The Presidential Booing Effects on K.T. Hammond: An Open Letter to Adansi- Asokwa MP- Episode 2

Greetings K.T. I guess the first episode of my open letter gets to you and I hope you pondered meticulously over the 22 questions posed therein. Permit me to recall herein, your insults to the youth. “Their heads are like coconut. Elders are consulted for decisions; nobody consults the youth when a matter comes up because the elders are wiser. The youth can’t and they don’t know how to manage the country. The youth gallivant in town with long beard and empty heads.”

K.T., take note that most Ghanaians (both the youth and the old) are unable to afford daily meals and transport fares presently due to the mismanagement of this country by certain old folks of your type over last few years. Ghana used to be the pride of Africa or should I say West Africa but lately, we have become a laughing stock. You can do better, K.T., than your often unpleasant and divisive words.

K.T., it is always wiser to stop digging if you find yourself in a pit that is likely to cave in and bury you alive. Ghana is sinking into the oblivion in diverse ways and this is not the time for a Member of Parliament to focus on such trivial things like presidential Booing.

If indeed the bushy bearded youth in town cannot reason as you put it, one may be compelled to say that it is the same booed old folks whose mismanagement of the country and the introduction of an ineffective buffer stocking system that has led to hunger in our senior high schools. How can the youth be blamed for this unfortunate occurrence too?

Mafi-Kumase, for example, produces large quantities of gari yet Mafi Kumase Senior High School gets the nearby gari from a certain buffer stock far away in Accra. Definitely, this is not a palatable arrangement for the hungry masses to hail their political leaders and not to boo them.

An insensitive leader is the one who pretends to love the hungry youth of Adansi-Asokwa in an election year and tend to insult them and other youth in Ghana for booing their President who expressed to them, juicy promises in 2016 and 2020 but he is virtually doing nothing to make such promises a reality.

Give the youth of Ghana a break, K.T. Rather fold your sleeves and get to work to save the almost collapsed and dollar defeated economy. The youth deserve better than your unprovoked insults. Even some stalwarts of your party have objectively regretted some of your Administration’s public policies and actions. Tarzan, Nana Akomea and Nyaho Nyaho- Tamakloe are worth citing as examples.

K.T., a secondary school education that parents/guardians pay the fees and their wards or children are well fed in the dining rooms is better than a free SHS regime that offers hunger in our schools lately. The fact that most of the youth are jobless after graduating from school is the doing of the old folks in political leadership, K.T.

K.T., perhaps your answer to why the youth may hoot the President can be found in the lyrics of Lucky Dube's Well Fed Slave lyrics which I quote verbatim herein below for your reference.

Look in the eyes of the

Homeless man

Tell me what you see

In the eyes of a jobless man

Tell me what you see

What about the eyes

Of a prisoner

What do you see

Now you've seen it all

It is time to make up your mind

Don't try to hide it

'Cause I can see it all

In your face yeah

It’s the same questions

That I ask myself every time,

To be or not to be

Do you wanna be

A well fed slave or a hungry free man

What is the point in being free

When you can't get no job

What is the point in being free

When you can't get food

What is the point in going out to work

When others can get for free

What is the point in being free

When you don't have no home

Now you've heard it all

It is time to make up

Your own mind

To be or not to be

Oh ho ho ho

Do you wanna be

A well-fed slave or a hungry free man

K.T., what is the point in insulting the youth for expressing their frustrations and sufferings through booing? K.T., if indeed, the crowing of the cock is an accurate harbinger of dawn, then the current economic hardships in Ghana under your watch, are a prelude to more difficult times ahead. This thus calls for formulation and implementation of responsive public policies, credible measures and positive steps that will provide a sustainable panacea to the country’s woes. Therefore, you must not focus on a trivial issue like booing the President when Nana Addo himself had not even commented on the incident ever since. K.T., don’t you think that your doing so demonstrates your zeal and tenacity to be more Catholic than the Pope? Wait for episode 3.

~Asante Sana~

Philip Afeti Korto

[email protected]