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31.05.2016 Feature Article

The Impact Crew: “ Unquenchable Fire - Countryman Songo"

The Impact Crew:  Unquenchable Fire - Countryman Songo
31.05.2016 LISTEN

Martin Luther King Junior once said, ‘a man cannot ride your back unless it is bent'. How long should we fold our arms and stay mute even if we are right? To how long should we wait for somebody to speak for us even if we have the chance to? Our moral duty, as citizens of this great nation of ours - Ghana, is to hold our corrupt leaders accountable devoid of ones level of education, religion, tribe, political party, or social status.

Failure to criticize leadership is far more than a lively fun opinion on a social platform. We cannot afford to let nostalgia and media or political charisma deny statesmen the ability to review and criticize constructively. Why should it be the case that those who review and criticize are been tagged as party faithfuls?

A slave is the one who waits for someone else to free him or her. Should we fold our arms and allow foreign organizations to criticize our ill minded politicians. The people of Asia were slaves because they had not learnt how to pronounce the word 'NO'!. Until we begin to speak for ourselves, no one could speak for us. In order for an act to be a crime, libertarians say, someone must be harmed - there must be a victim ( Countryman Songo). Anything that's peaceful, voluntary and honest should be tolerated regardless of whether we agree to it or not. Part of our freedom is to allow others to be free. In the mind of Patrick Osei Agyeman, affectionately called Countryman Songo, was to speak for his people who cannot speak for themselves.

Too many people are only willing to defend rights that are personally important to them. It's selfish ignorance, and it is exactly why kleptocratic government like ours are able to get away by trampling on the ordinary Ghanaians. Freedom does not mean freedom just for the things I think I should be able to do. Anyway, but if people will not speak for other peoples right, there will come a time when they will lose their own. Why should one then be troubled when speaking for his people in this nation?

To those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate criticism and agitation, are like farmers who wants crops without ploughing, they want rain without lightening and thunder, they want the oceans without the road of its many waters. The struggle to criticize constructively may be a moral one, or it may be physical, or both but the flag must be a struggle because we have done nothing wrong to deny us of visionary leaders and not deceptive party communicators.

So in redressing ownership of our resources, those in governance and those who wills to criticize constructively and draw to the masses attention on the corrupt practices. If criticism is been chained, then this nation needs to be awarded back into the hands of our colonial masters. Indeed, the white were not too wrong. Without a critical assessment of leadership and the duties of leaders, we will only select party faithfuls, entertainers, cool cats, and team B members as opposed to visionary leaders.

I choose to be optimistic that, criticism devoid of unnecessary tag when given a place in our democratic dispensation will be of a class. I am therefore with only one plea, which is for Patrick Osei Agyeman affectionately called Countryman Songo, the host of "Fire for Fire" on Adom TV to get back to his post. Because he desires to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. He speak on behalf of those who are willing to stand tall for their rights but do not have the platform.

He speak for those who have the platform, however, because of their parochial interest, they are intrinsically chained. A critical scrutiny of what led to Countryman's Songo suspension from ADOM TV is dubious. We want him back to speak for the underprivileged ones in Ghana. The truth hurts, but it needs to be told.

Akwasi Brobbey
( Offinso College of Education, Offinso )
0548412192/0266175686
[email protected]

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