ARE WE THERE YET?

Are we there yet is the question I seem to ask myself whenever I watch any movie adverts on TV which contains a lot of nudity without rating and also has a poor story line. Where is our sense of African culture if we decide to copy blindly some other peoples culture by exposing "private" parts.

It is indeed saddening when movies with wack story line want to use sex scenes to sell out their movies. Movies like Shakira, Kiss Me If You Can, mention them are gradually becoming associated with some particular producers who want to use sex scenes rather than hardwork to get rich.

I will be ungrateful to myself if I do not make mention of such wonderful producers like Shirley Frimpong Manso whom although have some sex scenes in their award winning movies, are able to balance this with qualities of a good movie. Ghana is very proud of them and we support them as they look forward to a Grammies.

More than once I will be watching TV with my siblings and these adverts will pop up then I have to switch channels in other that I protect them from this immorality virus. What will be of me if I do not have a remote control and want to switch channels on a TV at a far corner of the room.

If our Ghanaian movie directors and producers want to make movies of such kind, they should please rate these movies and then they should find a way of advertising them without using the sex scenes to sell these movies. Otherwise they should tell us these movies are porn so that when we are buying them we know where to hide them after purchase.

If the producers want to outsmart Ghanaians thinking we like or should I say love these scenes and sell to us these sometimes cantatalike stories then I will advice that the Ghana Review Board should be up and doing. Some actresses and actors have out openly to declare that there is nothing wrong with such movies and they will at any time accept roles of this kind. To them I will say I in particular hate movies who have no interesting story lines but rather very immoral acts.

It is time we stood up as a country to uphold our culture. What is wrong in making movies on how to be patriotic as the Hollywood regularly does? What about movies on the life of the many legends we have in the country; Azumah nelson, Abedi Pele, Kofi Annan just to mention a few.Long Live Ghana.

EXAMINATIONS ARE FOOLISH

Four days ago, I started intensive preparations for an impending exams (PHY 202 Electricity and Magnetism). Today I am seated behind the PC with a lot of doubt as to how well I will perform. I will describe this course's exams as by far the most difficult by all standards. Weird and silly questions were what my PhD lecturers put down on the question paper for me to answer.

I must exaggerate, for the first one and half hours out of a total of two hours, I was reading and reading and reading over and over again the same questions I know I will not be able to answer. When eventually I got the guts to do something, I realised my guts were not guts enough.

Who brought and which people accepted examinations as a way of testing the understanding of a student. Must an examinee pay for forgetting what he/she has learnt in the exams room because he/she will surely forget it after some days.

 At the beginning of the semester we were handed out photocopies of textbooks(because we could not afford the original textbooks) as a student bible for the four months course. I never paused a while to consider how much work I was supposed to put into chewing and pouring informations from a book of about 1000 pages (not really but close).

For my friends who bothered the least about this paper they will by now have forgotten of it and me , I need God's intervention. So who is intelligent or studious when the results come out and we all perform the same. Or even when I perform worse than they did.

 Examinations are foolish. It is not the case that probably I do not know how to learn because I have aquired the skill of passing exams and I have adequately prepared for this paper so why could I not answer those damn 'stupid' questions.

I have no other place to find solace than to blame my lecturers ( yes three of them) for bringing up questions that Master students will need tutorials for and expect a poor undergraduate like me with a relatively weaker brain to solve. If the examiners cannot set questions to the standards of the examinees, then whats the essence of the exams if you will teach me one thing and bring question from planet Mars.

Truly and indeed examinations are foolish.

IS OTUMFUO THE KING OF GHANA?

I used to ponder a lot about this very question when I was quite young but today though I am relatively older I still need answers to this interesting question. Some group of people in the country will prefer to call Otumfuo the king of Ghana or even the Vice president of our motherland but they should ask themselves this one question, what about the other kings like king of Ga state, paramount chiefs of the northern states? Are these kings rather ministers?

To anybody who wants to refer to the Otumfuo as the king of Ghana I will agree to some extent. Firstly because among the numerous chiefs and kings Otumfuo carries himself as a respectable and a very prominent one probably because of history. He has an education fund which supports brilliant but needy students within and without the Ashanti state to study abroad. He mediates chieftaincy conflicts in other kingdoms though he has his own fair share of these conflicts etc.

Secondly, due to the population size of Ashantis in Ghana, it appears the whole of the country is under him. One scenario that can illustrate this is when one bad nut spoils a soup, it appears all the other nuts in the soup are spoilt too even if it is not so. It is a fact that not only chiefs in the ashanti regions owe allegiance to this king but other chiefs in areas like the brong ahafo, the volta etc. If this is so, then it means he has his tentacles spread all over than any other king or chief.

Thirdly, the Ashanti state is fortunate to have mineral resources in its land and if the saying that money is power is right then this is another factor that makes the Otumfuo appear as the king of Ghana. Also, during the preindependence days this state had a lot to do with the colonial people and so had the benefit of putting its people into schools whilst people elsewhere like the north worked on cocoa farms. This has resulted in its people getting education and becoming the political elite of this country. Make mention of former president Kuffuor, and other heads of states before the fourth republic, former general secretary of the UN Kofi Annan and a whole lot of other prominent citizens. It is no surprise then when Otumfuo is called to help in the resolution of conflicts, mediate talks between Mr Rawlings and Mr Kuffuor.

Fourthly, this king has so much influence no one criticises him openly. We all remember the threats on the life of Ato Kwamena Dadzie a morning show host at Joy Fm who openly criticised Otumfuo over the Tuobodom chieftaincy saga and also how swift Prez. Atta-Mills acted when the Otumfuo insinuated he was going to take the laws of the land into his hands on this same Tuobodom issue.

But in Ghana and by our constitution no one chief exceeds his kingdom to other kingdoms to rule the people overthere. That is why if Otumfuo visits Ya-na one day he will sit on a skin rather than a golden stool. This is not to say Otumfuo has no lordship over the people in the volta region who owe allegiance to him. Otumfuo is not the only king with all the tactics in resolving conflicts that is why these problems persist in his state. He is also not the only king receiving royalties from mining companies because some other chiefs in the western region also receive same that is why Otumfuo the king of the Asante state should not be seen as the king of even Akans let alone talk about Ghana.

ANOTHER ARTISTE IN A NAKED PHOTO SAGA

Celebrities of this modern times never seem to amaze the general public by their immoral way of life. Some few months after Nadia Buari and other two female actors' incident another music artiste has decided to show off her great body by sending out a naked picture of herself out to an alleged lover. Though Nadia came out publicly to deny the sex tape, those who watched the tape have a fair idea of the particular persons in the clip.

For now, I will decide to call this music artiste Beyonce and go ahead to tell you how it happened. For those of you who are addicted to Facebook, probably you are tthe next victim to my articles. Beyonce is a regular user of facebook and through this she meets a friend online. After some time of sharing thoughts and ideas, one thing led to the other and these lovebirds got intimate. To Beyonce she has found a new lover abroad and so decided to show how splendid her body is by sending out a completely naked photo to this lover. Unfortunately for her, her lover was married and so when the pic arrived the man's wife intercepted it.

Very shocked at what this woman had seen and surprised at how far a lady can go, she decided to play rough in order that she does not lose her husband and also to teach Beyonce a lesson. The wife of this lover posted this photo on facebook and as fast as things of this nature moves on facebook, mutual friends got to see this person and the personality behind it.

For those witnesses, they describe this artiste as one with a new song in circulation, a person with medium sized body, neither tall nor short and in between the colours of fair and dark. I can give you a clue but not an assurance to the identity of the person. For me I guess it may be the one on your mind. Who do you think is the face behind this photo. Send me a comment.

WHO IS MUSTAPHA ABDUL HAMID?

To some people who will be reading this, you will be wondering why I have decided to bother you with someone you do not know or might not have heard of at all. If you are Ghanaian then I will advice you take some time to know this man because he might one day be a presidential aspirant on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Mustapha Hamid is a lecturer at the Department of Religion and Human Values of the University of Cape Coast. He has been there since he helped Nana Akuffo Addo, the NPP flagbearer for the 2008 elections to lose the presidential bid. He had his O' and A' level education at Bawku Senior High and Tamale Senior High schools respectively. Mustapha then furthered his education to the University of Cape Coast where he had his first degree and second degree respectively. He also holds a Masters in Communication from the University of Ghana.

During his university years, Mustapha swam into the waters of politics because of an incident he witnessed in his childhood. He says he was at home one day when some soldiers whom he claims were sent by former president J.J.Rawlings came to arrest his daddy. To him, he never understood the reason for this as a child but this incident forced his father into exile who later returned home only after the former president had left office. This made him vow to get as much education as possible to one day help in seeing Mr. Rawlings out of office.

In his years at Cape Vars, Mustapha Hamid joined an equivalence of today's TESCON NPP to see to the fruitation of his dream. This helped him take advantage of whatever opportunity that came his way.

He became the general secretary to the local NUGS and later an SRC President of UCC even when he was a graduate student competing with opponents who were undergraduate students in a university where 80% are undergrads.

Mustapha Hamid loves to describe himself as a bold, assertive person rather than a humble person because he thinks leaders must be bold and courageous. Probably from his words one might infer that President Atta-Mills is not the best of leaders.

As a Muslim, he does not repudiate polygamy implying he does not totally rule out the possibility of one day getting married in addition to his current wife whom he has four kids with.

He is not be blamed for his high sense of appeal and one could easily fall in love with this man meeting him for the first time. He is indeed a great philosopher for the NPP and a potential leader of this party and maybe Ghana.

Mr. Hamid comes from the northern part of Ghana with his father a Busanga and mother a Mamprusi. His parents got divorced when he was only six years old and he lived with his father afterwards.

He believes Northeners are not violent people but rather a group of individuals who stand for what they believe in and that is why greedy politicians tend to use them for their selfish gains. He shares the thought that because colonial lazy people wanted to continuously use the Northeners on their farms, they deprived them for so many years as about 80 years and this has left his people and my brothers and sisters behind other ethnic groups in Ghana. Education to him is the solution to the problems of the north and the growing grievances of political 'foot soldiers'.

He is currently a member of the Nana Addo campaign team. We all can learn a lot from this man, he loved school, he is a leader and is bold to defend his believes.

This was how Mr. Hamid chose to describe himself on a radio program 'crossroad' on ATL Fm.

Update: Mustapha Hamid is currently serving as the Minister of Information for the AKufo-Addo led NPP government.

ARE THE FULANI HERDSMEN A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY?

Fulani herdsmen are found in countries where there is enough pasture for their livestock to feed on. Ghana has been no exception to these livestock rearers because our country is blessed with mineral resources, oil, human resource mention them and even good green grass.As hospitable as Ghanaians are we tend to accommodate every person or group of people from any walk of life. To many Ghanaians I think they will rather extend a warm hand of reception to the most wicked person on earth rather than give him/her a cup of poison tea.

But, this good characteristic cannot be extended to Fulani herdsmen because of some vices some of them engage in like armed robbery, rape etc. So Mr. Justice Bayor a head of operations at West Africa Network for Peace (WANEP) says a research conducted indicates the fulani are a threat to national security. Well this idea has met an opposing view from Dr. Kwesi Anning of Kofi Annan Center for Peace and International Relatins. He says a small sample size of incidents cannot be concluded upon as evidence to say these people are a threat but rather in general these people commit rather fewer vices than the indigens of the places where they live.

Today's news item on Joy Fm captured a story that some people of the northern region are hunting for fulani herdsmen to retaliate for the murder of two butchers. Are these the only murder cases in Ghana, what about the daily incidents of death we here in bawku, yendi and the other places of the northern part of Ghana. The central region alone recorded about 13 murder cases so why are these people apart from the fulani not a threat to natonal security. Is Ghana becoming a place where some ethnic groups are sidelined because they virtually have no voice?

Let us not forget the fact that we are Africans and as Africans, we are brothers and sisters to one other no matter the ethnic group, tongue or whatsoever. Let us not victimize our own because we are not so sure of their nationality and give them a warm place where they can grow to go outside to preach good about our motherland.

To Mr. Anning the Fulani herdsmen are not a threat to national security. The fulani people have the right to better standards of survival.

KOKU ANYIDOHO SHOULD BE ADVISED

Some people say his attitude is in resemblance to that of the former minister of information under the kuffuor administration Mr. Asamoah Boateng. Yes, to some extent because they are all in charge of disseminating information.Mr. Asabee's arrogance has placed him in the position he and his wife find themselves and I bet Koku Anyidoho does not want to go that lane.

President Atta-Mills as we are all aware of is a soft-spoken person and the people around him should reflect this character. As a Communications Director at the castle I expected Mr. Anyidoho to be very accommodating and tolerating when he comes out to talk on issues concerning the President and the country at large no matter how passionate he is about the topic of concern or irrespective of the provocation he gets from the main opposition party. These provocations are meant to trap certain people and I advice he should be smart to realise this.

I recently read on the blog of Ato Kwamena Dadzie a morning show host at Joy fm,that Mr. Anyidoho told him he had cobwebs in his head when he Ato spoke his mind about the information structures at the castle some months ago. Ato was concerned as to the need of a presidential spokesperson, a communications director and three ministers of information all performing very related roles.The response he got from Mr. Anyidoho was “When Ato Kwamena Dadzie decides to move the ignorance-filled discourse to absurd levels, it is only proper that I do my utmost best to clear some of the cobwebs in [his] head,”. I think this was a sad statement to be heard from someone close to a humble and calm President.

Not too long ago, Mr. Anyidoho was called to respond to the minority's call that the President was acting only when he was pressured to do so and even as a young person, I thought the reply Koku gave was not supposed to be a debunk statement. What he said was that Presidents now and forever will continue to take decisions and that the minority should come to terms with that.He even made reference to the decisions being taken in the UK concerning their just ended elections and I thought it was very unnecessary. Maybe he should have followed the philosophy of some people that all that is happening is a mere coincidence. That would have been better to understand.


Mr. Anyidoho is also captured to have said he disliked the former president J.A. Kuffuor on a foreign media with the reason that Mr. Kuffuor did very little for his people but rather made himself rich together with the people around him.


Again, if some of you can remember there was a time when Koku was supposed to appear
before the privileges committee of parliament for insulting members of parliament on the minority side. I listened to him on radio on that day on Citi Fm where he made that statement and the specific words he used were too harsh though I think the minority deserved every bit of those words. The issue was about Kwame Mpianim who vouged openly for the President that he was a President to be trusted with the
revenue from oil sales. Mr. Mpianim went on further to say he saw President Atta-Mills return some brown envelopes. So it became a big defense rod for the NPP who demanded the President reports the bribers to the police or else apologise to Ghanaians. This was completely "irresponsible" as said by Mr. Anyidoho on the part of minority NPP.

Till today Mr. Anyidoho has not appeared before any committee because some known people like Mr. Kwesi Pratt and other NDC sympathesizers solidarized with him and got pissed with the members of parliament for having too many privileges. These actions do not make people like me to like Mr. Anyidoho and even the President for choosing him. Some other people need these actions to get their political business going on. So Mr. Koku Anyidoho please be very careful about what you say especially on air or during interviews.

IS RAWLINGS REALLY HELPING THE NDC?

I am inspired as a young person by the courage and vim Mr. Rawlings has in freely speaking his mind to try to evaluate whether JJ is really helping the NDC. I used to be a great admirer of Mr. Rawlings and his family because of two main reasons. One, I share the same birth date with him and secondly because under his administration my family was living well but currently I am beginning to develop a dislike for him because of his utterances towards his own chosen person H.E. President John Evans Atta-Mills and his continuous degrade of the former President John Agyekum Kuffuor.

Mr. Rawlings is a person who came to power by the barrel of the gun though in 1992 he moved on further to become a democratically elected president. Some say he is the father of democracy in Ghana but the most important fact is that he remains a military person because of the saying once a soldier always a soldier and sometimes Ghanaians will forgive him for some of his actions. For the past 15 months I have come to disagree with our former president because of the following;

Few months in office, Mr. Rawlings begun criticizing his party-led government for being slow though he is aware it takes sometime for a new person in office to get acquainted with the huge task of running the country. In Ghana, this man is very revered and whatever he says is news to the media yet he does not seem to realize this fact and come to terms with it. Some social commentators even say the current president has performed much better in his first year in office than JJ did. He goes on to describe some current ministers appointed by Atta-Mills as Team B and generally say the DCE’s and MCE’s should be relieved of their positions because they are under performing even though I am sure any suggestions he makes are taken strongly. This, a former president should not come out to say openly and more especially because he is the founder of the political party in power.

Again, Mr. Rawlings does not bother to take a swipe at Mr. Kuffuor whenever an opportunity presented itself. Three days ago, Mr. Rawlings and Mr. Kuffuor found themselves under the same roof of a church taking communion when the Asantehene invited both of them to his 60th birthday anniversary. After this he granted interview to Joy Fm and was asked the question of whether their meeting meant they had both smoked the peace pipe. Mr. Rawlings’ response was that until the injustices and massive corruption under Mr. Kuffuor’s administration were resolved he could not be at peace with a fellow ex-president. It really hit me hard when JJ mentioned injustice and corruption since there is an on-going, very popular Mabey and Johnson bribery scandal which took place under his administration and what we are all aware of during the revolution era. When this happens, he gives way to the opposition to open wounds that may have healed or are healing and in a sense make the NDC look violent.

I agree that some grave and intentional actions were taken against him and his family during the 2001-2008 part of Ghana’s democracy. For instance, he was called before the BNI and his wife sent to court over the Nsawam Cannery issue but this should not make him so sore as to tarnish his party’s better Ghana agenda. Mr. Rawlings is not a saint and not even the best President the country has seen so far bearing in mind the legacies of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah so he should be mindful and careful of whatever he says and should always make use of his spokesperson Mr. Kofi Adams.

THE DEATH OF NIGERIA’S YAR’ADUA AND THE LEGACY HE LEFT BEHIND.

It never came to me as a surprise when it was announced on radio and TV about the untimely death of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This was because of the condition he was in before he met his Lord. President Umar Yar’dua suffered a combination of illness including cancer of the kidney. This he has been battling with for some couple of years and it was this same sickness that caused him to lie on a sick bed in Saudi Arabia a few months ago. He wished he could recover whilst in Jeddah to come back to his people speaking to the BBC but destiny once written cannot be compromised.

As a muslim, he was buried the same day he died but whatever good or bad he did will persist till the end of time. It is therefore my reason for wanting to look into or try to come up with the legacy of this servant.

It is simpler to say the late President was a very decent man and President Obama of US even attested to this fact. From his style of dressing which is very typical of Nigerian muslims, his manner of conveying messages to his people and the general conduct of his administration proves this fact. As human as he was he may have faulted in one way or another but since I am looking at him in the human lens he was decent.

Secondly, and probably the best of his legacies, he was a man of peace. Prior to his assumption into office, there were some confusion and disturbances in the oil rich Niger Delta caused by the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND). This mayhem will have led to a major destabilization of the country but the emergence of Yar’dua saw an agreement reached between the MEND and the government. This move really helped in maintaining the peace in Nigeria.

However, there were some other things he did that people might have not concurred with. Amongst these is the genocide style shooting of the members of the religious group Boko Haram. In this incident more than hundreds of members of this group lost their lives for claiming that formal education was not good. This action brought about mixed feelings among the people of Nigerians. Some thought a better alternative should have been employed whilst others thought it was the right action. Whether it was for a good purpose or not, this action was against Human Rights.

Mr. Yar’dua came into office with a tall list of reformations and whether he was able to achieve it or not lies with Nigerians. An African leader is dead and all the people of mother Africa must come together to mourn an illustrious son. RIP Yar’dua and may you be able to account for all your deeds when you finally meet the Almighty.

THE GHANA POLICY FAIR; A BETTER GHANA AGENDA

The just ended Ghana Policy Fair is the first of its kind to be staged in the country. This was an initiative by the Professor Mills led government that commenced on the 27th of April and ended on the 1st of May 2010 at the Accra International Conference Center (AICC). This event was well patronized as people from all walks of life such as the youth, religious leaders, policy makers, public servants, labour unions just mention them were all present to take part in governance procedure.

This fair can be described as part of government’s better Ghana agenda because it was to involve the general public in its policies aimed at achieving its goal as said by the deputy minister of information Hon. James Agyenim Boateng though it is obvious many under privileged could not partake.

Secondly, the fair aimed at demystifying governance and to give Ghanaians the opportunity to evaluate policies being implemented to determine their relevance.

And thirdly, it was also aimed at creating an avenue for brainstorming on critical national development issues such as education, health, trade etc as well as challenges facing organized labour.

Mr. James Agyenim Boateng said at the early days of the fair “as part of good governance and accountability process and President Mill’s commitment to run an open transparent government, it is not only important that we let the people know what the projects and policies are so that we can feedback and carry the people with us.” These words really manifested in the fair as department and agencies, ministries, corporations all had exhibition stalls where they put on exhibition some of their works, policies and projects.

There were also photo exhibitions of some the projects.
Apart from the stalls, lectures were held to a sitting audience and after that questions, suggestions and comments followed. It was at one of these lecture sessions that the boss of the health insurance scheme reiterated the fact that, the one time premium payment was feasible and will soon be operationalized. It is the plan of the organizers of this fair to replicate similar events in all the regions and districts of the country in order to get people in these areas to participate.

If this event were not a good one, the opposition parties will have criticized it vehemently but rather complimentary messages and talks have been heard from the minority in parliament as if to say the government has gotten this one right. A policy fair is not enough for Ghanaians and policy makers must ensure that all good ideas that came up during this period be put to good use.

CASFORD AND ATL CLASHES; THE PERSPECTIVE OF A HYBRID AFFILIATE

It is not the best at all when would be leaders (members of parliament, teachers, farmers, CEO’S etc) engage themselves or should I say decide to use their youthful exuberance in this manner. Not only does this shameful act tarnish the image of the people and halls involved but also our reputable and the only university of choice in the whole of the world.

I describe myself as a hybrid affiliate to these great halls because, though I was officially affiliated to the Atlantic Hall (Mariners) and still am, I spent my first UCC year at the Casely-Hayford Hall (Gentlemen) due to this same clashes they engaged in a year before my admission into the university. Let me at this point congratulate the security guards and the school authorities for their proactive and swift response. This is what we need. I wouldn’t want to go much into details the issues of this matter since a committee has been setup to investigate the occurrence. My humble plea therefore is for them to try as much as possible to be fair especially to casfordians.

Sunday 25th of April 2010 saw the hall of gentlemen organize the usual ‘sharp brain proce’ to usher in the end of semester exams. This enetertaining procession is very peculiar to casford and this is where you see one student carry a minimum of hundred heavy books on his bare head. The procession starts from the forecourt of the hall through the other halls of the north campus, to the diaspora (a community for continuing students) and then to the south campus. At the south campus and particularly at Adehye Hall (the ladies of casford), the gentlemen display all the animalistic skills they have acquired through the course of the semester in order that they impress and woo their ladies. It is normal at this event to strip naked and dangle some balls.

But for this Sunday, everything was quite different because of an incident that had occurred when Atlantic Hall celebrated its hall week. Casfordians were armed to the teeth (some sharpened ends of sticks to make them into spears, others took lids of refuse bins turning them into shields) as they prepared for the procession some hours later. Mariners also got wind of Casford’s preparations and also gathered stones at the entrance of their hall making them look like the people of Gaza in defense against the army of Israel.

That evening, casfordians did not march through all the streets as they usually do but through a few streets and then headed to the old site (south campus). At old site, they were refused entry to the forecourt of Adehye Hall by the security guards and as they tried to force entry, hell broke loose as some eye witnesses say mariners begun to pelt stones at the frustrated casfordians. By this time some casfordians had succeeded in entering the forecourt of Adehye which is very close to the entrance to ATL and also decided to retaliate. These exchanges are what intensified to become what you may have probably heard on Adom fm, Joy fm, other radio stations or some print media. It is difficult to tell the truth as some people say the Supremo (supreme leader) of Casely Hayford Hall ran away to seek refuge at Amamoma (a community for both students and indigens) leaving behind his traditional garment amidst the conception by the various halls that they had won the ‘war’. Well, if what I heard on Adom fm is right then the should be ashamed ATL Hall won the battle.

The last time I checked on the rankings of renowned universities in Africa, great UCC was not among the first one hundred. This is what the interim alumni president of casford hall and a one time president of the JCRC of ATL Hall said on ATL FM that, these group of students should sit down to think about and not to waste their energies on shameful acts. From my small brain box, I also think what happened was shameful and embarrassing to Cape Vars and I advice that both halls should channel their exuberance into healthy competitions that will add onto the standards of these halls and the university at large. UCC may be at war but we remain the only University of Choice and the best academic environment in Ghana.