The ’War’ That Killed Ya-Na

Some sections of the Ghanaian public believe Ya-Na, the King of the Dagbon area died as a casualty of war. They say a war was fought at the palace of the late King and as a result he and 29 others lost their lives.

This seemingly is a nice reason not to arrest anybody for the gruesome and heinous crime done against a respected King. With this excuse all the participants of the ‘war’ are guilty and as such everybody in that area must be responsible.

Interestingly, you would want to ask yourself if anybody ready for a war will allow the enemy to reach his compound before responding appropriately bearing in mind that women and children live in that compound. This compound turns out to be a palace where you don’t expect to have everything for war as is seen in the olden days.

To make the excuse more reasonable, the ‘it was a war’ preachers say the late king had armour in his palace. Yes you don’t expect a highly placed King to have only house knives and hoes in his house, even individuals have sophisticated guns they use to protect themselves. But as to whether the armour really existed or not, I think the security personnel can tell.

If really it was a war, there are still crimes committed in wars and those perpetrators of these war crimes must be brought to book. For it is in finding the killers of the Ya-Na that a lasting solution could be observed in the Dagbon area. Demonstrations against the court rulings that acquitted those alleged killers shows how deep the problem the killings have brought.

Qathafi of Libya is been threatened of war crimes though rebels are attacking his country and he is doing his best to prevent the rebels from taking over.
So the Ya-Na may have protected and defended his family from the hands of the ‘warers’ and we all know he died a brave King. So justice must be done for his people.

The Army Worm Politics

I recently visited atokd.com (Ato Kwamena Dadzie’s blog) and read an article concerning governments handling of the army worm threat in parts of the Volta Region. As usual, the article was anti-government and this is to be expected since the author of this blog has a philosophy of attacking governments hoping that this will change the leadership style in our country.

His concern was that the government should have used civilians rather than the military to kill and prevent the further spread of the army worms. He thought the worms were just butterflies in the making and hence just the use of chemicals could get rid of them.

So I took his concerns up and researched further into the matter. Getting to know more, I realized an ex-NADMO official Ken Nuworsu, in the erstwhile Kuffuor administration had also publicly criticized the government for using the military instead of officials from NADMO, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ministry of Health (MOH) and some trained foot soldiers.

This revelation stunned me because I couldn’t understand where the criticisms were coming from. We live in a country where our military is not engaged in any war and so they are peace keepers in other countries.

For this reason, our men are readily available for any kind of service in the country. Be it construction works, giving out relief services to disaster victims or anything the commander-in-chief tells them to do. So nothing was wrong with the Ghana Air Force flying helicopters to get the army worms infested areas sprayed.

Could the trained foot soldiers, EPA or workers at the MOH have flown helicopters in a matter of days? Or probably they should have been given months of flight lessons while the indigens of the army worm infested areas continue to suffer from these creatures.

The ex-NADMO official on the contrary cited mass transfers of NADMO officials in the Volta Region to the Ashanti Region. Clearly, this shows in an emergency like this, NADMO was under resourced in terms of personnel to carry out the spraying exercise.

You should also know that, though the army worms are just worms they have killed at least six people in the past in the same areas and also what a soldier can do five civilians cannot.

God Bless Our Homeland Ghana.

Lucky Mensah’s New Song a Message?

Lucky Mensah is the only musician to have publicly supported the then candidate John Evans Atta-Mills in his presidential bid in the 2008 general elections by composing a campaign song for the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

True to Lucky Mensah’s luck John Atta-Mills won the elections by a slim margin and eventually became the President of this great Republic.

Two years gone and it seems the Lucky singer has lost hope in the man he helped win the 2008 elections.

His new album ‘Nkratuor’ has a song titled ‘Enkoyie’ which has gotten much airplay both on TV and the radio/fm stations. This song which is rather controversial has sparked public debate as to whether Lucky Mensah is having a change in mind on whether to continue composing songs for the NDC in future elections.

The song sung in Twi has lyrics with meaning in English as ‘Tawiah, take this letter to your brother Atta and tell him things are not going well’. Though it will be wrong for one to conclude he is referring to Atta our president, aspects of the song shows he may be referring to Uncle Atta (our president).

Scenes in the video of the song show a man been portrayed as a politician with pot-bellied stomach and a bodyguard. Things seem to be going well with the politician whereas the video also shows men laboring to make ends meet.

With a video and lyrics such as this and some public outcries ‘enko yie’ as used in the song, and a 95% confidence interval (as used in statistics), the song could be nothing else than a message to our President John Fiifi Evans Atta-Mills.

However, this musician Lucky Mensah has refuted allegations that the song is intended for President Mills when he was interviewed on the Delay show on TV Africa. He further said he could not have this motive since he was a helper to President Mills’ victory.

Well, it is left for you to come to a decision who the song is intended for.

Newspaper Reviews: A Factor to Ghana’s Irresponsible Media

With the incessant call on responsible journalism and a positively functioning media in the country, I want to put to the fore the bane of all these media fallacies.

The too many newspaper review shows both on the televisions and the numerous radios stations across the country have put us in this state.

It is a surety that one will wake up each morning to the shout and outbursts on the various especially radio stations in the country and the unfortunate thing is that only the political news items take center stage of these discussions.

I must hereby commend such FM stations as X fm, Citi fm and Joy fm for keeping true to the course of national development in the country. I think so far they are yet to have partisan political newspaper review shows throughout the week.

It is a fact that the print media has shaped the kind and nature of discourse in the country through the help of the radio stations. It is also true that the political parties been aware of this are using their favourite newspapers to champion their political agendas.

What the political parties do is to contact these newspaper editors to put out stories that will be strategic and advantageous to their motives and most often than not these stories are very untrue. The radio stations then pick these stories up and go the extra mile contacting controversial persons who will add more flavor to the stories.

And our media is in this state because we have decided to reduce our national attention to who wins the 2012 general elections and in an attempt to outwit each other these political parties through their newspapers end up churning out falsehood. I ask myself, after 2012 do we again concentrate on who wins 2016?

While all these political stories are been debated, majority of us do not have access to pipe-borne water, the lights come and go anyhow, foreign investors are taking all the money away

It is my suggestion therefore that we restrict if not ban the partisan political discussions we have on the airwaves by taking out the representatives of the political parties from participating in these discussions for it is them who make the reviews unimportant and rather bring competent and non-aligned citizens to talk about national development.

As I write this article, I am listening to speeches of our founder Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and he is categorically confronting the challenges of his time.

God bless our Homeland Ghana.

A Message to President Mills

I salute our humble President John Evans Atta-Mills and urge him on to continue with bravery the running of our beloved homeland Ghana.

Recently, the power struggle within the National Democratic Congress (NDC) which has left the party divided amongst itself, should not be a distraction to our already focused President. I say the President is focused because he has shown publicly that he seems undisturbed by whatever confusion is in his party.

Mr. President, the success of your party in the 2012 general elections as you are already aware depends on how well you perform i.e. to what positive level you have uplifted our dear nation. How well you manage our country is also directly proportional to how well you will be celebrated after your tenure of office.

I am aware of how difficult it is to satisfy all your fellow citizens. One great philosopher said “if you try to please every follower as a leader, you are planning to fail”. Definitely and undoubtedly, there will always be a group, a section or a party of people who will always where necessary and even unnecessary not agree with your policies, initiatives and strategies but this should not for once lead you to doubt your managerial capabilities.

You came into office alongside the coming into office of the US President Barack Obama. And let me say whatever strong resistance of policies you receive, Obama also receives. In the Democratic Party (Obama’s Party) there are forces trying to sideline his executive authority as I know your special intelligence may have told you about. The Tea Party Movement is at his (Obama) throat as AFAG, FONKAR among others are on yours but please do not back down on your promises to us. These resistances are not peculiar to both of you but also to many leaders worldwide. We are in difficult times and this has grown the canker of destructive opposition.

Coming back to the power struggle within your party, it is out there and this seems to be gaining grounds that you may not seek a second term. I want to say that if you have considered this as a solution to the problems in the NDC, please Mr. President reconsider this because instead of solving the problems, it would rather put the party divided and in opposition for a long time since your failure to run in 2012 will cost the NDC and if the party loses in 2012, God knows when it will come back. And the interesting thing is, the coming generations of NDC supporters, followers and sympathizers will always blame you for sending their party into opposition because of your maybe right decision.

It is worth noting also that some sections of us (citizens) are using your patriotism, nationalism, selflessness and humbleness as your weakness. To them you look ‘dull’ and too humble but Mr. President remind them of what our National Anthem says ‘… and fill our hearts with true humility..’. For now, they will not see the essence of these qualities in you but as we move on as a nation, you will one day be celebrated.

Mr. President I want to assure you that you have so many discerning followers who are not looking at what is happening in your party or how much noise your critiques make but are interested in your motives which no one doubts and how you put them into action.

Let me end by saying that even the visionary leader Dr. Kwame Nkrumah encountered serious opposition so Mr. President, one step at a time.

An Advice to the NDC

Following the recent brouhaha in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), I am forced as a patriotic citizen who does not want the current government to fail because if it does it means we have wasted another four years of our development process to give a little layman advice to the party’s members and well wishers.

I will begin first with the President. Mr. President John Evans Atta-Mills the leader of the party please as an acclaimed peaceful and honest man; do try your best by putting your feet on the ground to resolve this unwanted impasse. Call the former president J.J. Rawlings to a one-on-one meeting and try to explain to him why you cannot meet some of his demands and how you will soon meet those that you can accomplish.

To the former president who is the founder of the party I will say as a statesman and the grandfather of this party of yours have some level of tolerance for your own people. When they go wrong instead of going public to the whole world to voice your feelings, remember that whatever you say will be used to send the NDC back to opposition. Bear in mind also that no matter how uncomfortable you are now, it will not be different under another party. Even if it becomes different, it will rather become worse.

To the ministers of the various sectors please avoid passing or granting interviews to journalist on party issues. The best you can do for your party is to ceasefire for a while and never try to go by an eye for an eye.

To the member of parliaments, can you be a little bit loyal to your party and stop the unnecessary comments you pass about the governance style of the president who is the leader of your party. For the better of your party and the government why don’t you put together your so called ‘best option’ and present it privately to the government instead of going public to make yourself look like a reincarnated Nkrumah with all the best ideas.

To the foot soldiers can you be a little patient and patriotic and stop demanding heaven because you think you are in power. Politics cannot be jobs for you because the jobs politics offers are temporary. Instead go get something else to do. Join the National Youth Employment Program NYEP and leave the ‘big man’ to get his way into power.

To the well wishers, please pray hard because the country now seems to be focused for development and the president I think is trying hard to steer the economy of the country to achieve this. At least he always reiterates the fact that Ghanaians will judge him after his first term in office.

Lastly, to the serial callers take a holiday and cool your temper. You people seem to be adding more firewood to the fire that wants to be cooled off.