JAK, Mills And The virus

JJ was up and booming on the campaign highway this week, thumbing his nose at his political foes and grumbling that the ruling party was stockpiling arms to resist a transfer of power should the party lose the December elections!

Here comes another one of the man's ridiculously preposterous and irresponsible public statements, some said in reaction to his claims.

A discreet investigation could well be conducted and the lie exposed if it is one, others suggested.

I attended an international conference on energy at the Labadi Beach Hotel during the week and saw Miss Joyce Aryee for the first time since 2003.

She was lovely as ever and looking a quarter her likely age. This is one distinguished lady of the land who will keep her figure till the last day, but sorry, that is not the story, Jomo…

I was at the conference to make a presentation on the mass media and the energy industry in West Africa and as Professor “Kwatriot” Yankah would probably have put it, “I spake and spake and spake and spake…”

This week, politically related violence came closer to the president of the Republic and one of those aspiring to succeed him than anyone could have bargained for.

President JAK and the NDC's presidential candidate, Professor J.E.A Mills met at a cultural festival in Cape Coast.

In accordance with custom, the two gentlemen were each to walk across the festival grounds right up to where the others sat, for an exchange of greetings.

Now, Mills walks over first, with his body guards in tow, see? The president's body guards effectively prevent Mills's guards from getting too close to the president.

Then it is the President's turn to perform custom and Mills Guards try to give the president's guards a taste of their own security medicine.

The president's guards promptly set upon one of Mills's guards, injuring him in a severe attack.

The national security shrugged off the affair saying the security of the president could not be compromised by the private security arrangements of presidential candidates. No way.

The NDC issued a public statement saying it would prepare to fight back next time round, punch for punch.

Some said such an open declaration amounted to an open threat to national security.

Me, I conceded to someone that a threat of violent reprisals in the event of any future confrontation of a similar nature was worrying.

I added that it all had in my view, something to do with bio-medical psychology and microbiological genetics.

I hope such medical disciplines of my own original fancy do exist, because we need the principles of such bodies of knowledge to guide us in our quest for peace.

Even the tiniest of living organisms will fight back under attack, see? That includes even bad organisms which being lethally dangerous, should at least be natural enough to agree to die without a fuss when attacked.

They do not, and that is why many medicines have been rendered totally useless by mutant, resistant strains of disease.

When we were growing up in the early 1950s, the needle of the medical injection syringe was like a spear, only slightly thinner.

The plunger was the size of a baobab tree trunk and its chamber the size of a gas tank.

The very sight of one of those syringes was enough to send a poor malaria-stricken child slumping to the floor in a dead faint as the injection room nurse approached wielding the monstrous contraption.

Yet the population of malaria parasite-laden mosquitoes kept increasing and children had to endure the frequent torture in the injection chamber repeatedly to stay alive.

Soon the malaria parasite had fought back so fiercely that the famous quinine became totally useless in the treatment of the disease. Pharmaceutical companies then came up with chloroquin and subsequently, a progressive range of other “quines”, which the malaria parasite has continued to fight and neutralise in its determination to stay alive.

It is called self preservation or the virus theory.

Add the fact to the natural human response to public humiliation, and you will appreciate how incidents like that body guards fracas at Cape Coast are better understood from the point of view of human psychology and science, than political propaganda and an uncompromising insistence on the brutal enforcement of state protocol security rules.

President JAK later got into a spot of bother with a matter of “political correctness”.

He stated publicly that his administration had through various economics programmes, provided opportunities for Ghanaians to stuff their pockets full of good old “cashes”.

He added that those complaining of empty pockets were lazy.

Many did not take kindly to his words. There are indeed lazy people in every society including ours, but my own testimony is this, Jomo:

Huge sections of our population sweat blood from sunup till sundown but still have only oxygen in their pockets, if they have any pockets in their garments at all.

You need to visits road and building construction sites, our traditional and street markets, lorry parks, fish-landing beaches, manual labour stone quarries and farms (and make sure you do so at high noon when the sun is mercilessly roasting the people), to appreciate just how hard the majority work.

Yankee Catholic Theologian Father Jude Winkler points out in a treatise on the subject, that it was the kind of situation which peeved the prophet Amos and angered God: Amos was chagrined that at a time of apparent prosperity in Israel, all appeared to be well with the nation when in fact, all was not as it should have been.

The great wealth Israel was enjoying was not being shared in a just manner. “The merchants squandered the wealth in decadence while the poor of the land continued to suffer.”

Those amassing wealth at the expense of the people sometimes showed token concern for the poor:

They made donations to communities and churches in a manner that suggested that they were trying to bribe God and keep Him quiet, see?

As Winkler put it, they were in effect accusing God of being an accomplice in their treachery against the people.

Methinks those in authority should read the Old Testament more and listen less to spin and propaganda agents who must earn their keep.

Now, Jomo, this is what God says for the benefit of those in power and those seeking power:

 “You rule the land and are proud that so many people are under your rule, but this authority was given to you by the Lord Most High.

He will examine what you have done, and what you plan to do. You rule on behalf of God and His kingdom, and if you do not govern justly, you will suffer sudden and terrible punishment.

(Wisdom 6: 2-5). Abgenaa…aa!!