7 DAYS IN THE LIFE OF THE POWERFUL IN GHANA…..KILL-OUR-COUNTRY THEORY

                             Are we all  condemned to be street thugs?

                                                                                                   -Tupac Amaru Shakur

I have not written on my blog in a while. Sometimes it all seems pointless really when the old ugly order seems to simply find a confounding nourishment that keeps it alive especially in Ghana. But the writing itch has afflicted me again inspired by the class comedy act passing of as governance in our Republic in the last few weeks of encircling judgement debt in a headless country. I try to make some sense of it all below.

Sunday: T is getting ready for church. T wears the faith on his sleeve. The faith is like a billboard and church is simply part of the insidious network he thrives on. It is a battle to choose which car to ride in to church as these contraptions “smile” at him in the compound of his palace that sits in a treeless, dusty, stinking neighbourhood. The sticker on the car he settles on finally intones: “ MY YEAR OF BREAKTHROUGH-2012.” The gaunt, sickly houseboy whose cheekbones leap at you from  1000km away has made sure the cars sparkle(like Sarkodie’s champagne bottle in his famous track where he is referred to as an eagle) in its $200,000.00 majesty. And T likes his champagne which has triggered the cocktail of gout, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. The admixture of perfumes(Klein, D&G et al) make him cough as he prances into the car as his lily white garment sweeps the floor. T is loving the gaping craters; his car is made for them. In fact he thanks his God for them. He is getting late. He turns on the siren and goes into the incoming lane as of right endangering everyone including himself: smart dude!!!! T loves the prosperity sermon through which he slept three-quarters of the time and dreamt of the deals on the morrow. In fact he was waiting for collection time to afflict nostrils with his perfume and show off his agbada and his wealth. It is a show!!!!      

Monday: T pushes towards his office at top speed. He does not see the children who are waiting for tro-tros at 5:00 am nor the decaying city in which he exercises his power and displays his wealth. His Legon and Harvard certificates hit you when you enter his office. A crowd is waiting for him. He breezes in without even saying hi to these indigent poor who have come to waste his time. The man says he has not been paid for two years. T says they are working on it. The senior citizen says his pension is not regular. T says they are working on it. Idiots he says to himself. “ Secretary!!!!! I am done. Tell the rest to come in two weeks.” I am waiting for the World Bank and European Union guys!” He turns on the TV(100 inches plasma screen cavorting on the wall like a nubile lass) and sure enough the “idiots” are pleading for what is surely their God-given right. “ Nsuo nba. Kwan no nye. Yesre aban se…….(The water flows not. The road is impassable. We beg government…..). His partners in crime flow in and out of his office. They hatch and plot. They know how the system works and work it while we SLEEP. When the foreigners come to see him his smile is so wide and the obsequiousness so palpable it irritates them. At lunch T consumes as if he is ten men rolled into one. He scrapes the platter clean and washes it all down with some choice liquor that will make the ice-water seller faint if she knew the price. He belches. For a moment T thinks it is a fart. Night beckons: it was a good day. Several thousands of Ghana’s dollars(not cedis; the cedi is worse than trash for him) will pour into his account for work done: selling his country down the choppy river. Time to get some flesh: who cares about the wedding ring. Sure enough the trade in flesh is flourishing in Accra(even in the most leafy neighbourhoods) as the society T and his barons have created implodes on itself. In a dimly lit city he rides through town with his lights at full beam: we all idiots so far as he is concerned. At a rendezvous he meets with his political party friends to plot all the lies they will spin as truths. Late at night he returns home and not before the policeman has waved him on at the barrier and stamped his feet so hard in salute he can barely stand thereafter.

Tuesday: Another day. T is all over the airwaves. Party C(not his party) is responsible for the judgement debt he bellows. All of us Ghanaians are responsible for the judgement debts. “We must plug the loopholes in the system and move forward.” T is at pains to apportion collective guilt so no one will be punished. His tone is one of mockery and entitlement. He considers his fellow compatriots morons in the arguments he makes the logic of which is so pedestrian a toddler can demolish it. But T knows he can get away with it: the talkshow host is in his pocket. He had given him a cool $5000.00 yester night. He will not ask the tough questions. It is all a game in town: the team players know themselves. It is night again: more flesh. Today a threesome will do. Some flavor is in order for such a great easy life.

Wednesday:  Mission abroad calls. Kotoka VVIP lounge. T is as always lapping it. Who cares about the toilets out there in other parts of the airport that reek? Who cares about the general apology of an airport for a Republic that was the first to attain independence? T zips through Frankfurt, Milan, London, Zurich, Paris and Amsterdam. First class. “I deserve this…I am special..”; he quips to himself. His countrymen and women deserve the rickety, death dealing tro-tros on roads fit for camels(which he rides on as well). He sees these cities but T is in fact blind. His photochromic lenses housed in Rayban frames cannot help him. He cannot see. Period!!! He espies a bookshop. “Reading my foot” he muses to himself. T gets to the confab late. He snores away half of the time. In fact the red light district is uppermost on his mind. Some Caucasian flesh will do. Amma the wife is boring nowadays. The Kataphoton company know his weakness. They ply him with drink and more drink and food and more food. The agreement signing proper  takes place early in the morning. Deliberately positioned there by his hosts. T cannot wake up and when he does he is still in stupor as he signs for the Republic of Ghana. The contract is about supplying luxury four wheel drives to districts which do not even have roads!!!! The fine details do not matter for T. His Parker pen must be used anyway and he is assured of a few of these cars.

Thursday: Regional tour beckons. Fresh from abroad T heads to the villages. The people are happy to see him. He pretends to be happy too out of necessity. His speech is in English which he delivers to a people he has ensured cannot understand. You wonder who he is speaking to. Himself and his fellow barons and their paymasters abroad of course. He braves the wretched roads with four wheel drives. The people brave the God forsaken roads with their feet and hands. He cuts the sod for yet another road project in the maw of thirty more that have taken a century to get off the ground. It is a game. T knows it. The people do not it seems.

Friday : Thank God it is Friday. Time to blow to some dough. “ Secretary tell them to come next week. Don’t they know its Friday. Next week, next week….aaaaaaaaaaaaaa……these people are pests ooooooo….”  A trip is planned for Dubai with the new catch(her dropping jeans trousers which revealed the cheeks of her butts blew T away in their first encounter). The sheik who wants a stake in the Jubilee fields will pay for this. T needs a pretext. “ Amma the president has asked me to go to Dubai for some negotiations….” Done deal in the name of Ghana. Friday and Saturday is play time for a man who is still essentially a boy entrusted with the fate of a country.