The President's Boys

Kwesi Biney Dear reader, forgive me today if I attempt to go down the lane of our revered Prof. Paul Archibold Victor Ansah of blessed memory. I am very angry today and I am not going to be my usual self.

Those of you who do not have the courage to read beyond this paragraph are advised to end here because what follows may destroy your appetite.  I am going to throw away decency, jump into the gutter with these imbeciles on our political landscape who think the tools for governing a nation are lies and insults.

Readers may recall that a few days back, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) celebrated its 17 years as a political party formed prior to the coming into force of the 1992 Fourth Republican Constitution.

The celebration might have taken diverse forms and held in many places throughout the country. My attention however was on one of such activities organized in Accra where party faithful were addressed by some of the Ministers of the Atta-Mills government.

In a political gathering of such nature, politics or politrics take the centre stage, but what unfixed my hair and set my heart beating against the use of nature was the fact that the Deputy Minister for Tourism, Mr. Kobby Acheampong, that young man whose mouth flows with filthy language like a broken tap whose source of water is the Chemu Lagoon, was at his uncouth best.

The man who even on a television, spews out profanity to the decent viewing public without blinking an eye was at it again. This time, describing the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2008 general elections, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as a dwarf.

For Christ's sake, when did the physical structure of a person become a determining factor in public office holding rather than his competencies? Kobby Acheampong does not even know that some of the world's best and famous leaders like Harry Truman of the USA, Hitler of Germany and many more were short people.

Did their heights disabled them from performing their functions and developing ideas that helped improve their societies?

With the appointment of a few young people into government by the President, it was the expectation that these young men and women were going to be inspirational to the young ones by their conduct and performance as Ministers of State.

By their utterances so far, they have become a big disappointment to our dear nation. Indeed, the conduct of some of these young people in government, particularly Kobby Acheampong and Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, to quote the late William Ofori-Atta, are libelous and slanderous to our pedigree and prestige as Ghanaians.

When the NDC was in opposition and some of these political activists were engaging in such unadulterated lies and using epithets unacceptable to the decent minds of Ghanaians, they were forgiven because unfortunately, we have covertly come to accept insults and lies as part of our politics.

But having won power and risen to those high offices, one would have expected these people to be more civil in their public utterances; but a domesticated man without moral and ethical training will always remain what he is no matter his social standing.  

Young as they are, one would have expected them to show some respect to their elders even as they disagree seriously on political lines, yet these are boys who call their fathers and mothers criminals when no court of competent jurisdiction has convicted them.

These are Ministers of State.  Yes, I dare say some of them were just domesticated and not trained, they were just fed and their school fees paid without any moral and ethical training as regards what to say and what not to say to elders even when one vehemently disagrees with such elders.

Are their parents alive, and are they happy about the pungent behaviour of their children? Of course they should be happy that their children have risen to that height, but they should also be worried about their unguarded (or is it unguided?) behaviour as part of their upbringing. 

Ever since these young chaps became Ministers, all they have been churning out are insults and lies about people who perhaps are better achievers than their own parents. Is that the level that this country has gotten to? That you have Ministers of State who insult and lie while the nation cries for relief and decent living?  

These guys are block heads who are not looking into the future and I believe so are their parents and close friends. Some of them are as young as 28 years, we are told. They have the opportunity to remain in politics for a long time and not necessarily in government for that long.

Even in the event that the NDC stays in power for the next 12 years, that will be just 40 years, and if at 40 Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa for example is still in politics but his party is out of power, and the people he is insulting and criminalizing today get hold of power, what does he expect to be his lot?

This country cannot accept a generation of politicians without discipline even as they disagree with their political opponents. I am very certain that if Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo were a member of Kobby Acheampong's family, he would certainly be proud of him just as I would have been very proud to have Prof. Mills as a member of my family even if I do not share his political philosophy. How many people can rise to even lead their small societies?  

It has happened in this country before. Once upon a time, a young man who felt things were not going right in this country took the risk to right what he perceived as the wrongs in our society. In the process, he raved and ranted, insulting his fathers and mothers and inflicting corporal punishment on many. He was just 34 years old. Today, he is 64, and surely expects society to accord him the respect that he deserves if for nothing at all, for the benefit of his age.  

The Kobby Acheampongs and the Okudzeto Ablakwas should know that as the seconds tick by, and the minutes grow into hours and hours into days, weeks, months and years, so do our ages on earth move along.

And very soon, they will no longer be the young all-knowing arrogant political office holders they are today. They will only be mentioned in connection with what they say and do today.

Damn with whatever formal education they have, they seriously need home training as we Ghanaians are known for.

By Kwesi Biney