A glittering sword takes Parliament hostage

Accra, Feb. 3, GNA - On Thursday, February 3 a glittering Sword engraved with national symbols laid on an asesedwa (traditional wooden stool) in Parliament as cameramen hovered around to record history. Another glittering piece of metal (Mace) laid on Parliament's despatch box and pointed to the Speaker's Acre, where the first Gentleman of Ghana sat.
These relics must have come out of the workshops of master goldsmiths recording for posterity their sense of duty and nationalism.
This is a day when the authority of Parliament, symbolized by the Mace must succumb to that of the State symbolized by the Sword. The Scale of Justice, symbol of the Judiciary, had found a place in the left corner of the Chamber where the Justices of the Superior Court of Judicature reminisced the Colonial past with their wigs and cloaks in temperatures that made the mercury in thermometers to elongate.
Usually, when the prayer is said, the Speaker would shout: "Order! Order!" and business of the House would begin in silence. On this auspicious day the House had a horde of security men, who ruffled Journalists as they searched for the assassin's bullet in their pens, microphones and bags.
Their countenance, cooked in a broth of anti-journalism, does not usually mystify this expansive friendly environment where a nation called Ghana shapes her history.
A colourful parade of men turned birds and a troupe of dancers and drummers do not usually occupy the frontage of the House and no Fontonfrom drum would boom in the delicate Chamber just remade to accommodate 30 more members.
President John Agyekum Kufuor had come to Parliament to deliver the State of the Nation Address - a message - of hope and realism for supporters, utopian and hopelessness for the opposition.
Fortunately, this meek man resplendent in a dark suit read his message in a place where his supporters dominated.
His humility, perhaps, unprecedented, drew admiration from even his sworn enemies.
He had come into the Chamber with his wife and Vice President Alhaji Alui Mahama and his wife.
He had flipped the pages of his message calling for unity and oneness to build a nation where poverty, disease and ignorance seemed to beckon all the time.
"This is a good time to be a Ghanaian. These are exciting times. Let us work together for we must," he said.
The Chamber, which was bursting at the seams, had its walls adorned with national colours. The Ghana Police band played the instrumental version of the national anthem.
Some mimed, while others sang along when they did the piece but how many can sing without jumping some words in their private closets? The President spent less than two hours and rode away but not until the Sword had released the Mace just outside the Chamber to its pre-eminence position in the House.
The Sun had done a bit of a travel and was piercing and ravaging sweat buds of bodies that had dared it.