Come On, Sisters, Don’t Let Them Do This To Us!

According to the latest Ghana population census (2014), it is only in the western region that men form fifty percent of the population, everywhere else in Ghana, women outnumber men. Overall, men make up a mere 48.8% of Ghana’s population, while women constitute the remaining 51.2%. Yet of the 228 seats in Parliament for instance, only 19 or 8.3% are occupied by women. The composition of cabinet is even more laughable. Like women the world over, Ghanaian women are only given token representations in the top hierarchy of state institutions and organisations.

Now there seems to be a planned assault on women in high places, through a calculated scheme to embarrass the sisters and show them up as not being up to the task, some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Sisterhood of Women, we need to fight back.

Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, the wife of the former president, JJ Rawlings, by all intents and purposes seems to be a competent lady, judging by the way she hijacked the 31^st December Women’s Organisation and made it her personal fiefdom. Yet in 2012, some men or group of men made her form a ridiculous break-away entity from her husband’s party, ostensibly to serve the interest of those men, by splitting the votes in one part of the country or the other.

However, to compound her embarrassment, the submission of the nomination papers of her party’s presidential candidate were badly delayed and worse still, full of errors, to the extent that even the Electoral Commission of Ghana, had to disqualify her and her party from contesting the elections.

What does it take for a party, with an executive of presumably lettered people, to complete everyday nomination forms in everyday English, huh?

When the infamous Nyafele Ametepe Heathrow cocaine scandal first broke out, the affable and seemingly competent Foreign Minister of Ghana, Ms Hannah Tetteh was made to put out a ridiculous statement which was as near to supporting the drug queen as it could be. She even had to instruct her staff at the High Commission in London to visit the mule, who herself was being manipulated by powerful men in Ghana and elsewhere. Faceless king-pins in Accra forced the poor minister to do and say things which clearly made her uncomfortable, as was shown by her demeanour during her public appearances over the matter.

Earlier in the year, the wife of the president had been made to sound ridiculous as she haltingly read a speech in America, which had almost certainly been written by a man. The poor woman couldn’t even quote the great Dr Kwegyir Aggrey properly, “When you educate a man you educate an individual, but when you educate a woman, you educate a family,” she mumbled. I sat stone-faced as my colleagues threw knowing glances in my direction in the lounge. If that lady has speech impediment, does she have to be humiliated by being made to give speeches she has not read through? And does she have to do the bidding of men who do not seem to care about her feelings?

Another embattled sister is the government statistician of Ghana who regularly puts out inflation figures and market prices which have no relationship whatsoever to the reality on the ground. Often, the ridiculous defence most likely written by men is that her critics “might be shopping in different markets!” Habah, sister, why don’t you, for the sake of your family simply speak to the Makola women yourself, string up their real figures and tell your male tormentors to get lost?

Surely the government statistician must have done some good academic work to qualify for a PhD in her field of endeavour. To be coaxed or coerced into churning out figures that even illiterate market women and housewives scoff at must be most distressing to her and all who care about her public image. Somehow this lady seems to put herself through the periodic agony because people, who bear the accolade “men” only because of external appearance in trousers, wield absolute power over her.

Just last week, the wife of the Vice President, Mrs Matilda Amissah-Arthur was made to look and sound daft as she presented computers to a school in the Eastern Region that has no electricity! At the presentation, an equally frustrated headmistress vented her feelings by asking Mrs. Amissah-Arthur to pass a message to her bosses in Accra, to send her the most basic things that a school requires – chalk, registers and exercise books. It was here that the Vice President’s wife showed how ill-prepared and uniformed she was for her Kukurantumi assignment.

Every Junior Secondary School child knows that under the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education programme (FCUBE) that was launched in 1996, government was mandated to provide among other things, chalk, pens and pencils, log books and registers. Did the lady really not know that? Why did it fall on this sister to do that particular presentation? What kind of briefing did she receive before she embarked on the trip to Kukurantumi? Was she chosen by lot or by appointment? Was that not a setup for failure? Was her husband part of this setup? If not, did he know what the assignment was all about? If so, what did he tell her before she left for Kukurantumi?

Surely, there must be regional and district officials of the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service and Ghana Education Trust Fund, among others, who can do such presentations. What will five computers do for a school with two hundred or more pupils, anyway? If elected and appointed men want to do cheap propaganda, why should they involve sisters? On the other hand, if the men who head these organisations are so lazy and incompetent they will not do the barest minimum research before they write speeches for the poor women to go and read: why don’t they go and make the presentations themselves? Why do the sisters have to take the can for the incompetence of clueless men? Why do we have to be their errand girls?

A photograph which has gone viral on social media shows another of the brazen attempts by men in high places in Ghana to ridicule Ghanaian womanhood! One caption says “Madam Ekua Donkor reading a factory brochure in Italy.” In the said photograph, Madam Ekua Donkor is shown reading the magazine upside down! Is this the best that Ghana can present to the international community, more especially when we want to woo Italian investors to invest in Ghana?

I have no qualms with the president appointing “kaya yei” as advisers as part of a programme to solve the problem of homelessness and teenage pregnancy in Ghana, or ex-convicts to help eliminate the current armed robbery menace. However, I have a serious issue with parading such “advisers” in world capitals as “the face of Ghana or Ghanaian womanhood”, for that matter, because they are not.

Our subjugation at home is bad enough not to be further humiliated publicly with such impunity. I shall be watching on the sidelines and will not hesitate to take the fight to the highest level if any further attempts are made in the near future to demean Ghanaian womanhood.

In the final analysis, every concerned Ghanaian (male or female) has both an implied and express duty to contribute in any way possible to discharge the valuable responsibility of preserving the dignity of Ghanaian womanhood. After all that we have suffered, the Ghanaian woman surely deserves better!

I shall return with my beaded gourd, God willing.

Naana Ekua Eyaaba has an overarching interest in the development of the African continent and Black issues in general. Having travelled extensively through Africa, the Black communities of the East Coast of the United States as well as London and Leeds (United Kingdom), she enjoys reading, and writes when she is irritated, and edits when she is calm. You can email her at [email protected] , or read her blog at https://naanaekuaeyaaba.wordpress.com/.