. No inventive solutions are in sight for our myriad national problems. These trivial issues are bruising our sense of focus. Our distractions are too numerous to create the kind of space that can change the circumstances of our dear country. More often than not, year in and year out, one party in and one party out, it feels as if Ghana is a directionless ship that floats on a vast ocean.

Unfortunately, in the above made-up but close to real life loose train of thought from our national air space; there is not one word of science; not one sentence of technological advancement; not a cough about our sewage system; not a sneeze about solar energy considering our God-given gift of over-abundant sunshine; not an itch about poverty considering the number of our people who go to bed hungry; and not an urgent bowl movement over the fact that the number of young people who sell made-in-anywhere products by roadsides have increased.

We are fast becoming a nation of trivialities and the two leading political parties, the NDC and the largest opposition recently-ruling NPP give the appearance of being champions of trivialities.

How do we move this nation forward when we don’t seem to have focus? How does a country yank millions of its people out of desperate stinking poverty when what is constantly on its radar is talk about who is insulting whom from the vast repertoire of insults and sound-alike insults?

How does Ghana “Roll back malaria” so that none of its children die before their fifth birthdays? When do our leaders focus on the nation’s development when even those in quasi-political office desire and at times, demand to be called Honourable to their ego-filled personhood?

Arrogance is weighty. Back-breaking arrogance is crushingly painful. When impudence joins forces with arrogance, the outcome is grand haughtiness. So it is that public pronouncements from some functionaries of the NPP during their term in office, and now of some office holders of the ruling NDC render the two parties as champions of trivialities.

The current environment is intolerable – unless you turn off your radio and shut off the mass media, and completely tune off the petty ranting and tantrums of grownups.