Bawumia uncovered?

I travelled to an African country at the invitation of an educational institute to interact with pupils of some selected basic schools.

I first visited a primary school, and there was this teacher who had a nasal problem and spoke through his nose. It happened that he was taking his pupils through numbers, and wrote them on the chalkboard for them to repeat after him.

"One," he said.

"One," the pupils responded through their noses.

"Two," he continued.

"Two," the children responded the same way.

The teacher thought his pupils were making fun of him, and so he paused and said, "Children, stop! It's sickness!"

The children obeying a previous instruction by their teacher to repeat whatever he said, shouted through their noses, "Children stop! It's sickness!" The teacher was livid, and I was morbidly intrigued.

My next tour took me to a middle school where I was given the opportunity as a visiting author to interact with the pupils. I decided to test their knowledge on "question and answer tags". I gave an example: "The moon goes round the earth, doesn't it?" And I asked them to give me more examples. One boy stood up and said: "Sir, you like yam, yamin't?" Another shouted, "John likes food, foodn't it?"

I whispered, "Ayeka". Immediately, a girl near me stood up and asked, "Ayeka it?" Anyway, don't blame those poor children; question and answers tags could be somehow challenging at times. During one of the Supreme Court electoral petition cases, even someone with a PHD against his name repeatedly made some terrible answer tag errors. Kikikikiki, please don't ask me who the one is, you and I were not there abi. I don't want any trouble oo. If you want to know the truth just go for the records, it is there yageni, yageni.

Oops! Sorry for the digression, let me stick to the main theme of my article. Not too long ago during Dr. Bawumia's campaign in the Bono Region, a female final-year nursing student said she had never received the government allowance meant for nursing students ever since she was admitted.

In response, the Vice President and flag-bearer of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia promised to take up the issue with the Ministry of Finance. And within one week, he announced that the Ministry of Finance has approved a sum of GH¢177million to be disbursed to trainee nurses across Ghana.

But people are surprised at this swift action by the Vice President which signifies his authority and control over the administration of the country. And tongues a wagging.

What is on the lips of many people is that must it take about three years for the allowance of these poor students to be paid?

Others are saying that if the Vice President is so powerful that he could order payment of allowances that could not be paid for years in less than a week, then why is he saying he is only a driver's mate and does not have authority to do things.

But you see, Ghana people dey talk! Look at what someone said:

"Dr. Bawumia interestingly is the same person able to intervene in Allawa payments through the Finance Minister, but unable to intervene to solve our economic mess now, but waiting to be elected before fixing the mess because he claims not to be in charge?"

Folks, Ayeka! Ayeka, it? Perhaps our Veep is coming in from the cold.

Anthony Obeng Afrane