Fellow Patriots, Do not DESPAIR!!!

“…..but there comes a time when the whispered truth must follow the loudness of established lies”

                                                                        - Ayi Kwei Armah(2002:191)

I was angry over the Woyome case and what Ghana’s Economic and Organized Crimes Office(EOCO) just released interim report revealed . On a very active thread online I co-ordinate I indicated this pain. The dialogue below followed (I protect the identity of the dialoguers by using fictitious names). It showed me that our Republic has patriots pondering and raring to ACT to change this shameful slide of our public affairs. The trick is not to despair confident that there exists true patriots beyond the slimy, thieving, nation wrecking thugs in government, the bureaucracies and the political parties for whom national shame and destruction is a holy grail. There will be a post-Woyome era and this is the time for true patriots to close ranks to save this our most beloved Republic. Kindly read on. 

     

Anokye: There is no use getting angry about the report.  Even though there were many dramatis personae listed, the main persons whose actions should be given closer scrutiny are the ones listed at the very end of the document, with perhaps Mr Nerquaye-Tetteh of the Attorney-General being the one of most interest.  Because it was he, as the final legal technical expert, who decided that the Government of the Republic of Ghana was not in a position to contest the case brought by Woyome.  The fact that Woyome's bank statement shows that a sum of GHC 400,000 was subsequently paid to Mr Nerquaye-Tetteh's wife suggests that his decision not to fight on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Ghana was informed by pecuniary considerations of a large kind.  Mr Paul Asimenu of Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning seems to me to have been a minor character in the sordid drama. Unless of course it can be shown that he benefited from his misinformation of the Minister at the time.  In which case haplessness and a general incompetence would be converted into mischief and calculation.  But we should stay our condemnation until later, if at all.  But by far the biggest culprit of the entire sorry saga is of course poor government.  This affects both the Kufuor and Atta Mills administrations.  Despite the fact that even a lay person could discern something peculiar about Woyome's claims, the entire bureaucratic apparatus of the Government of the Republic of Ghana (note, not that of the NPP or NDC) still managed to grant Woyome the position of a key and terror-inducing antagonist, when clearly he was nothing of that sort since even the international firm on whose behalf he claimed to have been fighting had long disavowed their connections with him.

So, let me repeat.  This is no time to be angry.  What we need to concern ourselves with rather is what is it with the running of the Government of the Republic of Ghana that allows such a sorry mess to take place?  Because Woyome's case be very dramatic but perhaps these things are taking place ALL THE TIME without anyone knowing about it.  It is not because of individual mischief, malevolence or lack of patriotic sentiment but because the operation of the bureaucratic state apparatus is inherently defective and incoherent so that any clever Kwaku Ananse can potentially benefit from the systemic incoherencies.  We should actually be thanking MR Woyome for puncturing our romantic idealization of what constitutes the Government of the Republic of Ghana.

Tackie: Anokye, there is no government of Ghana. There should be. There is a government of the NDC which some plan to replace with the NPP government. You make that distinction clearly but what you fail to point out is that unless we take a second look at the current practice of party politics, we are doomed. In Ghana today, the party behaves and in some cases is, superior to the state.