The Difference Between Functional And Nonfunctional Societies

Roman Abramobich

Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire and owner of Chelsea football club, was refused entry back into Britain after a visit to Russian, when he failed to complete process for the renewal of his resident permit.

Mr Abramovich therefore had to enter Britain on his Israeli passport since Israelis don't require visa to enter Britain.

But with the financial muscle of Mr Abramovich and his huge capital investments in Britain, not forgetting jobs he has created in the British economy and huge taxes obligations, the man was still refused entry when he failed to play by the rules.

This brings to mind the issue of another multimillionaire of Egyptian origin, Mr Mohammed Al-Fayed, the owner of Harold's and father of Dodi Al-Fayed, who dated the late Princess Diana and died with her in a car crash in Paris in 1998.

Mr Al-Fayed, notwithstanding his massive injection of personal wealth into the British society by way of job creation and so on, persistently had his application for British passport rejected during the tenure of Anthony Linton Blair [Tony Blair].

However, if the case of Roman Abramobich had happened in an African country, the minister for interior would've ordered the Director of passports to carry the necessary equipment and fly to Moscow and renew Mr Abramovich's resident's permit.

Similarly, if Mr Al-Fayed's scenario had played out in an African country, it would've been the President, this time, actually ordering the minister of Interior to, in turn, instruct the director of passports, to carry the necessary equipment into the residence of Mr Al-Fayed, and issue him with the passport.

Now, not long ago, a former Russian spy Mr Seigei Scripal and his daughter Yulia Scripal, were poisoned when nerve agent Norvichok was smeared on their door handles by alleged Russian agents.

This nerve agent immediately contaminated their bodies and made them highly toxic so a police officer who first attended to them after being found slammed on a bench on the street in Salisbury, was also affected and fell into comma.

When this was detected, the entire neighborhood of Mr Scripal was quarantined. His movements in previous days were traced and all places he had visited were sealed off. Similar measures were taken in respect of his daughter Yulia.

Mr Scripal and his daughter Yulia, were kept in intensive care unit for close to 3months, offered the best of care available in the civilised world, and only yesterday, the two were discharged after making full recovery.

Now, had this scenario Mr Scripal and his daughter Yulia, again, happened in an African country, particularly Ghana, the two would've boarded taxis and 'troros', all around Accra contaminating hundreds of thousands of people.

They would've visited funeral grounds shaking hands with hundreds of mourners, or, attended parties and danced 'smooching' with many admirers; and in the process, contaminated uncountable numbers of people.

And with our nonexistent emergency response systems coupled with shambolic health deliver system, hundreds of thousands of innocent people, including medical doctors, nurses and other allied health workers would've simply perished.

Finally, in the area of sting operations by investigators, albeit carried out by private or journalists, are published without those caught with smoking-guns, being given prior opportunity to watch. Again, snippets are not put out in the media by 'okro mouth' self-acclaimed senior journalists.

Indeed, a public office holder is caught, with a smoking-gun, receiving bribes in any form, cannot neither claim his privacy has been invaded, nor, have any ground in law to sue. As a matter of fact, the British media, particularly The Telegraph, is very much adept at this modus and those that have been caught have always resigned.

But in Africa, and here again with Ghana as case study, same sting operation catches top public officials accepting bribes in the forms of goats, pigs, grasscutters, cats, dogs, and sometimes Ford Expedition 4WDs, multi-million dollar mansions and sack-loads of bundles of crisp dollar bills, but they're INVITED by the police CID amidst cacophonous media frenzy, and the cases ultimately die natural deaths.

Newton-Offei Justice Abeeku
email: [email protected]