Kennedy Agyepong’s Fifth Column

It may sound like an item in a newspaper or news magazine, but a fifth column has nothing to do with journalism, feature writing or anything in the bigworld of letters. A fifth column is a group of people or an individual who undermines a larger group. They do not come in the guise of anything unusual or novel, but those who set out to destroy and misrepresent other people, especially their own, usually display superfluous amounts of courage and combative energy to set an agenda or chart a new course of thinking.

They stir the still pondsand ruffle quiet feathers until another column is born. Shakespeare's Iago may be the best idea of a fifth column that we know. Even for some of us who make a living by writing newspaper columns, it is difficult to put the pieces together to write a decent column about Hon. Kennedy Agyapong's recent conduct.

A voice resembling that of a leading member of the New Patriotic Party has been captured on tape purportedly fanning ethnocentric tensions by his particular description of a section of the population as people who do not have resources yet control political power. The person whose voice was heard on the tape has come out to deny the statements, warning that the recording may have been 'doctored'.

He suspects he may have been recorded by a 'mole' in his own party for money. Anyhow, the party he belongs to has come out to 'dissociate' themselves from the contents of the recording, to promote the unity and cohesion we all want to see in party politics.

I have only seen the part of the TV interview where Hon Kennedy Agyapong is heard employing very bad language to tongue-lashthe people of his own party, describing their politics and intellectual capacity in words too terrible to repeat in this column. The Assin legislator does not understand why the NPP should rush to 'dissociate' themselves from the purported 'ethnocentric bigotry' when the reality of tribal politics in Ghana is too glairing to misreport. He predicts that his party would remain in political opposition forever because they fail to say it when it matters most–in the name of civility and democratic candour.

The MP seized the moment to write a fifth column, undermining his own party and the political tradition that gave him the opportunity to be in Parliament. It was all a cocktail of braggadocio and bombastic language served on an acid tongue. How do these improve the political fortunes of the NPP?

Words aptly spoken are apples of gold, pictures of silver. The title 'Honourable' is not to be used as an 'antonomasia'. That is a person doesn't carry it as part of his name because of the position they hold, in the same way that a judge carries the well-deserved honour of 'Lordship' or 'Justice'. In our jurisdiction, people are honourablenot because of what they have done, but where they work and what they wear. If they also drive a huge car, they are honourable indeed even if they are in need of honour.

The other day, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, editor of the Insight newspaper, made a lot of sense when he suggested that the title 'Honourable' must not necessarily accompany people elected into positions of trust and responsibility until they have done something honourable enough to merit that honour. You do not know how important a Member of Parliament is until you actually start typing those words on a notepad.

Any good computer would instantly prompt you that you cannot write the first letter of 'member' in a small case. It is proper noun. The title carries considerable weight, and many Members who have walked through the hallowed Halls of Parliament are decent individuals who have risen to lead powerful countries.

MPs are not just elected representatives of constituencies; they represent the values and aspirations of the people who elected them. They are an embodiment of the powerful democratic institutions and constitutional structures that bind us together. Not everybody who can win constituency elections deserves to sit in that House.

We look up to MPs as people who shape our thinking on important issues of policy and governance, but MPs are also role models who influence opinion and character. Giving scholarships to poor but brilliant students in Assin, and creating jobs for a hundred Ghanaians is a great effort, especially they are done with personal resources, but Hon. Kennedy Agyapong would serve his constituency better by propagating good values.

Values! Aren't they what we have been struggling with for so long as a country? We know where to find them in the Bible and in the Koran but we do not know how to practice them. Our values have prepared us to steal from government and from each other when we get the opportunity.

Those who are respected in our society are those who have lots of money to show. Nobody seems to care how they made it until a new scandal is born. And if they still have enough money to pay their way through, they turn the tables on us by supplanting the values we hold dear. This society eulogises and pampers people for what they are not until they become invincible.

Who dares the big man? We have created and promoted strong and powerful men, instead of strong institutions and governance structures. That is why it is possible to nominate a dead person to serve on a board while the living remains unemployed. And this not my fifth column; it happened in a West African country where big men dictate who leads their country and which part of the country those big men emerge from. Other people know Africa for their big men, and not their big institutions.

It has taken a lot of sacrifice–from BoakyeAgyarko, Nana Addo, J.A Kufour and NyahoTamakloe for the NPP to get this far. The NPP prides itself on having 'the men.' Aye, there are many intelligent and decent individuals who have worked hard for the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition. If these are the men that Hon. Agyapong lambasted in his fifth column, then he has lots of questions to answer to J.B. Danquah.

KwesiTawiah-Benjamin
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