Scrap Them, If We Do Not Need Them

What callousness! How can we commit a man that obviously needs society’s assistance to prison, without so much as a cursory glance at his state of mind? What kind of ordinary Kweku Mensah from the countryside will stand in an open court and declare, “I wanted to kill the President and take his place?” What will society gain by this kind of wickedness? If this was the son of a prominent Ghanaian, would he be treated in such a shameful manner? If he had appeared in any other church in Ghana or even Accra for that matter, instead of the President’s church, would he have faced such swift justice?

These were the questions that ran through my mind as I read about the ten year sentence that was slapped on 36-year-old Charles Antwi by an Accra court on Tuesday, 28^th July 2015. The man was arrested on Sunday and by the next Tuesday he was on his way to prison. Wow! Could our justice system be that efficient? There are cases that have run in our courts for years. I personally know of a land case that ran for twelve years and after the tenth adjournment, the aggrieved lady decided to cut her losses and forget about it.

I had mooted the idea of this article for a while, and was finally moved to write it by Charles Antwi’s sentence. The original theme was about certain departments and institutions in Ghana that have either long past their sell-by dates or have simply had no reason to continue to exist as the waste pipes that they are, on the hapless Ghanaian taxpayer.

What exactly do institutions like Legal Aid (I believe there was one in Ghana once upon a time), Department of Social Welfare, Department of Parks and Gardens, Forestry Department, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Environmental Protection Council, Mines Department, Ghana Standards Board and Chieftaincy Secretariat do in today’s Ghana?

Do we still have a Legal Aid system that employs lawyers who are paid monthly from the government purse? If so, why was there no legal representation for Charles Antwi? If not, why did the sitting judge not call for legal representation for Charles Antwi for such a seemingly serious charge? And did I hear the judge defending the man’s sanity? Where is the Chief Justice in all this, as one of her judges turns himself into prosecutor, general medical practitioner and psychiatrist, all rolled into one? A very ordinary man walks into a court room and says, “I wanted to kill the president so I can take his place,” and nobody doubts the man’s sanity, but pronto, he is sent to jail for ten years? What sort of primitivism is that? Is there anything like referring an accused person for psychiatric examination prior to sentencing, on our books?

I am sorry but if some of the really absurd rulings like this or a man being found guilty of defilement but not guilty of anal rape, that have emanated from our courts in recent times continue, we shall soon begin to see mob justice in our dear country! For some people, it will become a waste of time to go to court.

As a young lass growing up in the Central Region of Ghana, I knew of people who hit hard times and were assisted by staff from the Department of Social Welfare. In one particular instance, a destitute lady acquaintance of my mother’s gave birth to twin daughters two weeks after her husband was killed in a freak accident at work. Before she was discharged from hospital, her case was referred to the Department of Social Welfare, which stepped in to provide baby clothes, baby food and some cash even before her late husband’s employers made their own donations.

Where is that department today as teenage mothers with tiny babies eke out a hazardous existence begging on our streets? How about those with mental illness that parade our cities, often filthy and stark naked? Whatever happened to our sense of compassion?

The last time I checked, apart from the Accra and El Wak Stadia which are maintained by a different entity, the only reasonable green area left in our national capital is the “Efua Sutherland Park.” Even Kumasi, the Garden City, has no appreciable green areas anymore. Koforidua Jackson Park has been cemented over, to serve as funeral grounds. I have not been to Obuasi for some time, but I will be surprised if its name sake is still around. Tamale used to have Sakasaka Park, but I don’t believe it exists in any reasonable shape or form anymore. There was once a big green area just outside the Bolgatanga Market. I will be surprised if it still exists today. As for Sekondi-Takoradi, the big open spaces where some of Ghana’s best footballing talents were developed in the sixties and seventies are now covered by unsightly kiosks.

When I passed by in front of Flagstaff (Jubilee if you wish to sound modern) House late last year, the grass in front of the Presidential Palace was brown, full of weeds and strewn with pieces of plastic and paper! So what exactly are we keeping the Department of Parks and Gardens on the public purse for? What do all those people with fanciful titles and air-conditioned offices do on a day-to-day basis? The private landscaping companies along the Burma Camp-Teshie Road are providing a far better service to society than the organisation in the well-watered valley near the Cantonments Post Office. So why can’t we sell it to a private entrepreneur who will make a better use of the land than the present lot who cost the taxpayer millions every year with nothing to show for it?

While we are it, where is the Forestry Commission/Department while illegal loggers are destroying the forest reserves in Ghana? With the connivance of village chiefs and officers of the Ghana Immigration Service, illegal Chinese migrants have taken over large swathes of arable lands, and even forest reserves in many parts of the country and are causing absolute havoc. Most of the rivers and streams in the Eastern, Western, Ashanti, and parts of the Central Regions are dead, dying or drying, according to my relations who live in those parts. The Forestry Department apparently has security to boot. So what exactly do they do for their monthly salaries, when staff who do real work elsewhere are not paid for months on end?

How about the Mines Department, Environmental Protection Council and Minerals Commission? Are they not supposed to be part of the statutory institutions authorised to grant licences and regulate all activities that involve mining and selling of minerals in the country? What are they doing while aliens have taken over our lands and destroying them? How do the activities of those foreigners, some of whom are apparently a law unto themselves in the countryside, benefit our villages, not to talk of our national economy? What is the role of chiefs and the Chieftaincy Secretariat with respect to the award of traditional lands for mining and other commercial activities in our rural areas? What does the destruction of water bodies and farmlands in the countryside mean to the chiefs of our towns and villages?

Some of my folks in the Ashanti Region used to fish in the Subin River. Apparently that river is now dead as the proverbial dodo. Our national capital is drowning in filth, as even well-dressed ladies and gentlemen buy food that is prepared in very unhygienic environments. What is the mandate of the Environmental Protection Council? If it is only a toothless bulldog and exists just because other countries have it, why should the overtaxed and underpaid Ghanaian worker be saddled with it?

I wandered into one of the apparently “poshest” supermarkets in Accra late last year and decided to do some “sightseeing". I estimated that seventy-five percent of the over-priced items in that supermarket will not sell in Petticoat Lane in London! Yet those mostly fourth and fifth rate Chinese backyard goods had been approved for sale in Ghana by the National Standards Board. Whose interest does that board serve? What is the use of that organisation when the Chinese are having a field day with fakes of our textile industry?

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, big name! It must be one of those organisations that will soon be celebrating their golden jubilees, if they have not done so already. What has been its contribution to Ghana’s scientific and industrial development so far? How come we still fill potholes with laterite? Why do school children in some rural communities still attend school in falling swish buildings? Why does malaria still kill millions of our compatriots every year? And the questions can go on and on.

Maybe I am being “too known”, according to the usual Ghanaian parlance. But I propose that the next government of Ghana (the current one has had its chance and it is also bloated anyway), should take a loan from somewhere, give a grant of $2m to each of the institutes under the Council, to commercialise its research findings within a year, or be disbanded.

There are too many dead woods in the “forest” of Ghana. We need to start the process of uprooting and burning many of them, to allow the young trees to flourish.

I shall return with my beaded gourd, God willing.

Naana Ekua Eyaaba has an overarching interest in the development of the African continent and Black issues in general. Having travelled extensively through Africa, the Black communities of the East Coast of the United States as well as London and Leeds (United Kingdom), she enjoys reading, and writes when she is irritated, and edits when she is calm. You can email her at [email protected] , or read her blog at https://naanaekuaeyaaba.wordpress.com/.