Do You Disable a Snake by Holding it on the Neck or by the Tail – Querying NPP?

Most snakes are venomous. They can kill their preys or victims within minutes by a single powerful bite. Therefore, if you happen to be unlucky to come across one, you don't dare capture it by holding it on the tail, or killing it by starting to cut it up into pieces from the tail end. If you do hold it tightly by the tail or try to kill it by chopping it up from the tail, you are in for a deadly poisonous bite if you are unlucky which surely you will.

You kill a snake by hitting it hard with an object on the head or the neck. You safely capture a snake by holding it tightly on the neck. Even, it is always not advisable to kill a snake cutting it hard with a single stroke at the neck using a sharp machete or cutlass. If you do, and you are not lucky to have the head jump at your direction and it touches you by its fangs, you are gone from the land of the living. Deadly venom will have pumped into your body and into your blood stream.

I vividly remember the following story when I was a teenager of about fourteen or fifteen years old. One day I decided to visit my mum's nearby farm while holidaying at Asiampa. When I went, and was about to uproot a cassava tree, I saw a very big puff adder (a type of snake). I stepped back. Although I was scared, I decided come what may, I would kill it. I looked for a young pawpaw (papaya) tree, cut it and used the stem to whack it repeatedly on the head. After a few strokes, it started writhing. As it wriggled, the harder I hit it until it stopped making any movements, an indication of being dead.

I used the pawpaw stem because I had been made to believe by some youngsters in the village that when you see a puff adder and you hit it with pawpaw tree, it does not feel it straightaway so it will still be fast asleep until you have probably inflicted deadly blows to it. It might have worked for me. Once killed, I was afraid to approach it because of its sheer size so I ran home to inform one of my relatives who was also my best friend and of the same age group, Isaac Kwasi Kodua.

He went with me back to the farm which was about half a mile away. He cut off the head of the snake by using a sharp stick to pin the head to the ground and then cutting it off with a cutlass.

I have narrated this true story to convey a message to the NPP government and the entirety of the Ghana politicians. The NDC in Ghana politics are similitude of a poisonous snake. They are doing whatever it takes to cause the defeat of NPP. They are by their known and unknown actions sabotaging the NPP all to get the Ghanaian electorates vote them out of power. They are on a mission to murder, kidnap, insult and cause arson all on intent to making the country ungovernable for His Excellency the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and his NPP government. They have hatched many diverse plots to achieving their aims and objectives, similarly as a snake may try all its chances to harm you if you try to attack it or unintentionally cross its path.

As there is a systematic safe way for killing a poisonous snake or any snake at all, so should there be a proper way to deal with the NDC to stop them in their malicious tracks. The safest way to deal them a knockout blow to silence them for long, if not forever, is to seriously start to arrest and prosecute the known corrupt ones who have embezzled State funds and assets.

If there is not yet any credibly known corrupt persons from the past government, I know of the MPs doubling as State Ministers who collected double salary over years. Unless I am told it is not a crime to collect double salary for the same one job done, I shall suggest to the government and the President to earnestly encourage the Special Prosecutor to start arraigning them before judges of integrity but not the similarly corrupt ones.

Failing to prosecute the corrupt officials will be like NPP attempting to capture a snake by holding it on the tail or killing it by striking it with a sharp object on the neck, risking death to themselves were the head to jump in their direction and touching them by the fangs. The NDC will continually harass the NPP, lie about the president and his government and use all their artful criminal tactics to make the NPP unpopular.

The NDC have no political message hence resulting to not only absurdities but deadly plots. They can easily be handled if the NPP government would be honestly serious for once.

Should the NPP continue to be stalled in their unwillingness to prosecute the corrupt officials, I may be tempted to be very critical of them in the coming days. Do you sit down doing nothing when a dangerous dog is heading your direction with its teeth bared and barking while a stick able to whack it into submission is lying by your side? NPP government, please wake up as the clock is ticking, and failing to act will culminate in your disgrace if not defeat, come election 2020.

Many Ghanaians will at the moment be happier to see the corrupt officials prosecuted than to building factories only to end up seeing the corrupt officials stealing everything that comes out of the factories to still culminate in the majority of Ghanaians remaining permanently poor. Corruption is the bane of the success of Ghanaians so please kill it, Mr President!

I dedicate this publication to the people of Asiampa, both dead and alive. You had given me a useful story to tell to the NPP and His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo today. It will serve the President and his government well if they listened to me by imbibing the gist of this story.

Kill the snake, but kill it safely! A poisonous snake can never be tamed to become a man's best friend. One day, it will bite you when it becomes emotional, no matter how well you may have tamed it to become your best friend. See the NDC as such! Arrest the corrupt officials among them to bring sanity to the country.

I have the Kumawu chieftaincy dispute in sight. I shall be updating the public on it shortly.

Rockson Adofo
Friday, 17 January 2020