A Farce For Christmas

(Two friends who delight in savaging each other by guessing each other's thoughts, meet just as the Christmas shopping has reached frantic proportions. Plenty of unpurchased items remain on each other’s list. But the money in their pockets has been flying faster and higher than the Artemis rocket, NASA’S latest money-sucker in the space race!)

F1 – You won’t believe this but…

F2 – You have managed to obtain an exclusive interview with Aisha Huang? How did you find her? Didn't she fire her lawyer? Yiee, that guy could talk oh! But I don’t think he would just lead you to her like that, even if you had four ears to listen to him with? It would have been unethical on his part!

F1—was it unethical for him to comment publicly on the proceedings in court, after the court had risen? Don’t bring yourself! Specuating about the ethics of legal practice, when you’re not in possession of either wig or gown!

– Hahahahaha! Do you know there's a pub in London's Fleet Street called "Wig and Gown"? But seriously, do you think I shall ever be so lucky as to be taken to the Chinese tulip of a lettuce?

– All right then, let me guess: you have seen leaked letters from certain “influential” persons close to the President, telling him that they are resigning from their posts because they have, severally, embarrassed him and exposed him to public ridicule, by saying that they would now go to the IMF, when they had sworn to heaven, earlier, that they would not go? Or giving Ghana's external debts a "haircut" and pretending that it doesn't matter because the debts always had a "sakora" appearance?

-- Sakora debt? Hahahahaha. Sounds droll, but...

- You have seen the secret minutes of the Minority caucus in discussion on the Censure Motion against the Finance Minister?

- No, but.....
- Oh, then it must be the Majority caucus minutes that were shown to you? Or you mistook the one for the nother?

- Why are you obsessing so much about “Minutes”? Who told you politicians write “Minutes” about such meetings? Suppose they are leaked? No; they just “agree” to certain actions, or non-actions, and everyone carries his own version of the agreement in his head! Otherwise, why would there be so much disagreement on what was said or not said? What was promised and later 'dispromised'?

- Do you think the Speaker was misled because there were no written minutes of the various meetings? Or did the Speaker push his own solution down the throats of the House? Why did he have to write a Statement about his own decision when no-one had asked for his one-man "minutes"?

- Hahahaha Minutes of a one-man meeting?
- You mean the REASONS behind everything can change anyway?

- Take it as you like it. Like a politician! Today, that means this; tomorrow this means that. Everyone can reach his own verdict and be happy ever afterwards.

- Hmmmmm – this our idea of marrying a presidential system to a parliamentary system is crazy ain’t it? In a parliamentary system, a vote of censure would have been a purely political affair. The opposition would just have said “Looking at what's going on, we don’t think the Government can call on enough MPs to vote on party lines and show that they still repose confidence in the Government. So the Government can't carry out its programme and must go. Ha-- then there would really have had to be sacrificial lambs. The vote would have been quite dramatic because it would have been a test -- to see which faction of which side would come up on top. For don't forget that the Minority too was divided! A clear demonstration of whether the MAJORITY side in the House should be in government at all, or the Opposition. For as far as Parliament was concerned, the President could always find a majority in support of himself!

- Crazy!
--What about "collective responsibility"?
--C'mon, let's leave Parliamentary twists and turns. For they constitute a scenario that could go on forever!

- Yes. But that's what master politicians would try and manipulate. In our case, however, they rather turned a purely political issue into a judicial issue, with a lawyer even allowed to intervene! How can a lawyer who is not an elected Parliamentarian, defend a Minister in the House? More important, how could he regain for the Minister the confidence of the House that he appeared to have lost?

--Maybe they thought a 'Censure Motion' was different from a 'Motion of No Confidence'? I think that once a Minister is accused of incompetence or whatever by his own side, it is a signal that he shoulod resign. The MPs do not like him and if he stays, they could do worse things to the Government as such.

- So, what has been the end-result?
-- A temporary lull, I think. The conspiracy will rise again. For sure.

-- Isn't it really sad that nobody ever admits doing wrong, or being mistaken, in this country?

- Yeah it is.
- And unlike in the UK, nobody ever resigns!It makes politics so dull! Even when Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and potential prime ministers of the UK were announcing themselves as seeking to be PM and withdrawing, or resigning with abandon, every passing minute, in the "Mother of Parliaments", here, everyone was sitting pretty!!

- Hahahahaha. The child is cleverer than the Mother, what?

- Yep -- we have made our rules so murky. Otherwise, how could a Minister stay in office when a majority on his own side want to see the back of him?

- - “Mea culpa! Ergo, I resign!”?

- You kidding? ; unlike Kwasi Kwarteng, our guys didn’t go to Eton, so sacred concepts written in Latin mean nothing to them!

- Yieeee! We are in trouble oh!”
– Yes, we inherited our public service system from the British and there….

– Even the boorish Boris Johnson had to resign as Prime Minister when it was revealed that he had deceived the nation about his activities during the Covid-19 lockdown.

- Oh C'mon! He only resigned when he was found out.

- Hahahahaha
– Yes Here, even when you're found out, you bluff your way through. We tolerated our Immigration Service being unable to say with certainty whether they allowed a deportee back into the country or not!!…

– Deportee? Are we sure that we ever deported her?

– No, we are “not sure!” But…

– In any case, do we know the real reason why our Attorney-General issued the initial “nolle prosequi” to stop the prosecution of the person we are not sure whether we “deported”?

– No!
– And yet you dare bring the matter up? Do we know why our Attorney-General has once again intervened in the prosecution of the “alleged-deportee-who—has--returned”'?

– Not quite.
– Aha? The Attorney-General gave the impression, did he not, that he was going to supervise the prosecution himself this time, and so the court should remand the accused, pending investigations?

– Yes! But….
– But what? Didn’t the lawyer of the “non-deportee-who-may-have-returned” remark to the media, during the second appearance of the “deportee-who-had-returned”, that the charges against her were “minor” and that the Ghana media had “over-hyped” the case?

– Yes, but…..
– Have you read the Ghana Minerals and Mining Amendment Act 2019?

– You mean Act 995?
– Yes.
– No, I haven’t read it. But….

– Well, go and read it and tell me whether there is any offence in that Act 995 that can be described, even remotely, as a “minor” offence!

– You are not suggesting that the Attorney-General has allowed the “deportee-who-has returned” to be charged under a law other than Act 995?

– Well, it's not that clear, is it? What did the former lawyer mean by saying that the case against his client was "relatively “minor”?

– Yieee! What are we doing to ourselves in this country? Our officialdom leaves so much room for speculation!