The Butcher’s Dilemma: Spilling Beans or Severing Heads

The political space of our beloved nation has recently been graced by the dramatic proclamations of Dompim Butcher, a leading light in the Association of Yaanom. With a flourish of theatrical indignation, he has challenged Ghanaians to demand the truth: did Yaanom complete even a single Agenda 1234 project? According to the Butcher, the answer is a resounding “no.” He alleges that the leadership of Yaanom treated government contracts like supermarket clearance sales, offloading them to cronies for a neat 10% kickback. He has threatened that if these Yaanom folks do not tread carefully, he will spill the proverbial beans all over the national map in July 2027.

Naturally, the public reaction has been one of exasperated cheering. “If you truly love this nation,” the citizens dare him, “stop the dramatic posturing and spill the beans!”

But Dompim Butcher is caught in the suffocating embrace of the Kwesi Anata Twini. As the Akan proverb dictates, this is the drum that poses a terminal dilemma: beat it, and your father dies; leave it silent, and your mother perishes. If the Butcher spills his beans, the Yaanom People's Party will collapse koojooto, leaving him a lonely general without an army. If he keeps his mouth shut, he would be dismissed as a political windbag, something that will lead to the premature funeral of his own career. Kikikikiki, unfortunately, it appears the Butcher has decided to hit the drum very hard in July next year.

The name "Dompim Butcher" inevitably brings to mind the cautionary tale of Atongo, a young man who migrated from the North to the lush fields of Kumasi. Working under the formidable Auntie Yaa Maggi, Atongo cleared her farm with such supernatural efficiency that the woman, overwhelmed with gratitude, exclaimed in Twi, “Atongo, you’ve killed me today!”

To a local, this meant “wonderful job.” To Atongo, whose grasp of nuance was as sharp as his machete, it was an admission of a crime.

“You bad woman,” Atongo fumed, “why lie about being dead when I have only laboured in your fields? If this is how you reward hard work, I shall see to it that your lie becomes a reality!” And with his trusty tool, he did exactly that.

In the ensuing trial, the Judge asked if he was guilty. Atongo, the strategist, asked the prosecutor to clarify exactly which hand he had used to commit the atrocity. When the prosecutor confidently declared "the right hand," Atongo shouted in triumph, “Huuu! Na lie, mi di benkum ma chicha!” (I used my left hand to butcher). Having successfully "won" the argument by correcting the hand-technique of his own homicide, he was promptly carted off to prison, satisfied that he had corrected the record.

This, dear reader, is the exact trajectory of Dompim Butcher. Like Atongo, he is so fixated on winning the argument that he fails to see the prison cell—or the political oblivion—awaiting him. Walahi-talahi, when July 2027 arrives, the Butcher will indeed chicha everything, cutting through the political fabric with such vigour that there will be no beans left to spill, only the hollow, dusty silence of a party butchered by its own knives. We await the July harvest with bowls of roasted groundnuts and prayers for national sanity.

Anthony Obeng Afrane