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05.03.2014 Feature Article

57 Years Of Exactly What?

57 Years Of Exactly What?
05.03.2014 LISTEN

QUOTE: “Russian historians past and present have often liked to contemplate Russia's role in the community of nations. . . [One] view, emerging after the bloody decades of revolution, civil war and Stalinist purges [in Russia] was that Russia, with its tragic history, was meant to provide a cautionary example to other nations [of] how not to arrange their affairs.

“I would like to join this debate with my own... notion of Russia's role on the world stage....Today, Russia seems to act more like a global buffoon. At the circus, acts by acrobats, tightrope walkers and animal tamers are usually larded with appearances by clowns, whose job is to mimic and ridicule all those nerve-wracking, death-defying stunts...

“Even the Russian presidency is faintly clownish. Russians still groan at the mention of a tipsy Boris Yeltsin conducting a German military band... [But] if truth be told, the story of [Russia's] current president is no less amusing. We have here, an obscure former KGB colonel, hand-picked as heir apparent, in a back-room deal by Kremlin insiders and wealthy oligarchs. Just four months later, he was catapulted to supreme power and soon turned savagely on his own benefactors....

“My buffoon state theory goes to show that the oft-heard accusation that the Russian political and bureaucratic classes are utterly incompetent is just plain wrong. Clowns are usually fantastic acrobats, jugglers and tightrope walkers in their own right. In some ways, they are even better and more versatile than "serious" performers. They just do it differently. Russian leaders, too, are skilled -- but they are skilled in buffoonery. [So] the antics of the Buffoon State may be amusing for outside observers, but not for the Russian people. ” UNQUOTE (Russian Buffoon State Is No Laughing Matter By Alexei Bayer -- Moscow Times May. 18 2005)

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No, dear reader, this article is not about the Russian invasion of the Crimea region of the Ukraine Republic – although President Putin's decision to use force to try and reverse the movement of Ukraine towards membership of the European Union, can turn out to be an own goal of clownish proportions.

No, what amuses me is the idea of Ghana trotting out its state

paraphernalia on Thursday, 6 March, to celebrate with “pomp and “bunting”, 57 years of its independence.

Have you wondered: “What exactly shall we be celebrating,?”

I was born in a normal-sized village during the colonial times whose end we shall be celebrating. This village was sited by my ancestors in such an idyllic spot – between two rivers – that on one's return from one's farm, one could make a cup out of green leaves, dip it straight into either river, and drink clean, healthy, cold water to quench one's thirst.

There was no guinea-worm in that water. There were no cholera germs, either. So no-one in my age group ever died of a water-borne disease.

But today, both the rivers in my village are DEAD! One was killed by stupid farmers who cut down the trees on its banks, that protected it from the sun's rays. They also made farms too close to the river and thereby dried up the underground water-tables that filled the river with new water after each rainfall.

The other river, however, was killed by the deliberate action of galamsey operators. They came in the night, guided by people from the village itself. They used machines, hoes and spades, to turn the river-bed upside down. They panned the sand from the river-bed, using mercury and other poisonous chemicals, in a search for gold from the sand.

One day, the river was there, making its serene way to join the Birem at Nsutem. The next day, it was going nowhere. Only enormous holes were scattered along its path'. The holes quickly filled up with mud and greenish algae. Other holes just gaped open, attracting poisonous serpents.

Not a soul had seen the galamsey operators at work. Except their murderous fellow conspirators, who brought them into their own village, and directed them to the river that had sustained their lives for years. Ever heard of such sublime and monumental stupidity?

Now, I am ashamed to admit that if we lived in colonial times, this could not have happened. The district CID, based at

Kyebi, would have been told by the District Commissioner that if Birem had been targeted at Kyebi and elsewhere by the galamsey operators, then its tributaries, such as Supong, would also be targeted. And the DC would have sent the CID waiting for the galamsey operators on the banks of Supong.

But today, our CID is only interested in what politicians say. Let a Kennedy Agyapong bray like a donkey and the CID will be on his neck. But destroy a river bequeathed to the people ''of a village thousands of years ago? Sorry, it is not CID work. Public safety? That is a political determination, no?

Maybe you should go and tell the Environmental Protection Agency? But the Environmental Protection Agency would almost certainly tell you that its job is to provide guidelines to the State to pass legislation to protect the environment. The EPA, you see, has no powers to enforce those laws once they are passed. There are no environmental police,you understand? There are only the regular police, and they are under the Ministry of the Interior.

My friends, this is the country whose independence anniversary I am supposed to celebrate on Thursday? If I were to celebrate that anniversary, would I not be celebrating the activities of a “buffoon state” that is so incredibly incompetent that it cannot prevent the destruction of the water-sources of its own citizens? A buffoon state that does not even know that it is from a healthy populace, which drinks obtains good, safe water, that taxes – both direct and indirect – can be levied to pay for the life-styles of the 87 ministers and deputy ministers, as well as the 700 or so presidential staffers, who milk the exchequer each day?

This is the visceral level at which I can illustrate my inability to take any pleasure in our having become an independent state.

Mind you, I was not always this despondent. Independence for Ghana meant that at the age of 23, I was doing an editor's job at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation once done by a white man seconded from the BBC. I had a brand new sports car. And one more promotion would have catapulted me into a Senior Editor's position, in which I would have been given an official bungalow furnished and maintained by the PWD!.

We enjoyed these privileges and worked hard to justify them. In my case, in spite of my accelerated promotions, I was head-hunted away from the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation to become editor of DrumMagazine, the largest-selling monthly paper in Ghana. My housing allowance alone was as good as my GBC salary. And, again I had Ghana's independence to thank for that.

All over Ghana, young people like myself were being given such opportunities to show what they could do. Peter Dorkenoo and Tom Agyare were soon flying the VC-10, one of the most modern jet aircraft available at the time. Bank managers, electrical engineers, brilliant University dons – name them – Ghana was providing them. Our standard was to use what the British had bequeathed to us well enough to show we were equal to anyone in the world. And we added this most palatable of sauces: we were doing it for ourselves, unlike the British who were hired to serve our country, but knew they would eventually go back home.

Where, oh where, is that haughty spirit we cultivated in 1957?

Today, we are ruled by people some of whom are hardly-literate, although many have been certified as degree-holders.

People to whom smelly gutters don't matter.
People who are not concerned if hospitals have no doctors or life-saving drugs.

People to whom schools under trees are acceptable.
People to whom schools with toilets “fit for cows” can be ignored because their own children go to expensive schools that have flush toilets.

People who can drive over a stretch of road, only 30-kilometres long, that has lain unmotorable for six years and yet think that that is all right because they drive robustly-built 4 by 4s with windows closed for air-conditioning.

People who can connive to steal state funds by refusing to defend the state when unscrupulous thieves sue the state and obtain judgements debts for no work done.

Reader, if I were to join in celebrating the antics of this “buffoon state”, I would be telling my grand-children and their friends that I too -- like those who I and my fellow citizens are unfortunate enough to be governed by -- am a buffoon.

I cannot do that.

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