body-container-line-1
04.04.2011 Feature Article

Dagbon: My Take

Dagbon: My Take
04.04.2011 LISTEN

Today I am very disappointed that some people fail to see anything wrong with people questioning ex-President Rawlings' involvement on this issue.

How can a whole former President claim to KNOW the killers of a respected traditional head in this country and yet refuse to name them after this whole time? I mean do you need to be injected with our traditional concoction (yes, bentowa!) before you can see clearly???!#what is this??? Ghanaians, you have become so political about everything that you defend the obviously illogical just to satisfy your mediocre political desires.

What people like you should know is that the Ya-Na has a family, a family that has been in great grief since the loss of their member and thus this requires a very APOLITICAL approach but rather a very humane and legal approach to reasonably finding a solution to this issue.

Both the NPP n NDC have said enough and they are the only reason why this issue has not been cleared up since it happened.

The last thing I would have expected from Mills is to send a very radical and politically divisive person up North to mediate the case.

I don't need any intelligentsia to explain this to me. This is pure absurdity at the highest level.

What I would have expected of Mills was first to unite the country by curtailing all the political venom that seems to be spearheading this matter n sitting down with his political opponents n reaching a consensus and then together approaching the 2 factions as a united front and reaching the most amicable solution.

Justice must prevail. Someone killed the King and that someone needs to be found.

But this is a country where law works so accordingly the pursuit of justice must be done with an accompanying abidance to the rule of law and not just inflated emotions.

If Rawlings is saying that the judges who presided on this case were all chosen by the NPP and thus the credibility of their verdict should be questioned, isn't he alluding then that come that day when the NPP is also in power they have every right to select judges that are NPP affiliated to make sure that all court cases go in their favour? Are we so stupid to sit back and believe this nonsense? Let Rawlings himself tell Mills in the face or his wife for that matter, that when if ever, she wins political office to make sure that all judges chosen are not by the NDC but by some quasi religious, non partisan commission to which he will ascribe to.

Give Ghana to Rawlings and let him run the country the way HE thinks it should be run when he is locked up in his thoughts.

Someone should pinch him and let him know that Ghana is a free country that works not on the thoughts of one emotionally charged ex-President but one that functions based on the tenets of law.

It is a very volatile situation but the more politicians you throw into this situation the worse the situation is going to get.

Sending Rawlings will be seen as a very infantile and divisive move which will not make this matter any better.

He will go up there and try to politicize the matter just to serve his own self interests and to show everyone that 'see? I was right'.

This is exactly what we DON'T need as a nation.

He claims that a purge of immorality is what is breeding injustice in the country today.

The impudence! When did Rawlings achieve such a moral high ground to demand a purge? Let's wake up as today's generation of young people; let's think about our nation and stop being asswipes for political parties.

As long as this matter has already been politicized, throwing in another key political and a very notorious one like JJ Rawlings will only seek to speed up the NDC's quest to impress upon the family of the Ya-Na because that is what they promised.

Mills' stance on ensuring justice is totally commendable but his methods of leaving JJ Rawlings to deliver justice for Ghanaians using his methods is one that leaves much to be desired.

It is so obvious the government cannot control him because someone of his character will only agree to take up such a role based on his terms.

He will want the flexibility to be able to say all sorts of things without and rebuttal from government and also be able to freely throw the entire Dagbon area into a panic situation.

Seriously isn't Mills shooting himself in the foot by appointing Rawlings, not only a key member of the NDC and an important political figure in the history of Ghana, but also the husband of his own opponent come the next NDC Congress.

What was he thinking? Does he actually think that Rawlings is not going to use this opportunity to mudsling the Mills administration? Young man, in the end if a tribal war breaks out in the North, you and all those greedy politicians from both NPP and NDC will recoil back into your shells because within all your exuberance, deep down you will never fight to die for what you are verbally defending.

Let peace prevail in the North and stop being remote controlled by mediocre and very irrelevant partisan reasoning.

Martin Luther King Jnr once said that people who exhibit such attitudes are the most dangerous people in our society and he was right.

Are you ready to go to Dagbon to fight for any Gate should the need arise? Or are you just making politically-charged comments just because you sit faraway somewhere in the capital or another region and thus you can relax and rant on like a mad man? When you go to church pray for the people of Dagbon and when you are home, be wise in whatever you do, think about Ghana, think about your families, think about your futures and stop sucking on the tits of political parties, everything that comes out, you jump at it and fail to try to INDEPENDENTLY think things through and reasonably analyze certain decisions that are being made.

This matter is not up for grabs and is not a competition as to who is wrong or right; it is a national matter n thus deserves a unified approach.

One would think that the leaders of our country will realize this yet all they do is pollute the minds of our youth and polarize the nation.

Whatever affects your brother affects you indirectly.

Sitting in a darkroom far away in another region with a Pentium 2 computer and typing words that only seek to polarize n show how one side of this discussion is right or picking up your telephones and calling radio stations will not put a smile back on that toddler running on the streets of Dagbon nor assure him of a safe, conflict-free future where his family will be able to live in peaceful collaboration with the other faction n grow up to enjoy life as YOU know it.

Justice should be arrived at within the constructs of the law and THAT, is the ONLY way we can achieve justice and not by emotionally charged and illogical rants on Radio stations and on TV which have sadly become platforms for madness in our current political discourse.

When you think, think big and don't force your thoughts to ALWAYS remain offshoots of politicians thought! Turn that radio off, close that newspaper and THINK reasonably and independently as if it was your family member.

Dagbon is made up of ordinary families, friends, students, very intelligent people and not ONLY vain politicians.

What will you do (or want) if it was your family member? A life has been taken; justice must be served but ONLY within the constructs of the law.

Kwame Opoku Berchie
Facebook group, KASA.

body-container-line