Dumsornomics And Unsmart Ashewos

Presenter: Welcome, viewers, you are on OneNet Too, the programme is FyahBurn. Today, we continue our discussion on the electricity problem facing our beloved Ghana. The president has promised several times to fix the problem, yet it stay with us. There is lamentation in the land. We read horror stories about hospital using candles and torchlights to deliver babies. Many businesses have closed down. Yesterday, the Juapong Textile Mill said that it is sacking 1,500 workers due to lack of adequate electricity. About two weeks ago, the president made a speech in which he suggested that the businesses that are not closing are not smart. This incurred the wrath of prominent citizens. Some of them went to town to lambast the president.

They announced plan to demonstrate and call for an end to what we in Ghana called Dumsor. Their action did not go down well with the president’s men. Some of them went ballistic and went as far as calling some of the women agitators prostitute. We believe that this unhealthy development need to be stop. We need good policies not insults. In our studio to help shed light on the happenings and suggest ways to put an end to the mudslinging are popular actress, Ms. Loyola Noslen and Presidential Staffer cum Communicator, Dr. Kanbiga Attikon. Shall we begin with you, Dr. Kanbiga. How did thing degenerated to this level, where we have the president insulting people, and citizens taking potshots at tehpresident?

Dr. Kangiba: Thank you very much, Mr. Producer for inviting me. Many thanks to your teeming viewers for watching this programme. To your question, it is quite simple. No one, not anyone I know in this government, including Mr. President himself, derive any joy from this Dumsor thing. It gives all of us sleepless night. It is a huge albatross on our neck. We know what is happening. We know the anguish in the land. We hear the lamentations of our people. Have you seen the president recently, the young man has aged. Gone are those innocent, youthful look. All his hair is now grey. The beatific face is now aged. Don’t forget that many of our women voted for him simply because of his good looks. Today, not many of them will look at him twice…

Ms. Loyola: Hey, what are we having here, a discussion on Beauty Contest for Mr. president?

Dr. Kanbiga: You see what I mean. Sheer indiscipline and intolerance. Mr. Producer, you asked me a question and I was just coming to the meat of…

Ms. Loyola: Please try and get to the Chinchinga. It is not all of us that get paid by government to spend eternity on television and talk bullshit all day.

Dr. Kanbiga: You are rude, young lady. You are rude. I will not have…

Ms. Loyola: You will not have what? And what are you going to do about my rudeness? Are you going to hug a transformer? Get to your point, if you have any. Don’t waste our time.

Dr. Kanbiga: Mr. Producer…
Presenter: Actually, Dr. Kanbiga, I am a presenter. I present the programme. My producer will not like me to usurp his title. That is just by the way. Now, Ms. Loyola, we have listen to the eminent Doctor articulate for us the government side of the story. What is your own take?

Ms Loyola: Thank you for inviting me. Let us get something right here. I don’t enjoy coming to television studios to discuss issues that are not pertaining to my profession. I am deep up to my neck with work. I got a business to run. I have employees and my rent to pay. I have utility bills to settle at the end of the month, unlike our officials who get everything for free.

Those that get paid from our taxes to defend the indefensible can enjoy going to studios to talk all day. I cannot. You asked me what my take is. Again, it is quite simple. We have people who are paid from our taxes, if I may say so, to stay all day in radio and television stations and jabber all day and night. Some of us have business to run. We might not be smart and we may even be prostitute. The issue here is that we have people who came to beg for our votes and promised to have answers to all the problems we face. No, sir, we did not go to them. They came to us. We did not invite them.

Actually, we know little about them until they wake up, hit the campaign run and deafen our eardrums with all the promises you can think of. They were the ones that lambasted the previous government over erratic supply of electricity. They promised to have answer to the blackout. Give us your vote and we will fix the electricity problem in a short while. We gave them our votes thus fulfilling what I believe to be a compact. We have fulfill our part of the bargain. Have the fulfill theirs? No, they haven’t. It is almost three years, the problem has worsened. Our woes have been compounded.

Our mothers are giving birth with candlelight. Our people are dying unnecessarily because there is no light in the surgery. Many people have been crippled because here is no electricity to keep their medicines refrigerated. And when we complain, we have the president having the guts to come out and insult us. We have a president who gets all the freebies from our tax money coming to tell us that we are not smart. Ok, we are not smart, but what can we say about those that cannot fix electricity in almost three years? Are they smart? And we have the president’s minions coming out to say that we are prostitutes. Mr. Presenter, please what type of country is this when those that are paid from the public purse have the effrontery to insult citizens?

Presenter: Wow. Thank you so much, Ms. Loyola. That was a very powerful one. R. Kabinga, any rebuttal.

Dr. Kanbinga: Thank you, Mr. Producer. I meant Presenter. Pardon me. I listened to our young lady here. Sorry to say, but all we see here is a lot of anger. Anger laden with copious youthful exuberance. Inasmuch as we strive to understand such childish petulance, or shall we say cantankerousness, we must situate it in the bigger picture. From her juvenile perch, she cannot see the whole portrait. Anger is good if only it is channeled into positive thoughts. How is our beloved country helped when we have young ladies abandon their natural vocation and start to insult the elected Executive president of the republic?

Ms. Loyola: I am I to sit down and listen to this dimwit. In which century do you think you live, Dr. Kawhateveryourname is? What is your natural vocation for women? I didn’t know that I will live to see a fellow citizen made such disparaging remarks on women. Gosh I cannot blame you. I blame the one that sees anything in you to appoint you a Presidential Staffer. Mr. Presenter, please I did not set out to insult anybody. If the elected president of the republic decided to insult hardworking citizens, he should remember that there are many citizens who are prepared to go Mark Twainish with him. Do you remember what Mark Twain said about not arguing with idiots?

Presenter: No, I don’t. Please tell us.
Ms. Loyola: Mark Twain advised that we should not argue with idiots as they will drag us into the gutter and beat us with experience. To get back to track. I have talked with many experts in the field of energy. All of them are Ghanaians. I also spoke with numerous citizens versed in financial matters. All of them, I mean it, all of them agreed that three years in too much to waste on looking for solutions to fix a problem that could be solved with a year. They showed me studies that show that the problem of electricity in Ghana can be fixed within six to twelve months. One of them, Mr. Robert Woode, our own Crusading Engineer, showed me his calculations. He thinks that Mr. President and his men are simply not serious about solving the problem. According to him, we live about three degrees away from the Equator and are surrounded by copious energy, all of which can be translated to electricity with little effort. He is not a prostitute, if I may add.

Presenter: If Dr. Kabinga can now come in and tell us his side.

Dr. Kanbinga: Thank you, Mr. Producer. It is unfortunate that our young lady chose to remain combative. It is equally unhappy that she chose to latch on to the unfortunate categorization a friend used at the heat of battle. The truth of the matter is that none of us enjoy the current situation. Our heart aches when we hear, see and read about the nasty situations our people are put through. Does my young lady think that we go home happy at the end of the day and see our people suffering?

Presenter: Ok, Lady and Gentleman. I thank both of you for your insightful contributions. Unfortunately time will not permit us to talk all day, inasmuch as we would like that. To round thing sup nicely, shall we ask both of you to suggest ways forward? If we begin with you, Ms. Loyola.

Ms. Loyola: I, once again, thank you and your producer for the Yeoman’s job you are doing to educate and enlighten our people. Presenter, the issue is quite simple. In the age we live, electricity is so basic that any serious government will make it a priority to solve it and ensure that we generate and supply enough of it. The reason is very simple. If people and industries have sufficient electricity to run their affairs, they will pay more taxes to the government.

It means that the government will have more money to run the machineries of the state. We will have less need to go around begging for Arab, Chinese or IMF loan. We have enough resources in our country to take very good care of ourselves without turning ourselves into groveling beggars. Another thing is that the president must advise himself. He is reputed to be a communicator specialist.

He should learn how to communicate to his own people without appearing to be condescending. No one dragged him from his village to come and rule Ghana. No one begged him to campaign to be president. If he respect his office, we all will respect him. If he decide to jump into the gutter, many of us will happily meet him there. He can learn a thing or two things from our tradition and learn to speak only through linguists as our chiefs do.

Presenter: Wow. Dr. Kabinga?
Dr. Kanbinga: I thank you, Mr. Producer, for inviting me. I would wish to assure our countrymen and women that the government is on top of things. As Mr. President assured us, we shall overcome our Dumsor problem the same way we overcame the challenges that faced our beloved country. What is most unhelpful is to have citizens take it upon themselves to pretend to know better that those elected to do the job of fixing our challenges. What is equally unhelpful is for some citizens to arrogate to themselves the power to determine who is more committed to Mother Ghana. We all love our country and are prepared to die for her. We shall overcome.

Presenter: Thank you so much viewers for joining us on this exciting programme. Until next week when we come your way with another interesting topic on FyahBurn, I say: Be good!