TALKING DRUM: What next after counting the dead?

The crash scene at Dompoase, Central Region. Photo: Culled from online

As the National Lottery Authority [NLA] announces its winning numbers, every single year, the National Road Safety Commission [NRSC] and other stakeholders in the transport industry as well announce numbers. The latter’s numbers are, however, not what could win anyone anything.

The NRSC’s numbers are actually numbers of deaths! Numbers that could cause a huge magnitude of pain than what those who lose to the NLA suffer. From the very onset of every New Year, they [NRSC] start counting 5, 10, 30, 100… and before you realize they had hit a crazy figure that you can’t believe that such figures/numbers represent human beings killed on our roads.

So, in 2019, only, Ghana as a country lost 2,284 persons to road crashes. 2018 was nothing different. We counted 2,020 deaths of humans on our roads. Actually, statistics from 1991 to 2018 indicates that 46,284 people lost their lives to road crashes. And if we were to fill the Accra Sports Stadium — which has a 40, 000 seating capacity — with these dead bodies, as many have put this in perspective, we would have the venue overflowing with a surplus of 6000 bodies. This is sickening. Isn’t it?

“The crash statistics in 2016 represent an increase of 15.6% and 6.77% in fatalities and serious injuries respectively but a reduction of 11.7% in crashes over the 2015 figures,” says www.nrsc.gov.gh. But, even when they talk about reduction in the number of fatalities or whatever, the figures are still unimaginable.

The sad narrative appears it would not be different for the New Year, 2020, if we do not put proper measures in place. Already, the country was shocked to the marrow by the news of the road crash that killed some 35 persons and injured many others at Dompoase in the Central Region.

Eyewitnesses say, the crash which occurred on January 14 had a Takoradi-bound bus with registration number GR 5704-18 colliding with a Cape Coast-bound vehicle — GN 3780-10 — after the former allegedly tried overtaking the latter.

If you look at our country called Ghana, one thing immediately comes to mind. That, had it been a human being it would have for long been admitted at the psychiatric hospital. Ghana is totally mad! No apologies.

If you should type “road accidents in Ghana” into the search engine Google, the multitude of links that will pop up would get you fuming. Many of these crashes are caused by our own faults either directly or indirectly.

Most of our roads are not dualised and they are riddled with potholes. No functioning streetlights, majority of drivers only know their steering wheels and brakes and the police to ensure sanity extorts monies from these dangerous drivers. The list of our woes in the transport industry is endless.  

But, in a country where only the so-called brilliant could read overhyped professions [law and medicine] leaving the school dropouts to find solace in [commercial] driving, what do we expect? In a country where corruption is rife at the Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority [DVLA], what do we expect? Were we not in this country when ace journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas went undercover at the DVLA and succeeded getting driving license for a mentally derailed man?

So, like the bird which goes to muddy the water and comes back to ask who did that, we continue to fool ourselves as Ghanaians. Hypocrisy is killing us. If hypocrisy were not killing us would we have expected the police not to take bribe from drivers when it is an open secret that recruitment into the Ghana Police Service is not only based on ‘Whom you know’ but how much one could pay?

Do we really expect the police wo/man on patrol duties to say no to being bribed when they themselves had to, first, bribe their way through police recruitment? They must recoup their ‘investments’ and the rippling effect is — partly — the carnages on our roads!

If I mean to continue ranting on the reasons Ghanaians are dying on our roads, I could go on without realizing I am tired. But, we must with the swiftness of a duiker propose solutions that will put a stop to these deaths. If you care to know, China in the midst of the dangerous coronavirus has given its architects and engineers the task to design and build a 1000 bed capacity hospital — to contain the disease in the Wuhan Province — within six [6] days. Yes, you heard me.

China is what one could call a country. There are plenty of people there thinking with their brains. A hospital to be built in six days? Back home, the architectural design alone would take us no less than a year as politicians will capitalize on that to tell Ghanaians why they should vote for them. I trust you have not forgotten about the parked ambulances?   

Anyway!

We must make driving an enviable profession. Driving must not be a reserve of school dropouts who would go commercial and carry our ‘cherished’ doctors and lawyers among others to their early graves. As it is done in Sweden and many other developed and civilized nations, one must reasonably suffer to gain their driving license. Drivers in such places equally value their licenses as they do their school certificates.

More so, even before we could get driving to be enviable profession, I propose we set up Lion Check Points on our roads. Here, our soldiers [the lions] must be deployed at check points on the roads especially on highways. I guess you are not telling me the police is doing that already? These soldiers of ours are not going to war anytime soon. We do not even have what it takes to go to war. In 2017 when the Ghana Army was to join their counterparts from Nigeria and Senegal on a mission to pressure Yahya Jammeh to step down, in Gambia, our men delayed for three solid days.

The ready Ghana Army poised for a possible war with the Gambian Armed Forces [GAMAF] had to rely on commercial airlines. Let us not worry ourselves getting these soldiers for regional/external operations. They must be given work to do here in Ghana.

At these check points, the soldiers arrest recalcitrant drivers and give them tasks that could get their energies drained. They could be made to climb a nearby tree and made to wipe-clean every single leaf on its branches or made to weed acres of bushes — either when arrested day or night — failure of which they [drivers] are given say 200 strong lashes. This must be streamed live on Facebook. 

Better still, we could set up Court On Wheels. This will have lawyers and judges in special vans who would drive to a Lion Check Point to arraign drivers on the spot. In a matter of one to three hours, a ruling is made. If these drivers deserve a prison term, they are driven — leaving behind their buses/vehicles with arrangement made to get passengers a new driver [if on a bus] — to appropriate prisons.   

Whereas we quickly work on dualising our roads, fixing potholes and making white elephant of streetlights work, we must make the effort to change the people’s current state of mind. A developing country like Ghana needs radical measures to streamline things.

After 10 years of Ghanaians experiencing these militaristic measures to safe roads, everybody — whether driver or passenger — will behave accordingly. Which driver would go beyond their speed limit or needlessly overtake another vehicle when they have it in mind that soldiers are dotted on the roads or they [drivers] could be instantly tried by a court on wheels?

Let us not come back here a year by this time to hear that over 2000 people lost their lives on our roads. The time for drastic action is now!

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

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

INT’L DIALOGUE: Are we watching Jammeh’s lion cubs in Gambia?

President of Gambia Adama Barrow. Photo Source: Culled from the internet

“When a handshake goes beyond the elbow,” our elders say, “it ceases to be a friendly gesture.” And so, when Gambia’s former President Yahya Jammeh— after all his atrocities in his tenure as the leader of the West African state— made a U-turn in not accepting the results of the 2016 general elections, almost everybody bared teeth at him.

Jammeh’s ‘handshake’ that he forced down our throats to believe was a friendly gesture had gone beyond our ‘elbows’. The world rallied behind his opponent, Adama Barrow, who had emerged winner in the polls.

In Abuja at the 50^th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Governments of ECOWAS held on 17^th December, 2016, The Gambia was one prominent agenda on the table for discussion. Indeed, ECOWAS was that concerned about the political situation in that country.

At the said Abuja meeting, the ECOWAS Mission in The Gambia [ECOMIG] had agreed that Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria contribute troops to pressure Mr. Jammeh to step down.

“On Thursday, 19^th January, 2017, the day President Adama Barrow was to take over, at least, a battalion each of ECOMIG Forces crossed the international boundary into Gambia from the North and South,” said Ghana’s Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul, to his Parliament.

He was briefing the House on Ghana’s participation in the ECOWAS Mission.

ECOMIG [troops] after entering Gambia had secured key and vulnerable points in Banjul and without resistance or whatsoever from the Gambian Armed Forces (GAMAF), Mr. Barrow was later sworn in as President of Gambia. As we witnessed, the ‘messiah’ hastily took the oath of office at Gambia's embassy in Dakar; Senegalese capital.

Mr. Adama Barrow being sworn into office in Senegal. Photo Source: Culled from the internet

It is only important we remind ourselves of this history. In that, almost three years now after Adama Barrow came into office, he seems to have so soon forgotten all this important historical narrative as he blatantly breaks promises he made himself. Nonetheless, some of us would painstakingly remind him of such.

Mr. President, when most Gambians marched through the streets of the capital, Banjul, and other cities amidst singing, drumming and dancing defying the ‘régime fort’ of Yahya Jammeh, they had an avalanche of hope in you to make things better. These Gambians believed that under your watch, democracy would be given its needed respect as you promised stepping down after three years in office for fresh elections to be organized.

“We have our country back,” shouted Modu Ceesay, a taxi driver who took his shirt off and waved it furiously over his head. This was captured by DW TV. “This is our country and now we have it,” he added. But really, do Gambians have their country back [now]?

Prior to Adama Barrow’s ascension to the highest office of the land, he promised his coalition of opposition parties and the people of Gambia that he will serve only three years in office as a transitional president.

He also promised to transform the economy, promote good governance and ensure freedom of expression. Though Mr. Barrow has made steady progress with regards to certain promises like the release of political prisoners and the setting up of The Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, his critics continue to express disappointment and resentment.

The Gambian President’s apparent unwillingness to relinquish power after his three years agreement with the coalition of opposition parties and for that matter a promise to his people— at large— have raised suspicions. The formation of youth movements and his own political party, National People’s Party [NPP], for instance, are indications of his unpreparedness to hand over power as promised. The feeling among most Gambians is that Adama Barrow is adopting the same cling-onto-power antics Mr. Jammeh used in his 22 years rule.

Delivering his New Year message to the people of Gambia, Mr. Barrow made it explicitly clear that it is constitutionally unconstitutional to resign after the said three years agreement. He indicated that his promise to the people of Gambia elapses on 19^th January, 2020 but he will not step down as promised.

That, he will complete his mandate as stipulated by the Gambian constitution and ensure that the needed electoral reforms and processes are comprehensively executed to ensure free and fair elections in the 2021 general elections.

Typical of African politicians, Mr. Barrow explained that the institutional failures in the country affect every fabric of Gambia’s society and, as such, needs an extensive examination which goes beyond a transitional government. Did he know of the existence of Gambia’s constitution and the country’s ‘institutional failures’ when he himself promised relinquishing power?

Clearly, the Gambian leader will contest the 2021 elections. So, really, is it wrong for Adama Barrow to complete his term of office? Constitutionally, Mr. Barrow has every right to complete such. However, morally, rationally and logically, it does not make sense for him to stay in power. He has a huge task capping his hand around the flickering hope of Gambians so no wind, ever again, quenches their quest for a taste of a true democracy where leaders abide by their own words.

If for any reason we are told that Gambians do not trust their President, then it will be the doing of Adama Barrow himself. There is nothing disgusting as spitting on the floor and picking it back with your own tongue and when this happens, people around tend to look at you with great suspicion.

President Adama Barrow has every opportunity to write his name in the history books of African politics as one of the few leaders who never compromised on his integrity. If Mr. Barrow will stop buying water cannons aimed at dispersing potential protesters and rather invest such monies in the human security of the very people he governs, Gambia will be a better place to live.  

The danger here is that the scars of Mr. Jammeh’s long reign still have fresh imprint in the hearts and minds of Gambians. The little pricking of these scars could spark fire. Can we Africans, for once, realize that politics must not be reduced to a dishonest venture where electorates are promised heaven but in the end find themselves in hell?

The steps taken by the Three-Year Jotna, a pro-democracy movement, to demand Adama Barrow to resign through organizing demonstrations and sending of petitions to the presidency, are not out of place. To say it succinctly, more of these protests are needed for Gambians to register their displeasure of the president’s actions.

Exiled former president of Gambia Yahya Jammeh. Photo Source: Culled from the internet

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies,” Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “but the silence of our friends.” If ECOWAS became friends with Gambians and through its ECOMIG helped chase Jammeh into exile, then it must equally show this friendship in calling Adama Barrow to order before things probably go worse in the near future. It will be but a useless venture to have ECOWAS going to Gambia again on a similar mission.

Here, no foreseeable justification by ECOWAS that it has no direct mandate or whatsoever to meddle in the political affairs of a member state would be tolerated. If the regional bloc is that interested in peacekeeping, then it must, in the first place, run checks on member states to help curb and prune the greenhorns of problems that could spark political upheavals.

As it stands, Africa can only be told to watch the lion cubs in Gambia that appear to have been left there by Yahya Jammeh.

The writers, Solomon Annan & Solomon Mensah, are Ghanaian journalists who have interest in the world’s politics with an unflinching eye mainly on what pertains in Africa. Views expressed here are solely theirs and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of this media organisation.

Email: internationaldialogue2@gmail.com

Twitter: @abisolo7 & @aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: One reason my School Prefect must be a Member of Parliament

 

Solomon Kyere-Boadu

A day before the district level elections which was held in December last year, I wrote on Facebook praising one man. He had stood for reelection as the Assemblyman for the Atoase Electoral Area in Sunyani in the Bono Region. Isaac Yaw Brenya, affectionately known by many as Koo Zee, was again vying for the seat he had ‘sat on’ for years.

“Koo Zee would even use his own money to purchase streetlights if government does not provide such. And, here is a man who could turn himself into a watchman at night to face thieves,” I wrote. Then, as a freelance journalist, I had done a story on him on his planting of over 12,000 trees in the Sunyani Municipality and parts of the Central Region. Do not hold your breath yet. This is but a fraction of the good works this man has done even beyond his constituency. 

So, I was certain he will be voted again into power as the Assemblyman of the Atoase Electoral Area. However, that did not happen this time round. Now that Koo Zee has been ousted from the assembly post certainly because he had outgrown that, one would think he will delve deeper into politics. Nonetheless, knowing him so well as he taught me Asante Twi at SUSEC (Sunyani Senior High School), it is unlikely he will take up such a challenge. 

In my said Facebook post, I had indicated that the good folks in our society are running away from mainstream politics leaving many bad nuts corrupting the system. I believe if we had one Koo Zee each in the 16 regions, Ghana would have been a better place by now. 

Reflecting on this, however, comes to mind yet another fantastic [young] man I know.

On January 9^th, 1988, Madam Dora Kyere Amanoa put smiles on the face of her husband, Mr. Stephen Yaw Boadu. She had been delivered of a baby boy in Berekum in the Bono Region who would later be named Solomon Kyere-Boadu. The joy that followed the announcement of the birth of the boy transcended the very home of the couple. At Kato and Biadan, the hometowns of the couple, respectively, well-wishers prayed Boadu Jr. became useful to his community and Ghana at large. And, as fate would have it, this prayer appears perfectly been answered by God.

As a true indigene who grew up in Berekum until he completed his basic and junior high schools in 2002 all at the AKAB Complex School in the area, Solomon Kyere-Boadu, also called King Solomon, gained admission to SUSEC. That was in 2003 and he completed in 2006. Here, he became my School Prefect!

For his love for humanity, he abandoned his university admission in 2007 with the hope of gaining admission into the Nursing Training College where he could directly care for people. This, however, could not materialize. The Principal at the college where he attended interview refused King Solomon admission by ‘prophetically’ insisting that his grades and demeanor portrayed that of a good leader and even future president. But, can we not have a nurse ascending to the seat of government? Well, ‘I can’t keel myself over this principal.’ 

My former School Prefect would the following year enroll at the University of Ghana where he studied for his Bachelor of Arts degree (BA) in Political Science and Linguistics. He completed in 2012. 

He studied for other academic certificates from the BT Group International’s Corporate Executive Management Training Programme in Accounting and Financial Management as well as Human Resource Management, all in 2009. 

Mr. Kyere-Boadu undertook his one year mandatory national service at the Army Headquarters at Burma Camp under the Ministry of Defence, specifically at the Directorate of Military Records, from September 2012 to August 2013. Immediately after the mandatory service, he gained employment as a Community Development Officer of the Department of Community Development under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Greater Accra Region. 

Due to his hard work and dedication to work, he was later seconded to the Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana (CLOGSAG) where he worked as a data entry officer for Hedge Pensions Trust (Fund Managers of CLOGSAG) and also assisted the public relations officer in the discharge of his duties.

In March 2015, he got an appointment as a Special Services Officer at the Cocoa Marketing Company (GH) Limited, a subsidiary of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), at the Takoradi Take-Over Center and subsequently transferred to the Kumasi Take-Over Center of the same company where he currently works. 

Mr. Boadu later on enrolled as a student of the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFCSC) where he read an MSc in Defence and International Politics (MDIP) and completed in August 2017. His research thesis looked into a very important aspect of our development and general security as a nation and was selected as one of the best five (5) theses for the academic year. He wrote on the topic, “The Role of Civil Society in the Formulation of a National Security Policy: A Case Study of Ghana”.

 

Solomon Kyere-Boadu aspires for greatness

Aside these enviable academic laurels chalked by this young man, he has as well served in many capacities of student leadership and volunteerism, winning him several recognitions and awards. 

In 2005, he became the Speaker of the Sunyani Senior High School’s Debating Club. They emerged national champions in that year. Still a student at SUSEC, Kyere-Boadu ascended the seat of the most covetous office at the students’ level as the School/Senior Prefect. His administration was the 2005/2006 academic year and he handled himself and his office so well that nobody till date could point to a single blot on his sleeves.

Many years after completing SUSEC, the young man has been at the forefront of further serving society wherever he finds himself. In 2009/2010 academic year, he was the Secretary of the Sunyani Senior High Old Students Association at the University of Ghana, Vice President of Berekum Tertiary Students Association from May 2009 to 2010 and Second Deputy Minority Whip of the University of Ghana Parliament House in the 2010/2011 academic year.

From May to August 2011, he volunteered and taught as the “Government” teacher at his alma mater – SUSEC – where he handled students of Form ones and twos. During the 2011/2012 academic year, Mr. Kyere-Boadu became the Vice President of the University of Ghana’s Students Representative Council (SRC).

It is not surprising that on 20^th April, 2012, he was awarded as the Most Composed Student Leader of the 2011/2012 academic year by the Excellent Leadership Awards Group (ExLA Group).

Mr. Kyere-Boadu believes in giving back to society and from time to time, he partners with the Keruso Foundation [Berekum] in supporting brilliant but needy students through various levels of their education. Through the Foundation, he has given scholarships to about eight (8) students of various levels in the Berekum Municipality to be able to go to school. 

He sometimes supports individuals and groups in providing exercise books and drinking water to the students and natives of the villages in the Berekum Municipality. The interesting part of this narrative is that he does these donations without taking to social media to tell the whole world that he has assisted someone.

Not long ago when I had a chat with him on such, he said to me something that really got me thinking. “Solo, I do these giving anonymously through the Keruso Foundation. And as a Christian, my values teach me not to show what I do for the needy, especially when most people take to social media on that for self-aggrandizement,” he said.

Mr. Solomon Kyere-Boadu believes ardently in the power of the youth as the engine of growth to bring the kind of change we want in the country, therefore, encourages them to be the best that they can be in whichever capacity they find themselves. 

He who has ever read my opinion pieces on Ghana’s political sphere would attest that I am very critical on most of our greedy politicians. I do not hate their profession but how many of them have those they serve at heart? So, when today you read from me introducing to you someone I think should be not just in mainstream politics but must stand to be elected as a Member of Parliament for Berekum East, then it tells you that indeed this person has something to offer Ghanaians at large. 

The man I have personally known for 17 years undoubtedly hopes to rise to the highest level of leadership where he can affect not only the lives of Ghanaians but the world. 

Yesterday, January 9, 2020, was his birthday. Silver and gold I have not. What I rather have is to spur him for greatness. I want to see and hear him loudly proclaim that he is contesting the seat of the Berekum East Constituency to serve the people of Berekum and Ghana as a whole.

I think that I need not tell you my one reason why I want Mr. Solomon Kyere-Boadu become a Member of Parliament, right? Reading through his profile, what readily comes to mind is his selfless leadership— that which Ghana really needs! 

I attended Berekum College of Education [in Berekum] and as a native of the area, I want to see Berekum’s long lost accolade The Golden City restored. And, I also want to see Members of Parliament enacting proper laws and promoting good course in this country so Ghanaians do not get to cross the Mediterranean for greener pastures. 

Mr. Kyere-Boadu, like Koo Zee my Asante Twi teacher, is one of the patriots that can get us to our dreamland!

The writer, Solomon Mensah, 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

TALKING DRUM: Of grounded ambulances, a bewitched president & the 37 masquerades

Grounded ambulances at the forecourt of Parliament/Sate House

August 31^st, 2019 marked my fourth year since I relocated from Spintex to somewhere in the Ga South Municipality in the Greater Accra Region. For these past years, I have observed one worrying trend on the Mallam-Odorkor Highway and George Walker Bush Highway [also known as the N1].

Almost every day, I see, at least, two taxis with their drivers crazily honking at others. Drivers of these taxis are themselves not crazy. They honk at their fellow drivers because at that material moment, their cars are not mere vehicles for carrying ‘ordinary’ passengers. They are ambulances!

At the back seats of these taxis, always stretching my neck to see when possible, is a pregnant woman— ostensibly in labor— sandwiched by two men,. Then, there would be another person at the front seat

The front-seat-sitting passenger’s role is to stretch his/her hand signaling other drivers to give way. The saddest part of the narrative is that, usually, such taxi-turned-ambulances honk in vain. They meet stagnant vehicular traffic that makes me cry and cringe within.

Yet, when they gradually make it to hospitals such as Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the taxi-tuned-ambulance is greeted with an inscription at the health facilities’ entrances— “Taxis Are Not Allowed!” Is this not sickening?

Having narrated all the above, what makes the ambulance debate in our country utterly sickening is the reason behind the Nana Akufo Addo-led government grounding 96 out of the 275 ambulances procured for all the constituencies in the country.

In a Neat FM interview, Minister for Special Development Initiative, Mavis Hawa Koomson, fully-filled with arrogance and power like that of a tethered he-goat, spewed some indescribable words in her analysis on these ambulances that have become an albatross on our necks.

When I saw a YouTube link of the said interview, I quickly downloaded it and watched the whole of the 19 minute 5 second long video. Although the link was shared by – I think – Peace FM’s Facebook account, I could not believe it at first.

Madam Koomson’s comments were so harsh, cruel and insensitive that I doubted she could have said that. Whoever has listened to the said tape would attest that the comments do not match our minister’s age as a grownup adult.

“[…] I know people are dying. But, did people start dying today?” Mavis Hawa Koomson proudly said. If these words were to be bottled, I am over confidently certain that its pungent smell could kill an elephant when sprayed on it.

You have ambulances parked at the forecourt of the Parliament House while some of our pregnant women and other patients alike go through the hell of being transported in taxis to hospitals and is this the best response you could give?

Then, when on Friday, December 13, 2019, President Akufo Addo had an encounter with the media, it came to light that he had ordered Madam Hawa not to distribute the ambulances.

For the fear of being tagged a pioneer in favoritism, Nana Akufo Addo said his government would rather wait for the other remaining ambulances to be shipped down to Ghana before their overall distribution. I must say that his government’s reason is somewhat understandable. If we take a look at the brouhaha that surrounded the Finance Ministry’s ‘genuine error’ in the omission of Volta roads from the 2020 budget, for instance, one is tempted to side with the reason given for grounding the 96 ambulances.

Nonetheless, to a large extent, it does not in any way make sense to look on unconcerned while women in labor and the sick – in both the cities and villages – struggle for taxis and tricycles as ambulances just because you [the president] want to be liked by all. Is that how to govern a developing country?

Mr. President, as you are so determined to be liked by all, I guess you are in a wrong position as the country’s leader. To be liked by all, I think you need to rather venture into the sale of ice-creams!

On three consecutive Sundays now, I would see on my way to work some young men dressed as masquerades. They stand on the roads just by the 37 Military Hospital, dance and solicit for alms. Here, I have rather observed that these masquerades end up not getting anything from drivers who ply the roads there and the reason is simple.

These 37 [Military Hospital] masquerades instead of dancing to entertain a few of the drivers at a time to catch their attention properly, rather try pleasing every driver whose car waits in traffic. And, this is exactly the failed strategy our president hinges his hopes on that at the end of the day, all the 29 million or so Ghanaians would call him Father Christmas.

Looking at the caliber of person that we saw in the then presidential candidate, Akufo Addo, and what he has ‘grown into’ now in relation with his decisions as the president of the country, I cannot but believe those who claim that he has been bewitched.

I certainly believe that, perhaps, there is an enchantment at the Jubilee House that blinds its occupants. When they leave power – as John Mahama did – they regain their consciousness.

Today, Mr. Mahama pleads with Ghanaians to give him another chance because he has realized his mistakes. And, I can bet with my lens that Nana Akufo Addo will say same should he lose the 2020 elections.

It is 2:14am on Thursday as I write this piece. I need to now go to bed as work awaits me early in the morning. I can’t kill myself. However, let me just draw your attention – if you did not know – that in most of the developed countries including Sweden and America, there are ambulances for animals. If you critically study how pets/animals are treated so well elsewhere, one is tempted to say that most Ghanaians would never have this level of pet-treatment in their own country, considering how successive governments here think and play politics with our healthcare.

I am getting so much annoyed reflecting on this and I do not want to continue spewing fire. If you have time, please listen to the song titled 52 Ambulances by Knii Lante featuring Blakk Rasta. It sums up my thoughts.

The writer. Solomon Mensah, 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