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

Greetings once again K.T. I hope the 22 questions were helpful for meditation and I hope you got some useful lessons from episode 2 of the letter.

Advisedly, K.T., do not further provoke a youth that is already enduring economic hardship bestowed on them by the wiser old political leaders. You are a legal brain so you already know that even a hardened criminal awaiting his or her sentence is offered the opportunity to express an allocutus. Similarly, a criminal earmarked for execution is often given a last favourite meal and the opportunity to offer a last prayer. How can the unemployed and hungry youth not be given a break by the ruling old folks like you if the former want to express their displeasure regarding certain happenings that they do not find developmental.

I think that your insults to the youth is tantamount to pushing them to the margins and stifling their expressive thoughts. After all, it took a boy (youth) to point out to an emperor that he (the emperor) was naked. The boy yelled, “the emperor hasn't got any clothes on!” In fact, K.T., all the wiser old folks surrounding the emperor at the time failed to tell him the stark reality of his nakedness on the streets. You may want to read the “Emperor’s New Clothes” written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837. Is it the case that the President is not getting something right but those of you the older and wiser folks around him failed to tell him until it took a booing youth to draw your attention?

Uncle K.T., you can’t and shouldn’t intimidate the youth. You know very well that it won't work that way, dear K.T, because the animal farm practice whereby “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” must be courageously stopped somewhere.

K.T., do not be misled that being MP of Adansi -Asokwa for close to 22 years make you better and more important than the youth of that constituency or by extension the youth of Ghana who elected you to that office. The butterfly must not think himself a bird.

An axe that pretends to be a tree with the intention to destroy the forest must be figured out and told that its mere wooden handle does not make it a tree; it is still a metal tool with a wooden handle. Perhaps the tress must be more vigilant this time especially in 2024 to differentiate between themselves and the axe with a wooden handle.

Great Birnam woods must not move to Dunsinane hill, K.T., before you the ruling old folks realize that you have taken the country backwards economically. An adult must not stand aloof, watching a pregnant goat endures excruciating labour pain while tied to a tree, K.T. Hammond.

After all, it was Stephen Adei of your fraternity who once said, “leadership is cause and everything else is effect." If this assertion holds true, K.T., then you the old folk leaders are the cause of the presidential booing which is having subsequent verbally abusive reactive effects on you.

Conclusion

Dear K.T., I want to conclude my episodic open letter to you by saying that a political leader your sort, must exhibit equanimity and tolerance even in the face of provocations, if he truly wants to be seen as a politically correct person. Such insults from a political office holder and for that matter representatives of the people do not only sound antiquated but also fly in the face of rule of law principles and respect for God in whose image humanity and for that matter the masses or the Ghanaian youth have been made.

It is equally my holding and you may agree mutatis mutandis that some of your illustrious political predecessors like Presidents Nkrumah, Liman, Rawlings, Kufuor, Mills and Mahama had endured some of these booing even on the streets and on the floor of Parliament where you have been working for over two decades but those presidential guys demonstrated tolerance, maturity, fairness, sensitivity and respect in handling matters of this nature without insults to the youth.

Respectfully, you need to consciously recover from these verbally abusive behaviour. As I have carefully demonstrated in my 22 questions to you in episode 1 of this piece, there is copious lesson intra-country and elsewhere for you to learn to become tolerant rather than vituperative and vilifying from within a political office of repute such as that of an MP.

K.T., perhaps the cardinal counsel of reasoned consideration in this matter is that let us not be compelled to ponder over the days when an MP wept like a toddler on live TV when he appeared before a certain Judgement Debt Commission to answer questions regarding 3.5 million dollars from the sale of Ghana’s drillship he could not account for.

It looks certain, K.T., that if the current trajectory of the Cedi’s fall against the dollar and the incessantly high inflation rates are not handled well, it may lead to more booing and perhaps the parliamentary brawls or fisticuffs will show their ugly heads on our streets as time grinds. So develop a thick skin, get to work and forget about booing.

Under the current harsh economic circumstances, I am deprived of predictive thoughts that will lead me to think that the youthful masses will be happy with their old political leaders, K.T.

It suffices to this end that ensuring the welfare and happiness of the people is the duty of the leader and such a duty must question the inner conscience of the leader so long as he leads and does not want booing.

Tolerance of divergent views surely leads to cross-fertilization of ideas, knowledge-building and progress even if those views are expressed in ways that may sound unpleasant to you, dear K.T.

Take note of this, K.T. The fact that you do not see them in your camp, assembly or your close circles does not always mean that they are against you. Those who booed the President might be his own supporters who want him to leave an impactful legacy behind. Has that occurred to you, K.T., Relax kuraaa.

~Asante Sana~

Philip Afeti Korto

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