TALKING DRUM: Freeing Aisha Huang, may thunder fire Nana Addo’s gov’t!

Galamsey Queen, Aisha Huang [L] & Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo 

A day before my traveling from Sunyani, the capital of Bono Region, to Accra, I promised myself that I would have a good meal. Being the last born of ten children, I don’t struggle for food whenever I go on a visit in that region. So, I ate bits and pieces of foods that came my way.

Ironically, when I promised myself of that eating spree, I knew my stomach could not stand [hot] pepper for a second. Yet, probably out of madness, I ate pepper-induced soups. It was a Saturday in 2014. The following morning, just when the driver of our Yutong bus horned that we were good to go, my stomach started dancing. “Yehowa [God], do I get down!?” I asked my confused mind.

I decided I will soldier on as the urge to attend nature’s call abruptly subsided. Then, after we passed the Tyco City Hotel on the Sunyani-Kumasi Road, the whole uncomfortable experience revived. When we got to Bechem, now in the Ahafo Region, I got down to use the washroom at a lorry station there. However, luck eluded me. They had locked the washroom with the supervisor of the place nowhere to be found.

I got back into the bus, bought a soap named SDAfoͻ Samina that a man advertised in the bus when we got there [Bechem]. I had for long heard of the soap’s efficacy so I didn’t hesitate buying it. I needed to soak it and drink the solution as that would tame my stomach from further acrobatics. It was then that I got to know that when one was in serious trouble, the mind usually went on vacation.

“Why don’t you buy a sachet of water, drink a bit of it and cut it [sachet] large enough so you put the soap in it and get your solution?” a woman who sat by me and witnessed my ordeal told me. That sense was pumped into my head at Abrepo in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, about 10 minutes before the driver could park at a fuel station for me. Mind you, from Sunyani to Kumasi is about 122 km. The rest of the story is history.

Having passed through this experience of promises that one knows it is hard to keep- as I promised my stomach- and my mind basically going blank thereafter, I don’t really blame President Akufo Addo’s led NPP government. They seem to have that ‘runny stomach’ hence running here and there and mostly sounding confused.

The New Patriotic Party made so many promises to Ghanaians before election 2016 that they are now trying very hard to keep. You remember the one village, one dam? One district, one factory? Free SHS [which is somewhat satisfactorily implemented]? One million dollars per constituency among a host of others and its quest for infrastructure. That [infrastructure], which they jabbed former President John Dramani over.

“Infrastructure development under the Mahama-led NDC government has been characterized by massive corruption through contract overpricing, opaque and shady contracting processes, and gross abuse of the sole sourcing provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663),” the NPP said in its 2016 manifesto.

Today, in 2019, did the NPP not equally sole source the freedom of actively engaging in illegal mining to the Chinese Galamsey Queen Aisha Huang? Did they not whisk her away from our law court, where she stood trial, and deported her to China because they went cup in hand to that country for some ‘peanuts’? And, can we fault those who say the Nana Addo-led government sold Ghana to China for an amount of $2 billion?

Can we ask how much the Galamsey Queen made in mining our gold? Could we have made use of that worth of gold― no matter how small or huge its value rather than letting freely her go with it and later we going back to her country for assistance? Are we really serious?

When one ponders over these questions and remembers that the government in power has been making so much noise on its ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ mantra then you realise that there is absolutely no hope for this country of ours. Our cocoa is basically not ours. Gold? Bauxite? Timber? So, we cannot sit down as a nation and own our destiny as China did and is doing?

“We have a very good relationship with China. The main company that is helping develop the infrastructure system in Ghana is Sinohydro, it is a Chinese Company. It is the one that is going to help process our bauxite and provide about $2 billion to us. So when there are these kinds of arrangements, there are other things behind the scenes. Putting [Aisha Huang] in jail in Ghana is not going to solve your money problem. It is not going to make you happy or me happy,” the Senior Minister Yaw Osafo Marfo is reported to have said at a townhall meeting in the US.

In my estimation, the freeing of Aisha Huang is the greatest betrayal I have ever seen as a Ghanaian and an act of brazen wickedness by the Nana Addo-led government. Why do you terrorize your own people who got themselves involved in illegal mining [Galamsey] and pamper a Chinese national caught in the same act because of a deal with Sinohydro? Was it because students of international relations say such is right in their books?

Headlines in relation to the Operation Vanguard’s task had been screaming in the past years. “10 Excavators Burnt In Anti-Galamsey Operation,” Daily Guide reported on August 2, 2017 with Citinewsroom reporting on July 20, 2018 that, “41 illegal miners arrested by Operation Vanguard” among others. Clearly, government was vehemently punching the throats of the [Ghanaian] illegal miners. But, unknown to them [the miners], their tormentor was but a toothless bull dog who would kowtow to a command from China.   

Mr. Osafo Marfo unashamedly added that: “The most important thing is that we established regulations and we are protecting our environment. That is far more important than one Chinese woman who has been deported back to her country.”

But, will the NPP be protecting our environment with its deal with Sinohydro?  If so, why has the Non-Governmental Organization, Arocha Ghana, persistently told government and its Chinese counterparts to stay away from the Atewa Forest?

The Atewa Forest, we are told, provides water to over five million Ghanaians and it is said to be the headwater for three key rivers in Ghana being the Densu River [flowing into the Weija Dam as it supplies water to a huge number of residents in western part of Accra], the Ayensu River and the Birim River.

Surprisingly however, the NPP in its 2016 manifesto says: “We will comprehensively protect our water catchment areas, through the Clean Rivers Programme (CRP).”

If despite the cacophony of noises the NPP made on the Gitmo 2 saga while in opposition, it does not find anything wrong freeing Aisha Huang, then I pray unto God to let the cry of the Ghanaian galamseyer fall on Nana Addo’s government.

Like the woman in dire of a child who sleeps naked at night, Nana Addo’s government stands readily ‘naked’ before the world inviting them for a shameful bilateral intercourse so it gets some amount of money to finance promises made to Ghanaians.

Anyway, if I were a galamseyer, I would arm myself, go out there and mine and meet the Operation Vanguard team head-to-head. After all… ‘all die be die.’

The writer is a broadcast journalist with Media General [TV3/3FM]. Views expressed herein are solely his, and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organisation whatsoever.

Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: Exams on chalkboard, new school uniform; “Awurade bɛ gye steer no!”

A teacher writes exams questions on the chalkboard

I completed Ghana Institute of Journalism in 2016, receiving an award of Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. Three solid years after my completion, I have seen a number of my classmates and schoolmates getting their masters done. That’s impressive, I tell myself.

At times, I feel I should get my masters done, too. So, I have since applied to a number of foreign universities, got admissions but could not take them up because of lack of funds/scholarship. A very close friend of mine, Edward Balami, on ‘academic asylum’ in the UK, keeps sending me links to schools to apply, too. My desire sometimes to climb high the academic ladder, however, takes a downward turn like a pregnant woman’s breasts.

Frankly, it is not the lack of scholarship that kills my interest. After all, if I mean to even study here in Ghana, by hustling through the system, I can foot my bills. The reason rather stems from the thought pattern and attitude of some of our so-called leaders.

These supposed leaders, who have attended all the big universities in the world, end up with attitudes that wreck our nation. You ask yourself if those of us with a mere first degree will be able to offer constructive inputs if these leaders with ‘big’ certificates barely make any sense. Probably, these certificates are only to fatten their salaries.

Education must better the lives of the masses; anything short of this is robbery.

The other day, we heard that some basic schools across the country had their end of term examination questions written on chalkboards. Then, pictures went viral on social media in which teachers wrote questions to even cover the bare walls. I was shocked. “Are we serious!?” I quizzed.

Again to my surprise, I read a story on Starrfm.com.gh that almost quenched the flickering hope I have for our country.

“Why the dramatization? Is it because teachers were getting some money from what was being paid earlier and now they don’t get? So they are angry? Writing on the board is not a new phenomenon, how did they write their class test.  If that is the only way the poor can get education, then so be it,” the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education, Ekow Vincent Assafuah, was reported to have said.

Clearly, when you have such people at the helm of affairs, you realize that Chinua Achebe couldn’t have said it better― things are, indeed, falling apart! So, Vincent Assafuah vested with power as that of a tethered he-goat could speak this trash to teachers? He could ask teachers ‘how they wrote their class test’ when he knows that the world has moved on? Lord, have mercy!

As a trained teacher myself, we were taught at the teacher training college to ‘improvise’ when the need be. Nonetheless, it is totally balderdash to improvise in the classroom when there is a clear means of adequately getting the teacher resourced. Vincent Assafuah had told Starrfm.com.gh that it was the capitation grant that delayed― a stupid answer he gave.

If government knew the capitation grant would delay, why did it give an order to some heads of our basic schools not to take money from parents?

“It [not to take printing fee from parents] was a warning so we went according to what they said and we started examinations yesterday and we wrote on the chalkboard, according to their directive,” a teacher told Citinewsroom.com.

Now, the question is, why do you deliberately reject parents’ money as payment for printing fees when you know you cannot foot the bill of printing for the pupils? Our wobbling government does not think parents must be able to assist her give their children better education? Who does that?

When we thought that, perhaps, the national shame – justified by the Ministry of Education – would eventually find a resting place so we cool down our tempers, another ‘wahala’ popped up. They say it was the revision of the basic school curriculum. That’s fine, but what is contained in it?

When President Akufo Addo said at the State of the Nation Address to Parliament in February 2019 that the new curriculum will focus on making the “Ghanaian child confident, innovative, creative-thinking, digitally-literate, well-rounded and a patriotic citizen”, I said that will be marvelous. Today, however, if what we know as the key features of the new curriculum remain the same, then I would humbly withdraw my word.

I read the key features would be to reduce the number of learning areas from seven (7) to four (4) at the kindergarten, greater emphasis on literacy and numeracy at the Lower and Upper Primary and history of Ghana which was going to be compulsory for each child from Primary one to Primary six among others.

So, basically, nothing substantial was introduced. We used to learn history in school, they took it away and now it is back. As for literacy and numeracy, we have learnt them since Adam! Touting this so-called new curriculum, I expected we would be teaching our kids something that will make them smart, independent and forward-thinking so they could compete with the outside world.

I, personally, would have wished we introduced intensive ICT training, agriculture, financial intelligence and life skills [as we had in the days of old]. This, then, we could add the history of Ghana to.

You travel to Eastern, Bono, Ahafo, Bono East and Northern Regions and probably the whole of Ghana and there are vast lands. But, who is farming such? The school trains us to cap files under our armpits in search of jobs while we import even tomatoes from Burkina Faso. Did you ever have a school garden? Did that not inspire you to see farming as a decent occupation? If we had state farms in every region, would we not have had all the     youth loitering about aimlessly at Kwame Nkrumah Circle accepting to be farmhands? Do we forget that he who feeds you controls you?

A week or so ago, I listened to a powerful documentary on BBC Radio. Journalist Mariko Oi went to both Singapore and Japan where robots serve as teachers in the classroom and caretaker-assistants of the elderly, respectively.

Again in Singapore, Ms Oi spoke to the Chief Executive Officer of Duck Learning, Hozefa Aziz, who teaches children as young as six and seven years old coding in school.

“We are in an era now where children do not know the kind of job they will be working in 10 years from now. So, we want to equip them with the skills that are necessary for them in the future,” said Aziz to Oi.

Do we sincerely believe that 25 years from now our students of the new curriculum could match their counterparts in Singapore and elsewhere ‘boot-for-boot’? Why are we letting our children behind in the era of technology? I only thought we would learn from China as it has set 32 years ahead to vigorously train to win the World Cup in 2050. What is Ghana’s biggest goal to achieve?

All these rants aside, the last straw that broke the camel's back was the introduction of the new school uniform― a highly bogus and misplaced priority of an intoxicated government. When I told you that teachers recently wrote on the chalkboard the end of term examinations questions, Ghana Education Service [GES] ordered head teachers not to take printing fees from parents. In a sharp contrast, however, the same GES foolishly says parents will be paying for the new school uniform for their wards. This can only happen in Africa, precisely Ghana!

The new school uniform 

And, the reason for the new school uniform is just crazy. That: “The idea is for them [JHS pupils, wearing the new uniform] to start seeing themselves as secondary school students; they are in lower secondary [now],” said the Director General of GES, Prof Kwasi Opoku Amankwa.

I never knew the people referred to in Galatians 3, who were asked ‘who hath bewitched you,’ were Ghanaians until I started paying attention to the happenings at the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service.

As 2pac once said, ‘I see no changes!’ Some educated folks in our country implementing unpalatable policies deserve to have their certificates taken from them. They are more dangerous than armed robbers.

The writer is a broadcast journalist with Media General [TV3/3FM]. Views expressed herein are solely his, and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organisation whatsoever.

Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: Hello CID boss, promotion in commotion?

COP Maame Yaa Tiwaa

When Tilapia, 3news’ cartoonist, penciled a beautiful but thought-provoking art about you, I declined writing an article on the topic he captured. I felt he told the public whatever I needed to say.

It was about the press conference you had, briefing the general public on the whereabouts of the missing Takoradi girls. Tilapia captured you in his piece standing on top of two buildings saying you [the police] knew where the girls are. In the building under your right foot were the kidnappers― presumably― attempting to further obliterate their footsteps as they heard your pronouncement.

“Away,” the kidnappers said.

Whereas Tilapia’s work was/is merely an art, it was based on the reality after you ‘generously’ told the public your seeming gains into the search for the girls.

Dear Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, if I am to call a spade a spade and not a big spoon, I was overly mad hearing you utter those words. Yes! I know that if I were at that press conference I would have been behind bars by now. I would have asked you where you got trained as a police officer and whether you sincerely think you know your job and whether you think you deserve your salary after that announcement.

Which police force in the world announces they know the whereabouts of suspects/criminals when they have not arrested them? If it is done in the Americas and Europes, please, let us leave it to them as they have the state-of-the-art facilities to really effect arrest. To what extent was that announcement of good use to the public? Would it not have been ideal and prudent had you secretly dealt with the affected families by, first, briefing them on the state of their daughters and cautioning them not to open up to the media on that?

Maame Yaa, if you care to know, our police force became a cheap bowl for the world’s spit following that unwarranted announcement. In my estimation, you gave the suspects a free exeat!

Last week Friday, April 5, 2019, news broke that you, DCOP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department, had been promoted. According to a statement that was signed by the Director of Public Affairs at the Police Headquarters, DSP Shiella Kessie Abayie-Buckman, Maame Yaa Tiwaa and five others had been promoted to the rank of Commissioner of Police (COP). Others also jumped from one rank to the other.

My worry here is not about who was fit for promotion or not as some Ghanaians have expressed. My worry rather is about how the Ghana Police Service feels awarding and promoting themselves in the midst of the commotion surrounding the missing girls, the police brutalizing civilians [journalists in particular], political party vigilante groups raining terror on citizens among an avalanche of such chaos. 

Truth be told, none of the officers who got promoted would have rejoiced had any of the missing girls been their daughter or relative. But, here they were all joyous.

Had Ruth Love Quayson, 18, said to be a graduate of the Fijai SHS in Takoradi; Priscilla Blessing Bentum, 21, a student of the University of Education, Winneba, and Priscilla Mantebea Korankye, 15, a student of the Sekondi SHS; been any of our politicians’ daughters, would the police not have gone beyond mere words?

As it stands, I think our government and security forces must always commend the Nigerian government and its security forces for brokering a deal in rescuing the Chibok Girls from the hands of the trigger-happy army of Boko Haram. Our CID, together with the Bureau of National Investigations [BNI], can’t effect arrest of probably three or five kidnappers but only locate their whereabouts. That should tell you there is no room for celebration or whatsoever yet.

Dear Maame Tiwaa, if indeed you have located where the kidnappers are and you think the police are not strong enough to arrest them, what about involving our men at the Burma Camp? Did we not see soldiers displaying unimaginable acrobatics at the 62^nd Independence Parade in Tamale [in the Northern Region] recently? This is the time we need those acrobatics if indeed the kidnappers are in sight!

I feel like there is a knife in my heart whenever I remember that news report had it that there were seven police officers on duty when the kidnapper in custody, Samuel Udotek Wills, broke jail with a hacksaw. In my article on the issue dubbed “Takoradi jail break, a case of criminals in uniform” published in January 2019, I called those officers who were on duty criminals.

I was not surprised later Mr. Udotek said a CID officer assisted him in breaking jail. Maame Tiwaa, the fact that the alleged kidnapper broke jail in less than a day after he was put behind bars should tell you he is one of the criminals. I was mad when the police were pampering him that he will not talk.

I am getting heated as I write this piece and, perhaps, I need to check my blood pressure. Nonetheless, I will leave you a simple plan to really get the criminals arrested after which you can award yourselves with ranks.

Once you still have Samuel Udotek Wills in your custody, sit him down and let him tell you where really his colleagues are. If he shuns your good counsel, get a box of candle, light one, gently open his nose and drop in it the candle’s hot liquid. He will even give you information you did not ask for. But, if he still proves stubborn, get a used bicycle tire, cut a string of it, light it and drop the burning solid at his back. Please, forget about what the human right lawyers and activists would say.

Our elders say if you bite me on the butt, despite the danger of sinking your teeth into fecal matter, then if I bite you on the head, I will disregard the danger of sinking my teeth into cerebral matter!   

The writer is a broadcast journalist with Media General (TV3/3FM). Views expressed here are solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organisation.

Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @aniwaba