Akufo Addo's two Ghanas!

"lt is sad the politicians have turned the State of the Nation address into a political rally and destroyed its significance in the process."

So was it the state of Ghana that the president tried to describe

last week or some utopian country in North Western Bahamas?

His Excellency told us recently that the economy is "so far, so good." Then last week, he added something new --- the economy is now "going in the right direction!" How can the economy be so good if the direction was wrong?

If we are indeed heading in the right direction, why has the IMF cuckolded us into submission and taken away our right of economic freedom and self-governance?

The president may tell his tale of Ghana's economic wonders to the diasporean community in China or Siberia. But he must accord us some respect when he talks to us in the homeland. "He who feels it, knows it."

Of course, this is an election year and the president would not showcase his government's decomposing rotteness to voters lest he hands the country over to the opposition on a silver platter.

In politics, a spade is not always a spade. It could be a mattock, a cutlass, a shovel or even a pickaxe. A government is only humbled by electoral defeat, not by the hue and cry or the convulsions of opposition elements.

So when the opposition accuse the president of failing to talk about unemployment and corruption, l laughed my way to tears.

Who points to his hometown with the left finger? The NDC would have behaved in like manner if they were in power.

The State of the Nation address is not supposed to be a political rally. If you needed reliable information to make political forecasts and strategic projections about our development needs and aspirations, the State of the Nation address could be a timely reference point.

It is sad the politicians have turned it to a campaign platform where they sing from politically parochial hymnbooks, choosing what to say and what to hide for electoral calculations.

But l praise the president for his performance, in spite of the jagging cough and the grumpiness of his delivery.

l waited in vain for the good news of the speech --- the smoking gun of our economic revival.

But the president buried himself in vocabulary after vocabulary, plunging left and right rather indiscriminately down the nasty dusty road, dodging and swerving past all the economic potholes and landmines--- and leaving only a whirlpool of dust, dejection and disappointment behind him!

How could any accurate account of Ghana's political economy ignore the surging price and shrinking size of a ball of kenkey?