Homelies Cooked In An 'important Pot'

Nana Akufo-Addo

I am firmly of the opinion that we are operating the wrong Constitution.

Our temperament – as characterised by our short attention span,

our preference for the dramatic as against the solemn or common-place – makes us the natural operators of a parliamentary rather than a presidential system.

Look at what happened in the parliamentary chamber on Thursday 8 February 2018. There was a bubbling President dying for a cut-and-thrust with a Minority Group (clad in mourning because they had unwisely picked up a “cash-for-seats” millstone, placed it around their own necks, and then – dropped it on their own fee!.)

They heckled a President burdened with a formally-written document, like mad. Now, I ask you: is heckling exactly sitting down and not “taking part” in Parliamentary business?

Whatever he thought of the contradiction, President Nana Akufo-Addo was unconcerned about it. He rather threw jokes at them, tacitly implying in a most subtle manner that it was not he whose “tyranny” was to be “resisted” (as the Minority lustily sang, basing their sentiment on one of the lines of the Ghana National Anthem that they had loudly appropriated!) but paradoxically, the tyranny of the Minority. They– he seemed to say – had chosen a battle to fight, on flimsy grounds, knowing they would be defeated. But they had carried on regardless, and were now singing innuendoes to hide their disarray!

However, blind to the discomfiture to be espied on the seats behind him, the Minority Leader cracked open the whole “boycott” charade by getting up and trying to tease the President on an Ewe proverb the President had quoted in the original language!

Did the Minority Leader expect the President to falter whilst declaiming the proverb a second time? I don't know, but quick as a flash, the President rose to the challenge and took the opportunity to repeat the proverb and then reprise the repetition! All expertly done. And greeted with laughter all round. Don't say there is no witty appreciation of irony in the House.

Indeed – had the Minority Leader dug a hole for the President but fallen into it himself? For how can the NDC claim, in the next election campaign, that the “World Bank” [Volta Region] should keep its vote-vaults firmly shut against the NDC's main opponents, because these opponents didn't care two figs about the Ewes or Ewe culture?

As far as the President was concerned, “What is important should be said in indigenous proverbs”, what? Surely, when the Eastern Corridor roads become a breeze to traverse, everyone will remember Nana Akufo-Addo's Ewe proverb?

It is this sort of cut-and-thrust ever-present in fierce verbal clashes between the leaders of of the main political parties that makes the British parliamentary system such an unpredictable and even exciting spectacle to witness, in as far as it is practised in the House of Commons. When the House of Commons is sitting, every Wednesday becomes the occasion for an adversarial “gladiatorial combat”, fought with words, between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, during “Prime Minister's Questions”.

Parliamentary sketch-writers are specially deployed to mull over every word the two opponents utter, watching out for hesitations, confusions and innuendoes – as well as physical body language – that can signal a lack of sureness of foot, and the reaction to such lapses by the baying “back-benchers” packed into the seats behind the two antagonists, with some milling around the spaces between the seats. For so dramatic can Prime Minister's Questions be that few MPs ever miss them. The public galleries are also always filled to capacity – all of which help to reinforce the beauty of democracy.

The parliamentary sketch-writers, in particular, are able to decipher a leadership that's on its last legs – or that's bouncy and at its fierce best – and forecast possible changes, or the presence of firmness, at the top. A presidential system provides none of this political drama filled with “ a metaphoric “blood and gore” and is thus inevitably doomed to be dull. Unless there happens to be a non-boycott boycott!

Now, as I pointed out in my comment on Nana Addo's meeting with the media, he's quick at thinking on his feet and I am sure he would be the first to welcome a transformation of our presidential system into a parliamentary one.

Maybe he will consider including the question of the President becoming a Prime Minister-type Member of Parliament, in the possible referendum of which he made mention? Certainly, the Constitution of 1992 appears to contain some ad hominem provisions that no longer apply to our current, more self-confident situation. Our sense of humour; our penchant for playing with words – all would be enriched if we allowed our Parliament to give new meaning to the French word which gives the word “Parliament” its root: parler. That would introduce an element of -do-and-let's see it that will ruthlessly “separate the men from the boys”, for sure!

Meanwhile, I would also like to suggest two things to the President: please seriously consider the possibility of creating a six-lane motorway between Accra and Kumase. It is unacceptable that parts of such a lifeline of a road, equal in importance to the Accra-Tema motorway (if not more important) should be hardly motorable at some points (despite yearsof so-called “work” on them) and that other parts should have been so badly planned that they tempt drivers to overtake at unsafe points, especially on unnecessary hills. Such a road should not – repeat not – make it possible for head-on collisions to occur on it. Personally, German or Italian road constructors are the only ones I would consider for such a project. For they build roads that are both beautiful and durable. And above all, veryvery safe.

My second suggestion to Mr President is that urgent legislation should be placed before Parliament providing for a MANDATORYprison sentence for all convicted galamsey operators. Mr President, the galamseyers have NO respect for authority. YOU have personally spoken many times and explained why they should desist from destroying our rivers and water-bodies. They have ignored you! They RATHER THREATEN YOU! Even as you were speaking in Parliament, they were carrying on galamsey as usual.

So I am glad you repeated that:
QUOTE: ….Desperate situations call for desperate remedies.

We cannot look on, as our very existence as a country is put in jeopardy and our water bodies, forests and land mass are destroyed.

Even with the ban, it has been a never-ending battle with the galamseyers, and I am sure the House will want to join me, in paying tribute to the members of our forces in the Operation Vanguard that are protecting our environment. They are Ghanaian patriots of the first order. UNQUOTE

Please, Mr President, take the deterrent element of the anti-galamsey fight completely away from the hands of insensitive magistrates and judges. Make the sentence of imprisonment MANDATORYfor galamsey offenders, and you will see an end to this evil undertaking that threatens the lives of our grand-children and theirchildren.