TALKING DRUM: Ama Ata Aidoo must apologise to University of Ghana!

                                                                                                    

Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo on CEGENSA's cover

"Writers don’t give prescriptions. They give headaches,” Chinua Achebe, the great literary wizard of all time, once said.

It was not until last Saturday, September 3, 2016, that the true meaning of Achebe’s assertion hit me like mangoes hitting a wall in a torrential storm.

On that Saturday, the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA) of the University of Ghana had gathered for an awards night. The awards night would see an Ama Ata Aidoo Short Story Competition held as part of CEGENSA’s 10^th anniversary celebration.

However, like the story of the boy who angrily took away his football after a misunderstanding on the pitch, Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo did not hesitate walking out of the ceremony with her ‘ball’ too.

Yes! News reports suggested she was pissed off. Prof. Aidoo’s beef was simple but it was, enough, a headache to whoever read the story. 

The organisers of the Ama Ata Aidoo Short Story Competition had spelt her name on both the banner and programme cover as “Ama Atta Aidoo” instead of “Ama Ata Aidoo.”

This, the celebrated Ghanaian Author’s daughter briefly explained on social media what happened and later on justified the walk-away.

“My mother walked out of a CEGENSA event today meant to celebrate her and winners of a short story competition. 

“Both banner and programme cover had her name as ‘Ama Atta Aidoo’ and not ‘Ama Ata Aidoo,’ which is the correct spelling of her name,” wrote Kinna Kintu.

I bear Ama Ata Aidoo no grudge for getting worried over her name being spelt wrongly. An interesting tale is told of a man who went for treatment at the then Sunyani Municipal Hospital.

When (Opanin) Kwasi Nnuro got to the hospital that very day, the patients on admission had been served porridge. Out-patients were excluded of this breakfast and the man had taken notice of the apparent segregation. Then, after consulting the doctor he would be told to go for his medicine.

“Nnuro Kwasi!” called a nurse.

Dead silence.

“Nnuro Kwasi!”

There was yet a dead silence. Then, the patient sitting next to him asked; are you not the one the nurse is calling?

“My name is Kwasi Nnuro [and] not Nnuro Kwasi,” he replied. “When they were sharing their porridge did they invite me? Why, then, the medicine?”

Certainly, getting one’s name pronounced/spelt right is as important as anything else. Failure to get this done, we see a man shivering to death refusing to take his medicine or an Author walking out of a ceremony meant to honour her and some budding writers. 

According to 3news.com, CEGENSA said the short story competition was in honour of Ama Ata Aidoo for her multiple roles as a pan-African feminist, an author, poet, playwright and academic as well as her contribution to Africa’s renaissance.

So, was Ama Ata Aidoo walking out of the ceremony because a “t” had been added to her “Ata” justifiable? On at least three populated WhatsApp platforms that I am on and on Facebook, people fiercely shared their views. For most people, she did the right thing. 

In the subsequent lines, I give you reasons why Ama Ata Aidoo must apologise to the CEGENSA and the University of Ghana as a whole.

Many were those who equated CEGENSA’s “Atta” as a show of mediocrity. Their argument was that university students could have done better by doing due diligence. 

For a friend like Fred Darko Effah, getting the name spelt wrongly in one’s documents at the embassy amounts to being denied a visa. All are genuine concerns and I must admit to it.

However, inasmuch as I cannot independently defend the students, if we are to go by what we all read, then I see no need tagging CEGENSA’s possible mistake as being a subject of mediocrity. 

If the so called mediocre-students were reasonable enough to have sat down to choose Ama Ata Aidoo to honour her, then, I strongly think they don’t deserve our bashing that much. We should not act as holy apostles of due diligence. Yes, at times we commit mistakes before realizing we have.

I have on a number of occasions screenshot headlines and stories riddled with mistakes on some news websites including the BBC, Myjoyonline and my own 3news.com among others. As well, friends have pointed out to me one or two mistakes in my writeups.

Yes, mistakes do happen. CEGENSA’s blunder could have been a sheer mistake which was/is pardonable.

When Ama Ata Aidoo walked out of the ceremony, she walked out with the courage that the budding writers need to confront societal issues. 

Ama Ata Aidoo could have taught the students their lesson the hard way. She could have told them to postpone the ceremony to get her name right on the next occasion. 

It could have also been the ideal ground for her to register her displeasure of her name being spelt wrongly and take the opportunity to advice the young writers to pay attention to what they write.

It is rather unfortunate Ama Ata Aidoo failed to recognize these only for her daughter to lament on social media.

It will, therefore, not be out of place Ama Ata Aidoo, first, deeming it important CEGENSA’s award named in her honour and apologise to them for her walk-out. 

Such a walk-out discourages the youth from honouring their heroes for the fear of possibly stepping on their toes. This does not mean condoning the youth’s wrong. 

Our elders say, it takes a village to raise a child and our elders must have the heart to raise these children.

Talking Drum is published on www.3news.com on Fridays.

The writer is a broadcast journalist with 3FM 92.7. Views expressed here solely remain his opinion and not that of his media organization.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: Still! Mr. Moderator ‘Biegya!’

Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Martey

“Yes…! What don’t you understand?”

The very patient teacher would ask the back-benchers for clarification on what they say they didn’t understand. For some of us, just the mere topic “Mathematics” written on the board was enough a sleeping tablet. 

So, this teacher, Reverend Nyame Duodoo, had no problem in the hands of the sleeping students. 

Indeed, Rev. Duodoo was patient. Not even the annoying response of “the whole show” from a student- to mean that he/she did not understand everything taught- pissed him off. He had heard we called him Ja Rule because whenever it was time for his class, he will show up with his file capped under his armpit. He was “Always on Time.” Yet, he was not perturbed. 

But that afternoon at the 3Arts3 classroom at the then Sunyani Secondary School, Rev. Duodoo was worried. Some students had seen him riding a bicycle on campus and the ‘news’ had gone viral. For these okra[o]-mouth-students, he was not expected to be in the bracket of bicycle riders.

Silly, it sounds? Unfortunately, our larger society turns to make similar remarks about some group of people we think are too holy to comment on national politics. Indeed, so men who propagate the gospel are seen as such.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the back and forth of the news of the controversial preacher, Bishop Obinim and the infamous Montie 3 got drowned in the wake of the outgoing Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana’s $100, 000 bribe claim.

Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Martey on Tuesday, August 30, 2016 made a claim that some politicians attempted to bribe him with an amount of $100, 000 in order to tame.

“Politicians had tried all means to muzzle me, to get me but they can’t, they come with bribes, fat envelopes, $100,000.

“[They also come with] the promises that if you keep quiet, we will give you a house at Trasacco with swimming pool… We will give you Four Wheel drive. But you know what; these people were lucky that I do not have big dogs in my house else I would have released the dogs for them to bite them.”

Could Prof. Martey’s claim be true? Well, this has been one question that has been tossed like a dice on Ghanaian media’s ludu and I would not want to base my argument on it. After all, you and I were not there. 

My concern has to do with some people who say Prof. Martey is a minister of God and should be remained as such without talking politics. So, what is politics and who can talk politics?

In an article on 3news.com dated August 31, 2016 and titled “Rev Martey ‘can now wear NPP jersey,’” General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, is reported to have asked Prof. Martey to go public with his affiliation with the opposition New Patriotic Party.

“He can wear the NPP shirt and walk around, and possibly, the NPP can choose him as the running mate or the flagbearer…that will help him instead of hiding behind the Presbyterian Church to make unguarded comments.”

In our country called Ghana, many are those who have pretended and still pretending deaf and dumb for fear of commenting on political issues in other not to be tagged as an NPP or NDC.

But if men of God have voter’s card and they are equally legally allowed to vote, then, why do we attack them when they criticize policies or ideas of a sitting government or the opposition respectively?

Prof. Martey, we know, has been very critical with the sitting government but does it in anyway make him an NPP?

Who would have thought that former Supper Morning Show host of Joy FM, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, was/is an NPP member?

In the Election 2012, Mr. Nkrumah was the lead anchor of his station’s election coverage and he projected victory for the NDC. This, his own party members [who perhaps never knew he was with them] would chase Joy FM’s reporters in town threatening to beat them up.

Sad enough, we often draw conclusions of people who criticize us as being our enemies. If General Mosquito and the NDC in general prefer Ghanaians keep quiet and watch things unfold in wait of another election period, they should tell us.

I think that it was totally below the belt General Mosquito adding that: “If he [Prof. Martey] wears the NPP jersey openly, we can then attack him when he make political comments but if he wants to be neutral, then he should not talk about political issues.”

According to the White House, President Obama reads 10 letters from Americans across the country every night. In one of his response to a young lady, who had sent her letter via Facebook Messenger, Obama encouraged her.

“As you continue to advance your education, find your voice and seek out opportunities to make the world a better place. I encourage you to speak up on the issues that matter to you,” wrote the world’s most powerful man to Kathleen.

Indeed, Prof. Martey and men who seek the good of Ghana will and must continue to speak on issues that matter to them.

While you choose to do so, in Ghana, remember the attacks will definitely come as they are tearing the man of God to shreds. But relax and take a cue from Mahatma Gandhi.

He once opined: “Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.”

The writer is a broadcast journalist with 3FM. Views expressed here solely remains his opinion and not that of his media organization.

Email: nehusthan4yahoo.com

Twitter:@Aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: Why the GJA must go beyond organizing awards!

The GJA is offering this car to the overall winner

Once making a walk pass the premises of the Ghana International Press Center (GiPC) together with a friend, we spotted something spectacular.

At the forecourt of the GiPC sat two cars on two separate wooden platforms. Curious to know why such cars would be showcased at the premises occupied by the Ghana Journalists Association, we drew near.

On the cars were written: “Journalist of the Year 2015,” and “GJA Best Financial Reporter of the Year 2015” respectively.

For many critics of the GJA Awards, this has been one thing that is long overdue. Indeed, such critics see no reasoning in giving journalists laptops and television sets as their take home prizes.

In making their argument cogent, they would cite the example of most beauty pageants giving out cars and other valuables to winners. So, for these critics, a journalist who would have to trek the mountains and the hinterlands being given a car is not only important but needful. 

I must therefore, first, commend the sponsors of both cars that will go to lucky persons who will win the GJA journalist of the year, and the GJA Best Financial Reporter of the Year awards. More so, the Ghana Journalists Association also needs to be commended for, finally, listening to the voice of the people.

This goes to the journalist who excelled in financial reporting

Tonight, media practitioners, friends of the media and Ghanaians at large will either be at the Banquet Hall of the State House or sit at home to watch the GJA awards unfold.   

The GJA Awards, though colourful, I think, needs massive improvement this time round. I look forward to seeing the GJA showing Ghanaians the [three] finalists selected for every category of the awards. As well, the works of such journalists (be it TV, radio, print or online) must be projected on a screen for some few minutes for Ghanaians to appreciate it rather than merely announcing the winners.

After all, is the night not to celebrate journalists who forfeit their leisure and pleasure to work seven days a week? Often, prolong musical performances and speeches take the shine of the awards. 

In America, the coveted Pulitzer Prize Awards for journalists is one award scheme a journalist would not miss. 

Indeed, aside the Pulitzer being open about how its judges select the winners for all the categories of the awards, it as well offers the outside world the opportunity to freely access the works of all the award-winning journalists. 

Then a freelancer, I once wrote on Radio Ghana’s News Commentary suggesting to the GJA the shining example of the Pulitzer Prize. But it fell on deaf ears. 

Here in Ghana, if one needs to make reference to say the story that saw the Journalist of the Year 2014 being crowned winner, such a person would have to personally contact the journalist. It is but shameful that the GJA cannot boast of a website of international repute not to talk of compiling the works of journalists.

But wait! This is just a tip of the iceberg of GJA’s woes. For many of its members, it practically does nothing aside organizing annual awards. The GJA is likened to a newspaper vendor in Sunyani with a lost direction. 

In 2002 when I had successfully convinced my parents that I needed to wear lens, I was taken to the then Sunyani Municipal Eye Clinic.

At the wait-room together with other patients to see Dr. Asuboteng, I shivered. I was told by friends that one cannot acquire a lens without being operated upon. I just feared that notion.

It was, however, not long after I had sat at the cemetery-like wait-room that the place resounded with laughter relieving me of my fears. Why?

A newspaper vendor had stormed the eye clinic pitching his newspapers to patients of various degrees of eye conditions. Sitting at my far right, a man of about 45 years old buried his chin in his left palm. He had the right eye plastered.

“Yes Graphic, Millor [he meant The Mirror],” the young man called on his prospective customers to purchase his newspapers.

For close to three minutes the newspaper vendor walked through the eye clinic eagerly announcing his presence. Then, the one-eye man gently called him.

“So when you look through all these patients,” he said to the vendor pointing his hand to the patients, “do you in your wisdom think we have eyes to read your papers when we buy them?”

What ensued was what seemed like an unending laughter. 

The Ghana Journalists Association, like that newspaper vendor, has content to sell. What has, however, become the challenge to the GJA is the targeting and focusing on the very people for whose interest it represents.

Aside the annual awards, the GJA must standby its members but not undeservedly. When most Ghanaian journalists dropped tears following the passing away of Ghanaian Times’ Samuel Nuamah, I was saddened how the GJA President, Dr. Affail Monney, handled matters. In his interview with the media on the account that led to the Presidential Press Corps’ accident, I think he sounded more a spokesperson of the ruling government than a ‘caretaker’ of Ghana’s journalists. 

In a sharp contrast to the above, I think it was undeservedly appalling the GJA’s ‘excitement’ over the pardoning of the Montie 3 by President Mahama. Free speech does not mean the journalist can trade insults. So, the Montie 3 needed no sympathy from the GJA. What do you think?

Aside the annual awards, the GJA must be reminded that most of its people are either wallowing in poverty or being exploited by some unscrupulous media owners. Indeed, many are journalists who seem to have ordained poverty as their God just that they cannot publish their own predicaments as they do for others.

It will be prudent that the GJA in consultation with appropriate offices draft a pay structure for media owners. Here, a red line is drawn such that a journalist cannot be paid less than a stipulated amount depending on the journalist’s qualification. 

Aside the annual awards, the GJA must be able to get every media house to own what I refer to as ‘newsroom wardrobe.’ In this wardrobe are reporters’ working gear including helmets, bullet proof vests among others.

Whereas the newsroom wardrobe may sound laughable, I think it is high time we as journalists realized that we are not supper humans from people who suffer injuries during protests and demonstrations.

Not too long ago, I listened to a Joy FM reporter who narrated how he narrowly escaped being hit by a bullet somewhere at Kasoa during a demonstration. If we are to give a platform for journalists to share such moments they nearly kissed death, we will perhaps need a whole month to chronicle such accounts.

Elsewhere in the Whiteman’s land, these protective gears for journalists are considered paramount. Election 2016 is just around the corner and, again, journalists will dare reporting from hotspots without taking into consideration their own safety.

I am not in any way demeaning the office or rubbishing the awards of the GJA. I look forward to competing in the near future. What I am trying to drum home is simple; that the Ghanaian journalists’ happiness must not be a fleeting-funfair of annual jamboree. 

The GJA must wake up for the sleep that last from one market day to the other becomes death. Congratulations to the GJA Journalist of the Year 2015!

The writer is a broadcast journalist with 3FM 92.7. Views expressed here solely remain his opinion and not that of his media organization. Talking Drum is published on 3news.com

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba