TALKING DRUM: Kasoa-Banda gunshots, how they kill for votes!

 

Member of Parliament, Hawa Koomson

When my brother told me that he had received his voting cards (referred to in Ghana as ballot papers), I expressed shock. “They sent you the cards? Really?” I enquired, just for emphasis sake.

He took pictures of the voting cards– three in all– and sent to me via WhatsApp. “This is Sweden. Here, there is law and order and the systems work,” he said.

I had told him how surprised I was hearing that ballot papers were sent to them to be kept in their rooms for days before the very day of the elections. In his case, he kept them in his room for two solid weeks.

“Massa, I swear that if we do this in Ghana there will be no human being living in the country the day after citizens received these papers. The NDC and NPP will map their opponents’ zones and burn them to ashes at dawn,” I said rather sadly.

We all laughed it off. But that is the stark reality in our country Ghana. 

Reading more on the Swedish electoral process, I chanced on an article on www.thelocal.se dubbed, “How to vote in the 2018 Swedish election”. Portions of the article confirmed what I was told of the ballot papers. That, “In the weeks leading up to the election, voting cards are sent out to all eligible voters from the Election Authority, also known as Valmyndigheten. These are sent to the address you registered with Skatteverket (tax agency). 

A Swede walks to vote.

 “This letter [containing the cards] will also include information about the location and opening time of your nearest polling station on election day. These are municipal buildings, usually schools or libraries. In some locations, it's possible to cast your vote in advance, starting 18 days before the day of the election; if you do this, you can use any advance polling station, but if you vote on the day, you must go to your designated location.”

 

Swedes cast their votes. Photo: ScanPix

When I posted about this on my Facebook wall, I had friends living in other civilized countries sharing the same account on their respective elections. It dawned on me that Ghana and her counterparts in Africa are – arguably– the ones still glued to their backward approach to development. 

Sad enough, it appears we are unfazed as a country as politicians and their supporters continue to make elections on the continent a bitter pill forced down the throats of citizens. Last week, news was rife when a 28-year old man got killed at Banda Ahenkro in the Bono Region. He was not an armed robber neither was he caught on top of someone’s wife.

Silas Wulochamey suffered his gruesome death allegedly in the hands of the supporters of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). Media reports suggested that supporters of the NPP and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) engaged in a brawl over the eligibility of Mr. Wulochamey to register at Banda Ahenkro for the ongoing voter card registration exercise.

The altercation led to the stabbing of the young man whom we are told hailed from Banda Ahenkro. Even if he had no family ties in Banda Ahenkro or whatsoever, was it not totally senseless to kill him in his attempt to register there? Here was a graduate from the Akim Oda Teacher Training College killed in cold blood. Yes! Someone’s son who could have supported his family and friends to better their lives if he were given the chance to live and practice as a trained teacher. 

It is worthy to note that in an interview on Onua FM’s midday news, after the incident, the Bono Regional Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Police Service, Augustine Kingsley Oppong said that about three of his officers who went to ensure law and order prevailed in the Banda incident also sustained gunshot wounds. That was how grim the situation was!

Just as we could let the dust settle on Silas Wulochamey’s death, Ghanaians and the rest of the world further had to battle another infamous incident. This time, the violent act of indiscriminately firing gunshots into the air was led by the Member of Parliament of the Awutu Senya East of the Central Region, Hawa Koomson. The MP also doubles as the Minister of Special Development Initiatives. 

Madam Koomson’s day of shame was on Monday, July 20, 2020, at the Step to Christ registration centre at Kasoa. If guns are easily pulled at a mere voters’ ID card registration centres by trigger-happy political lunatics and party supporters are, as well, so senseless to stab their fellow human to death, then what happens come December 7 when the country goes to the polls?

About seven (7) months ago, I asked a friend who had returned to Ghana from South Korea just one question when I bumped into him at church. 

“You have been to a developed country and now you are back here in Ghana. What do you think we must do to be called a developed country too?” I threw the question at him.

Stirring into my face for about 30 seconds, he heaved a sigh and said, “Unless we kill all these people (referring to Ghana’s adult population) with polluted minds and let the kids take over the country with a fresh mindset. Though I’m not saying that’s what Korea did.” 

Whereas my friend, to an extent, was right we could develop Ghana if we can eliminate the adult populace, I believe that rather we should just let those who call themselves the “educated” Ghanaians step aside from public leadership. They are the very people destroying the country. 

The truth is if the so-called illiterates in society perpetrate these atrocities seen in politics we could, in a worst case scenario, find a room in our hearts to pardon them. We will agree if they plead they were not exposed to best practices in politics elsewhere before their funfair of stupidity. But, when an MP who doubles as a minister and her folks who have travelled the world instigate their followers to commit heinous crimes because they want votes, there must be no mercy for them before the law. 

This, both the NPP and NDC are guilty. When in government and they commit these atrocities, they find a way to justify their actions and the opposition courts the public to mount pressure and the same situation continues when we change governments. 

If a country like Sweden occupied by humans as those in Ghana could hold super peaceful elections without most people of the world even realizing they held an election, why can’t we do same in Ghana? Why can’t we as a people allow our brains to function for just a second? Why do we sit down for a few foolish politicians take the country to ransom that human beings are killed with impunity just because they want to win an election? And, the most nauseating thing is that if, indeed, these politicians say they only want to serve their populace by soliciting for their votes then why kill and terrorize the very people they will serve?

I used to blame Michael Jackson for changing the colour of his skin. Then, I completed journalism school, started following Ghana and Africa's politics proper and realised that judgment must be left solely in the hands of God.

If you consider the constant showcasing of stupidity by some of our politicians, one tends to agree with scientists' classification of human beings as animals. The reality is that such animals abound in Ghana and if there were a wall built around our country, we could pass for the world's biggest zoo!

Though cases of violence recorded at the registration centres are isolated, honestly, I do not see the reason why I should go to a potential death zone of a voter ID card registration centre to register. After all, without any scientific data, I can boldly say that 90% of people who have registered to vote will do so either to maintain President Akufo Addo and his NPP or bring back into government John Dramani Mahama and his NDC. 

That is the sad truth and I am not willing to commit such a crime of electing any of these political chameleons who will promise to buy you a beautiful bowl only to return from the market with a chamber pot.

However, in case I change my mind and register for the voter’s card, I will gladly vote for Akua Donkor and her Ghana Freedom Party. A friend named Fatau Mohammed once gave me a reason why he will vote for Madam Donkor and I think he makes sense. He says, with Akua Donkor’s government there will be no disappointments but only surprises. 

In that, many believe her to be a political joker so if she wins power and underperforms you know you did not vote for her to positively change our narrative as a country. Nonetheless, if she pulls magic and transforms the country’s fortunes then you know she has surprised you big time.

If we, indeed, value Ghana and want the best for the country then we must all stop acting like jokers. The Ghanaian media must, as well, desist from trumpeting peace campaigns and musicians must do same by desisting from composing songs on such. If after 60 years of independence we have not realised the reason we exist as a people then we must equally grab a chilled bottle of Coke and popcorn and read Edward N. Luttwak’s paper ‘Give War a Chance.’

Countries who listened to Luttwak have learnt their lessons, the hard way, and today they are successfully progressing. Here, when we heed to Luttwak’s call, we will look on while the NDC and NPP fight till their energy drains.

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

Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @aniwaba

Youtube: @aniwaba

INT’L DIALOGUE: Dying in Lebanon, will Ghana seek justice for Tay?

The deceased, 23-year old Faustina Tay. Photo Credit: Aljazeera

“Umuofia kwenu,” yelled Ogbuefi Ezuego the powerful orator in Chinua Achebe’s legendary novel Things Fall Apart. It was the fifth time the old man had bellowed and the crowd that had gathered at the market-place thunderously responded ‘Yaa!’

The crowd of men, numbering in their thousands, had gathered after they had heard at dawn the gong of the town-crier resounding. The message was simple. That, they ought to meet immediately after the sun had smiled away the grim looks of the dawn.

“Those sons [referring to the people of Mbaino— a nearby community] of wild animals have dared to murder a daughter of Umuofia,” said Ezuego to the teeming crowd.

Chinua Achebe says in that fictionary tale that Ezuego “threw his head down and gnashed his teeth, and allowed a murmur of suppressed anger to sweep the crowd. When he began again, the anger on his face was gone and in its place a sort of smile hovered, more terrible and more sinister than the anger.”

When Ogbuefi Ezuego was done telling the men gathered that their daughter had been gruesomely murdered by miscreants in Mbaino, the men longed for blood as though water to quench their thirst.

So was how the literary wizard captured the confrontation between Umuofia and Mbaino. But, could same be said of the response by Ghana when Aljazeera reported on April 7, 2020, that its daughter— 23-year-old Faustina Tay— had been ‘found dead’ at the basement of the apartment she lived in and served as a maid in Lebanon?

A mysterious death it was!

The said story dubbed “The desperate final days of a domestic worker in Lebanon” says, Ms. Tay had sent Canada-based activist group, This Is Lebanon, messages of the abuse she suffered in the house.

Considering the horrific nature of her death, it should have been enough trigger to spark an uproar in the camp of the cult of human rights groups in Ghana if not among Ghanaians proper. But, hey, there have been an absolute silence on the front of these human rights activists who would ordinarily make ‘noise’ over trivial issues.

Well, perhaps, they are all fighting Covid-19! In Ghana, the news of Faustina Tay’s death struggled to make headlines as only a handful of media outlets carried it on their portals. Similarly, very few people posted or commented on it on social media. It was/is not surprising that the hashtag #JusticeForTay did not fly. Had it been the video of a national security minister modeling in pyjamas for a supposed ‘side-chick,’ traditional media, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook would have had an overflow of commentaries. This is Ghana, a country where we major in the minor and the reverse is true.

Nonetheless, no matter how few the people who are adding their voices in seeking justice for Faustina Tay, the fight for her and many others in Lebanon and other gulf countries must constantly be echoed.

For migration expert, MacDonald K.B. Simpson, as far as poverty continues to torment many in Africa, we will keep hearing and seeing these sort of painful deaths.

“The main culprit [here] is poverty and so to speak, drives people to leave home not at their will. Also, the demand for cheap domestic labour in that part of the world is another cause. The demand for house helps, baby sitters, cleaners and so on is in high demand in the Gulf States and Africa is a fertile ground for such domestic workers,” he said to International Dialogue in email correspondence.

Mr. Simpson says that a single mother with very little education in Ghana who is struggling to make ends meet would be tempted by a ₵1,000 monthly remuneration plus free accommodation in Kuwait, Qatar or Lebanon and do whatever it takes to take that offer.

On Saturday, April 11, 2020, when International Dialogue spoke to a Ghanaian lady living in Lebanon, she echoed same sentiments. This lady— who spoke on condition of anonymity— though educated and enlightened says she could not resist the temptation of being promised [while in Ghana] a monthly salary of ₵1,000 as a maid in Lebanon.

Barbara [not her real name] says she is fortunate to have had a couple [her employers] who somewhat treat her well with the exception that she works 17-19 hours a day with basically no rest. That, there are hundreds of her fellows in Lebanon who are experiencing hell at first hand.

“Most Ghanaian women and other maids here are being severely beaten, intentionally starved for no apparent reason and sexually molested among others,” she said.

MacDonald K.B. Simpson says, “Faustina’s death should be blamed not on her employers alone but the process that sent her there and the poverty she had ran away from.”

Here, the current lockdown in parts of Ghana has exposed the deep divide between the rich and the poor in the West African state. Successive governments have turned a blind eye on this without creatively thinking to uplift the masses from hardship. Even if Ghana had state farms, in of its 16 regions, and employed those Ghanaians who go to serve as maids elsewhere, they would have lived dignified and meaningful lives.   

“On one of my trips back to Ghana a couple of years ago, I met two young ladies on a plane who told me they were domestic maids in Erbil, the capital city of Kurdistan, and that they were going to Ghana for a one  month holiday. Kurdistan! I had never thought Ghanaian women would work there. I was surprised not at the country they were coming from but the story they had told me,” says MacDonald K.B. Simpson.

The hard truth is, we really do not value human lives as Ghanaians and so it hardly crosses our mind to think of how to protect our people abroad. In countries like America, once you are considered a national your safety to the nation is a topmost priority.

What concrete action did we take as a people after Yahya Jammeh and his soldiers freely killed 44 Ghanaians in 2005?

Somewhere last year, at the Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, Lieutenant Malick Jatta and Corporal Omar A. Jallow said that the Ghanaians were executed by the “Junglers” squad on the orders of Mr. Jammeh.

A Ranking Member of Ghana’s Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, after the Jallow confession said at the floor of parliament that government must reopen probe into the gruesome killings. This, we are yet to know whether the probe has been reopened.

However, if it is lack of commitment on the part of government, the Ghanaian media should not be slacking too. Rather, it should be fronting campaigns to get justice for such slain and abused fellows.

What the Ghanaian media must know is that it is shameful to report on an issue once and go to sleep. After the media reported on the killing of investigative journalist Ahmed Suale, it went to bed only to come back to it on the occasion of his one year anniversary. Currently, there is no news on the journalist. We will only see and hear the media at next year’s anniversary when it will be calling the police and the Ghana Journalists Association among others on ‘how far’ the investigations have gone. Can we be serious a little?

Today, it is Faustina Tay and we must not, yet again, remain silent! This is the right time for the militant feminists— the so called gender activists— to rise and fight for their own.

These gender activists must join some of us in telling the Lebanese government to abolish the Kafala [sponsorship] system. Under this system, a migrant domestic worker’s legal status is solely in the hands of their employers.

The sad reality is that, one could easily become illegal migrant should the employer terminate their contract. And the most worrying part of this law is where these employers are free to seize the domestic workers’ passports. Who does such a thing in this modern era?

The African Union must rise and engage the Lebanese government over these abuses against domestic workers as it is not only Ghanaians suffering this fate.

“On Tuesday, November 5, the 20^th day of the ongoing uprising in Lebanon, an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Beirut arrived at Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport. [In] its cargo was seven dead bodies of Ethiopian domestic workers who had died in Lebanon,” says Lebanese writer and researcher Joey Ayoub in an opinion piece on Aljazeera’s website in November 2019.

The government of Ghana must as well dispel the fears of many including Fraud and Security Consultant Richard Kumadoe over the seeming inactiveness of the country’s security services to clamp down on persons who lure our women to slavery in the Gulf countries.

“I guess and suspect that the [security] agencies have gone to sleep,” says Mr. Kumadoe to International Dialogue, “so, it’s time to wake them up to take their positions and to discharge their responsibilities in curtailing the widespread of human trafficking especially Ghanaians to other countries.”

People who lure these women to Lebanon and such places are engaged in a subtle form of human trafficking. This, we must admit and act swiftly. Barbara— the maid in Lebanon— says they were smuggled through the Kotoka International Airport. They did not go through the laid down checks every passenger goes through. She did not even have the yellow fever pass!

May the soul of Faustina Tay find a peaceful rest. And may we not relent on our effort to seek justice for her. As to whether she was murdered or she committed suicide, the bottom line is that we now know there was an existing threat on her life by her employers.

Can we let #JusticeForTay trend till something substantial is achieved?

The writers are international 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

INT’L DIALOGUE: Africa in the midst of Covid-19. Will the centre hold?

Coronavirus test kit

When we heard that the most dangerous disease in the world now was ravaging China – Wuhan in particular, it seemed too far a place to catch up with us here in Africa. Then, like a smothering fire on a refuse dump the deadly coronavirus burrowed through the globe – not exempting Africa – as though a fox finding a way into the side walls of a hill.

This, for months now, all media outlets across the globe have majored in one thing. The reportage on the coronavirus also referred to as Covid-19. From business to sports, entertainment to fashion and what have you, Covid-19 trends in all spheres till today. 

In Lombardy, Italy, for instance, the real ‘horror movie’ being filmed as thousands of humans fall flat on the knife of Covid-19 breaks hearts. Also in Spain, the disease keeps punching hard the throat of anyone it comes into contact with that even morgues have ran out of space.

“The first hearse arrived on Tuesday at Madrid's ice rink, hastily transformed into a makeshift mortuary as Spanish authorities scrambled to deal with a rising death toll from the coronavirus,” wrote Aljazeera in a news article on March 24, 2020.

Experts say, the elderly – probably because of compromised immune system – are the main casualties in the hands of the invisible soldiers defeating any military the world has known. Of the many claims by these medical experts, none really thrilled Africans initially as the notion that the virus cannot withstand Africa’s hot weather!

In Ghana, some medical doctors and nurses who joined this propagation of the hot-weather gospel were the very ones who took to their heels when a suspected case of the disease was first reported at the hospital.

Whereas there could be truth in this hot-weather assertion, what makes most Africans and the world at large fear for Africa – in the face of Covid-19 ­– is the weak health institutions on the continent. This, the World Health Organisation [WHO] itself sent a strong warning to the continent to prepare for the worse.

WHO’s head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva that Africa must “wake up.” Gripped by fear, Mr. Adhanom – an Ethiopian – reiterated his clarion call saying, "Africa should wake up, my continent should wake up."

The reality is that, it is not only the head of the World Health Organisation who is concerned about Covid-19 gruesomely ravaging Africa if it [the disease] manages to break loose on the continent. Indeed, with an already fragile healthcare system across Africa, which is highly manifested in how its leaders [political elites] run to seek for medical treatment abroad, the question as to whether Africa is really prepared for the pandemic constantly lingers on the minds of many.

One needs not consult prophets and sorcerers for an answer to this simple question. No! Africa is not prepared today or even in 100 years from now for any of these diseases [not forgetting what Ebola did]. Yes! While the developed, the developing and the underdeveloped world are overwhelmed by the power of Covid-19, without any argument, the most vulnerable of these categories of the world is Africa.

In Africa, basic resources and facilities such as isolation centers, ventilators, testing kits are often as hard to come by as searching for snow in hell. If even nose masks are not that simple to come by, to talk of the issue of inadequate medical personnel to handle the medical needs of the people on the continent is a nonstarter.

As of Monday, March 30, 2020, the continent of Africa had recorded 3,242 confirmed cases of the disease with 69 deaths and 130 patients recovered. The various heads of state had put in plans to contain the spread of the disease. However, the saddest reality is that these ‘plans’ were not enough. In Ghana and most other African countries, it all appears that the old age culture of begging for alms was at its best. So, when Chinese billionaire Jack Ma offered to donate some protective gears to the continent, an ode was sung to his glory.

‘“We are now properly prepared,’ Mr Agyemang-Manu [health minister] declared while receiving a consignment of assorted protective gears donated by the Chinese billionaire Jack Ma which arrived in the country Wednesday morning from Ethiopia,” said the Ghanaian news portal 3news.com.

The West African state was not ‘properly prepared’ until Jack Ma came to the rescue? This is a country that has for years touted its possession of gold, diamond, bauxite and arguably any other mineral you could think of. Ghana, again, boasts of timber. This we all know and the sort of timber the country has goes beyond mahogany and such tress. The all expensive rosewood is found in Ghana too!

But, the single most important question is that where does the money accrued from sale of all these natural resources go? Greed, corruption and politics without conscience have been gradually eroding the fortunes of this beautiful West African state. Not long ago, the country’s gold and rosewoods were plundered without mercy by Chinese nationals and Ghana could not even cough at them.

After all that Aisha Huang – nicknamed the galamsey/[local parlance for illegal mining] queen, mercilessly did in the mining sector, she was eventually deported to go and sin no more while Ghanaians who were also caught in the same act are still behind bars.

That was not all. Another Chinese national by name Helena Huang was also let off the hook of the country’s laws after she was arrested with four containers of rosewood and eventually deported. In Helena’s case, she even went missing for days in Ghana, after first being arrested, only to submit herself to the police later on.

Away from Ghana to Equatorial Guinea, in Central Africa, a handful of politicians there have for years lived lavishly at the expense of the country’s poor. In the country where a father – Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo – serves as the president, and his son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue as the vice president, issues of embezzlement there are now no news to the world.

Since October 2011 to date, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue has countlessly dominated headlines all for the wrong reasons. From the US seizing his $70 million assets to authorities in Brazil confiscating over $16 million worth of cash and luxury watches, Mr. Nguema has proven notoriously stubborn.

“An appeal court in France has fined Equatorial Guinea's vice-president €30m ($33m; £25m),” reports the BBC in February 2020, “for using public money to fund his lavish lifestyle.”

If one means touching on states of Africa one by one to talk about mismanagement of funds and resources, such a fellow would probably need a whole year to do so. It is therefore not surprising that many fear for Africa over Covid-19. All the monies on the continent are in the pockets of some few powerful men [and women] who effortlessly seek proper medical care abroad leaving their health system, back home, in disarray.

 

It is true that almost all the advanced/developed world are as well struggling to sufficiently provide all the needed equipment to contain the disease. In a CNN news article dubbed “The US is asking other countries for everything from hand sanitizer to ventilators to help fight the coronavirus,” the piece said America had asked for such assistance in the face of the threat of the disease.

This, many people shared on social media and made fun of a struggling giant – America. The question that most Africans who shared this post did not ask themselves is would any country in Africa or the continent proper have survived had it recorded the number of cases [145,369 as of midday, Monday, March 30, 2020] of the disease America has?  

Perhaps, the saddest thing here is how these Africans [especially the youth] are not able to question their own leaders of mismanagement of state resources but take delight in what happens elsewhere. Renowned writer, Wole Soyinka was not far from right when he said: “It is only in Africa where thieves will be regrouping to loot again and the youths whose future is being stolen will be celebrating it.”

In these trying times of Covid-19 ravaging the world, we have seen the serious and non-serious countries around the world. Whereas others could dish their hands into their coffers to give stimulus packages to businesses and citizens, many are those who ran to the International Monetary Fund to beg for funds to do same.

Whereas some used six [6] to 10 days to build a 1000 bed capacity hospital, others only got ‘properly prepared’ after a billionaire somewhere donated protective gears to them. And the mere thought that these non-serious countries are not really poor but corruption and greed placing them in helplessness pains so badly as the sting of an ant.

We can only continue to pray for Africa for the center can never hold should Covid-19 properly torment the continent. The truth is, if we should be in the shoes of Italy or Spain for just a day, dead bodies will carpet our streets!

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