In response to Professor Ayittey
For one, forget about being invited to our Naija High Commission in Accra on October 1. Two, you must consider yourself lucky that General Azazi and Alhaji Haliru were relieved of their posts by Hurricane Rio before they could sink their teeth on you. Three, be grateful to God that Dr. Reuben Abati did not […]
For one, forget about being invited to our Naija High Commission in Accra on October 1. Two, you must consider yourself lucky that General Azazi and Alhaji Haliru were relieved of their posts by Hurricane Rio before they could sink their teeth on you. Three, be grateful to God that Dr. Reuben Abati did not catch you, a foreigner listening to NTA and commenting on our area father, President Jones. So, our lateness in taking you to task is not because we are omo lole lo gbesi wa (children who have to go home and seek response) that we are responding this late to your allegation that our president is a joke.
Why is it that you Ghanaians have lost respect for Naija rulers? In 1984, Jerry Rawlings insulted us telling any ambitious soldier to go to Naija army for rapid promotion to the rank of General. That is why the gods cursed him and he never attained the rank of General. Now you. How can you label my president a joke? Does he look like Ali Baba? I wonder if you knew that you need permission from Labaran Maku to watch NTA from ‘abroad’? You studied Naija constitution without permission from General David Mark or Mohammed Adoke? Maybe you need to try cassava bread?
I put it to you, prof, that you have no locus standi to declare our Papa insane. I put it to you that you are the new face of the jealousy of Ghanaians on the giant strides of our country against yours. In electricity generation, I hear that for the last ten years you people attained the minimum 12 hours supply and that Accra hardly witnesses power cuts. Those who enjoy such level of electricity can never understand how costly it is to generate darkness – please ask the Wizard of Ota. The stupidity of the Ghanaian ruling class is legendary – allowing the opposition to win elections instead of institutionalising the one party system and promising to rule for 60 years. What are you people trying to prove? That you are closer to the Americans? No wonder Obama came to say well done and ignored us.
Just because an average of 50 people die avoidable deaths in Naija, you think our president should stay at home and deny members of the Presidential Fleet their allowances? Governance which is done in junkets can never be stopped because of Boko Haram or any other haram, at any rate, the North is overpopulated.
I am shocked to hear that one in every ten persons in Accra is a tourist; that foreigners are now choosing your country as a haven of peace in retirement. It is shameful that you attained this without sending your president to woo them. This must be Ghanaian talisman and we have no apology for doing things differently. We were waiting for Ghana to pick a spot on CNN as the ‘Spleen of Africa’ since Naija already stole the heart. But what are you people doing, streamlining the visa policy for foreigners. In Naija, we have a saying – the young shall grow and the old should die. We think that pensioners should die and if they refuse to, we send human locusts to eat their nest-eggs and hasten their journey.
How many Naija businessmen and women have shops in Accra? How many of them pay the new $250,000 annual levy required to open shops in your capital city? Have you not heard that your citizens were deported so many times in the past that Naija people have baptised jute bags as Ghana Must Go. Yet you have the temerity to call my president a joke! And yet, you are not laughing.
On what basis Professor do you base your assertion that our president needs psychiatric evaluation, are you an offspring of Adeoye Lambo? Infact, there are erudite plebeians who will swear on my President’s credentials that your latest book is a rubbish. Only 710,000 Naija students are in Ghanaian schools injecting only N1 billion into the Ghanaian economy in fees alone. You should be afraid that the joker could close the tap, but not to worry, he has no plans of making Naija universities work? If he does, you guys are in for it, instead, the joker is changing their names.
Thank God you do not know that Naija has the highest failure rate in WAEC and that to remedy that, we have established a home grown NECO? If people like you know, you might introduce a special entrance examination for Naija students as we did to reduce the number of those who pass WAEC and believe that university education is a human right. I hear you question the president’s PhD. Thank heavens you do not know that men’s degrees are sold to the highest bidder and women’s are mostly sexually transmitted, so how dare you?
Your country has found oil abi? Whose oil is it and who manages it? Is it the Akan, Ewe, Moshi, Dagbani or Ga? In whose interest is the oil being used? Can a Yagba man drive his ship to the shores and go out with a tankful? Are you people silly enough to keep records? Are your environments safe or can the companies just pass their effluents into the rivers and kill the fish and render the land useless for agriculture? We do all these just because we can. Professor Ayittey, next time you are dissatisfied with my president’s performance on NTA, please switch to a Ghanaian channel instead of venting your spleen on my lord the President. If there is a truth, it should not come out from a foreigner even a neighbour. If you refuse to take this advice, you may never again be allowed to cross Aflao border to Benin, talk less of showing up in Seme. And as for publishing books or granting annoying interviews, forget the Naija market.
A word, is sufficient for the wise.