A letter to Prof. Ransford Gyampo

Dear Prof. Gyampo,

I am one of your admirers and an ardent reader of your opinions as always expressed on national issues. I admire intellectuals irrespective of who they are so, you are one of those I admire so much. Unfortunately, I am unable to agree with you on this issue you want to hoist on our horns to please the President of Ghana.

If indeed you want the Ghanaian youth to live by our culture and tradition, you should be ready to tell the leaders who are supposed to care for us to as well uphold the same standards as far as our culture and traditions are concerned.

You have both the theoretical and practical experience about politics from its very beginning. Which political dispensation ever was given birth to through a seamless process? In fact, the US democracy which is touted as one of the best in the world was given birth to through bloodshed at some points. So, booing a President who has refused to listen to the struggling young men and women in Ghana is even being considerate and diplomatic, to say the least.

There are several ways of registering one’s dissent, and the same way water will always find its level, likewise the youth will find their voices and will ensure they are heard no matter how. You cannot expect the youth of Ghana to apply the dictates of our culture in registering their dissent to a President who has told us that he doesn’t care how much force we apply in stopping him from using over $400m of our taxes to build a church we didn’t solicit for. We obviously won’t apply those principles to register our disquiet when the President tells us that everything is ok when the reality is contrary.

If you, Prof, does not see this as against the culture of Ghana then, I don’t think you have any moral right to admonish us on how to get our voices of disagreements registered to the President. Even you lecturers, how much hot air have you not blown? Did it catch the attention of the President? Didn’t you leave the lecture halls against the will of helpless students who did no wrong to warrant such a treatment? Where was our culture then?

In any case, is this a new practice? Did you just emerge in Ghana today, Prof? Wasn’t the same standards or even worse applied to former Presidents by the youth of this country in registering their displeasure? Was the convoy of John Mahama not pelted with stones in some parts of the country? Did Horpeson Adorye not organize some guys in Germany to hoot at and booed President Mahama at the instance of the International Media? Since when did we realize that we have a culture to protect?

Prof, until you come with clean hands, please, don’t come to equity. When your association (ie UTAG) had issues with the government, I followed you throughout and I can say without any shred of equivocation that you adopted unconventional means and sometimes unprinted words to describe people in government just to register your discontent. Where was our culture then?

Until the President and his government are prepared to listen to voices of reason, and until they behave to show that they feel the heat we the ordinary people feel, we shall not relent in our efforts to adopt any legitimate means possible to register our discontent about the happenings in Ghana.

I wish to draw your attention to the statement issued by the NPP which is being trumpeted by the government communication machinery that it was the NDC that orchestrated the booing at the Independence Square, as if to suggest that NDC members are non-Ghanaians. If his is how the government reasons, which I know you heard and expressed no contrary opinion to, then, I should think that your opinion on this issue of attacking the booing is none but hypocritical.

Your student,

Issifu Seidu Kudus Gbeadese

(Youth Imam)