Nana's Bowl Of Hot Tea!

Imagine breaking human bones and cracking skulls over the spoils of war even before the battle has begun, Jomo! Hey, is there no contradiction there? How could there be any spoils to fight over if a war has not started? Ask the New Patriotic Party people.

Last week one of the most popular international news magazines covering Africa, run a three-page article titled, “Ghana: First woman vice-president.”  It predicted the likely choice of Women and Children's Affairs Minister, Hajia Alima Mahama, as NPP presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo's running mate in this year's election and her subsequent assumption of the high office of vice-president of our great republic.

The very idea appeared to make the blood pressure of party elements already agitated over the question of Nana's choice of a running mate shoot for the roof. For the article writer's troubles, his favourite vice-presidential aspirant's image was plastered with some muck and slime by spooky members of her own party.

The ingenious methodology is usually to publish by SMS text messages, alleged morality-related information of the kind to make even the most unrepentant pervert throw up a violent fit from shock.

Political party supporters in this country seem to think a political party is like a football supporters club, Jomo: When you are displeased with the trend of play, you curse the team coach, bash the lead striker on the head and switch your loyalties to another club. Way Hearts!!

You cannot blame them, Jomo. So consumed have party leaders been with the pursuit of power for themselves, that they have not even bothered to educate party followers about the critical percepts of loyalty and commitment to a political philosophy, cause and ideals.

Those who thirst for political power have been running up and down, huffing and puffing like no locomotive engine's business, their eyes shut tight in anticipation that when they open them again in December, “sesame”, there will be power and glory for the taking.

They have not seen the need to nurse corps of party cadres, who understand that while internal party democracy has ample room for dissent, there is absolutely none for the kind of dissent which leads to internal party chaos:

In the NPP, party elements have attacked and shed the blood of fellow party members, issued threats of death and published libellous material about other members, all in a desperate bid to get them out of the way; as they themselves jostle to position themselves for the spoils of electoral victory.

At some NPP primaries, party followers have vandalised and burnt down party property, while singing “Oh how we love our party.”

Anyhow, I was commenting on Nana's cup of tea wasn't I? There are several vice- presidential aspirants and a few of them have adopted a most amusing lobby: They get gender, ethnic or other interest-based groupings to issue declarations of support for them. This intended for presidential candidate's urgent attention:

In the mean time, the NPP campaign machinery appears to have adopted an interesting campaign strategy: It is to hype up to a crescendo, a claim that Professor Mills is someone likely to be controlled and manipulated by Old JJ from the background, if he is elected.

At the very same time, Rawlings is making very big bad press headlines all over again. Have you got the photo? “With Mills being manipulated by this man, we will be returning to an era we want to leave behind.”

A statement by Mills years ago, that he would consult JJ on important national issues if elected president at the time, is being played up in this campaign. It is going to be interesting from the point of view of electoral psychology and counter propaganda, how the National Democratic Congress is going to manage this aspect of the NPP's campaign.

What is your opinion, Jomo? Do you reckon Professor Mills is the kind of man who is incapable of making up his mind? As one radio presenter in the capital is often wont to say: Dem don't know!

I have known very mild mannered men and very perfect gentlemen, cooler than cucumber, who were taken for granted, but who proved very decisive and even deadly, when it came to exercising the dictates of good conscience in ensuring full justice in any circumstance.

If the NPP wins the election, Professor Mills finally goes on retirement . If the NDC wins, those who think he is incapable of taking decisions on his own, will most likely  receive very rude shocks when it comes to taking tough executive decisions, especially in leveling and straightening out irregular curves and bends on the highway of our rough match to progress.

This being an election year, it is understandable, otherwise, political news reporting and commentary are dominating the media at a time when some national emergencies threaten to make nonsense of whatever the nation may hope to achieve with the next elected government: The daily mass slaughter of our people in road accidents and armed robbery top the list of the emergencies.

Armed robbers have tended to take greater liberty with civilian administrations. (The bandits fear a taste of their own medicine after all.) Shortly after Limman came to power, robbers made a big gift of an international embarrassment to the man with a daring nocturnal attack on the residence of the Managing Director of Lufthansa Airlines.

The man, a genial, jolly fellow came out in his underwear to lose his Alsatian which was barking and straining on its leash and they shot him dead. The resulting diplomatic embarrassment is history.  Lufthansa packed out of Ghana and stayed out for a decade.

Rawlings's civilian administration could not behave like the military regime he had headed previously, so there was an epidemic of robberies of petroleum filling stations and rural banks across the country. There was even the famous gold bullion robbery in daylight.

In other words, armed robbery in Ghana did not start last night: The difference is that the nation has now come under a massive siege, the most deadly and ruthless since the country's independence.

The worst part is this: The armed bandits are no longer just content with robbing their victims. They rape, maim and kill for no discernible reason. Maybe there is one actually: A whole shipload of coke and large quantities in police custody, have vanished without trace.

It is unlikely that it has all been buried under the sea bed. The robbers are probably consuming the lot. That must explains the sadism of today's robber. If a massive war is not launched to make them relocate to the Kalahari now, very few people will live to enjoy what they are sweating blood for, mark my word or don't if you like!

With George Sydney Abugri