MULTILOGUE: mind and matter: MULTILOGUE: mind and matter: OKoh and why Oko must go!

MULTILOGUE: mind and matter: MULTILOGUE: mind and matter: OKoh and why Oko must go!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/312/327/620/hejohn-dramani-mahama-let-dr-oko-vanderpuye-go/#709373478?taf_id=9820746&cid=fb_na#bbfb=709373478

MULTILOGUE: mind and matter: OKoh and why Oko must go!

MULTILOGUE: mind and matter: OKoh and why Oko must go!: Let Freedom and Justice Reign in Ghana! I have not blogged in a long time. Recent events have however created enough psychic dissonan...

OKoh and why Oko must go!

Let Freedom and Justice Reign in Ghana!

I have not blogged in a long time. Recent events have however created enough psychic dissonance for me to write again especially the fiasco surrounding the renaming, unnaming and renaming(a very untidy process obviously) of the Madam Okoh rectangular hockey patch. I must indicate some disclaimers as I make my points on this matter. I am a scholar by profession and vocation.I am not a politician( in truth there is nothing necessarily ignoble about being one ) even though I am deeply interested in power and who(and which groups) wield it and to what ends. I am not a sleight of hand purveyor of public displays of righteous indignation on matters of state in order to endear myself to any group of politicos so tomorrow I will get a post and drive some humongous, pitch black four wheeler bought, fueled and maintained by taxpayers money.To be sure this has been the path plodded by some individuals in government today. I am perfectly satisfied and content with my hard earned resources derived from gritty, back breaking honest labor shorn of the exploitation of my fellow ordinary compatriots.

My interest in inspiring public support for the Accra Metropolitan Authority boss to leave office is born out of  my belief that civic Ghana must work again. Any close watcher of events in our Republic would have noticed since 1992 the emergence of the petulant, pompous, arrogant, show boating. swashbuckling politician who does not tolerate critique and is given to acting in a manner aimed at constantly insulting the intelligence of his or her fellow citizens. This breed of politician has fed off the poisonous substrate undergirding a national discourse in which shallow and narrow political interest is the only legal tender. Under these circumstances the supreme national interest has essentially been orphaned and with it the everyday questions of life and survival of ordinary folk.The Madam Okoh Affair is the latest most gruesome reflection of the banality of such a posture.Who then speaks or must speak for the future, welfare and progress of our Republic beyond the self serving confines of usually jaded partisanship? Civic Ghana of course. I draw a clear distinction between civil society(here focusing on NGOs and think-tanks) in Ghana and civic Ghana in this regard. The former has become too smug in its repetitive cycle of proposals- donor funding-research-dissemination-communiques-workshops to be counted upon to deal frontally and viscerally with the concrete conditions of Ghanaians( of course they have played a useful role thus far). Civic Ghana implies the exercise of active citizenship(all citizens rich and poor, educated or not) propped by vigilance and the national interest in ensuring that the public good is protected and pursued by especially officers of state. The point here is to give meaning to the I992 constitution when it asserts that the sovereignty of our Republic lies with her citizens and that public officials elected or otherwise serve at our sufferance.

Civic Ghana has a long tradition in our country. One recalls here the incomparable John Mensah Sarbah without whom Mr. Vanderpuye will not have had the land to stand on to dream let alone effect a name change.Mrs Okoh herself belongs to that tradition of selfless devotion to the Republic not for personal pecuniary gain.Public-spiritedness, decency and the common good has inspired such national heroes and heroines . These were the noble ideals upon which our Republic was founded and which animated the genius of some of her greatest minds some of whom walked the streets of Accra. Civic Ghana has made it self heard loud and clear over the Madam Okoh Affair. It is clear the AMA boss has pushed his shtick too far. His one man orchestra is sounding malevolently discordant. History offers the president of our Republic a rare opportunity to restore confidence, hope and trust in our public officers and institutions. Mr. Vanderpuye's continued presence will constitute an insult to Ghanaians and the failure of the chief of state to exercise presidential power in the interest of the public good. Accra needs a new leader who will be dreaming and building a new Accra and not raising the blood pressure of a senior citizen whose only crime was to have served her country with distinction in designing the national flag and promoting hockey as a sport.

I have lived in Accra since I was four years old. I learnt the Ga language at the feet of unforgettable Ga teachers as a toddler. I have lived in virtually every part of Accra on the compass. I have lived in some of its most exclusive neighbourhoods and played in some of its grimiest. The smell of Accra lives in my nostrils. The taste of her kelewele is locked on my palate. The sound of Wolomeii bangs in my ears and the magic of kpanglogo dancers always lifts my spirit. I feel Accra in my very bones.Today our number one city exposes our shame to the world. It does not bespeak the greatness, the rich history and the confounding possibilities that beckon. Accra must rise out of the ashes, proud and self confident and shine again as the heart beat of the great continent of Africa. Can we not build for ourselves an Accra of green, verdant parks, bicycle lanes,reliable, comfortable public transport, public libraries brimming with books, decent housing and hospitals for all; an Accra where all citizens of Ghana can play, live, work and die in peace? Is Mr. Vanderpuye the man who can inspire us to march towards this constructable Nirvana?? Over to you Mr. President. Civic Ghana and history is watching.                

NO ONE BE LIKE YOU!!!

Those were simply magical moments in Morning Star School nestled as it was in one of Ghana's prime-if not most prime- neighbourhoods in the capital Accra: Cantonments. The notable Ghanaian scholar Prof. Ato Quayson(my mentor and friend) informs us that that area stretching from the Osu,Oxford Street(of which he is the foremost chronicler and interpreter in contemporary times) right up to Cantonments was the pristine no-go area of imperial power in the Gold Coast(his latest book on this is a must read for those interested in Ghana’s urban history) . Ghana’s new elites spatially and symbolically took over that expanse of territory according to Quayson . In a sense then it is just as well that one of Ghana’s most premier elite private prep schools will find a home in that setting.

Those magical moments were popular in the sociological sense of the word. It was all about the so-called sport of the masses: football. The Morning Star of my era in the 1980s was simply mad about it. It was all about the intense competition, the magical talents, the fame(no fortune of course) and the feisty admiration of nubile ladies. Inter-class football competitions captured the attention of all. Our founder Mrs. Esme Siriboe(lie in peace always) was prescient enough to leave this fairly large, sandy field right in the middle of the school. Today’s prep schools seem all covered with concrete and I bristle at my son’s failure to taste some sand while at play. This field took on a unique make-up during these tourneys: improvised goal posts made of wood and strings popped up and the perimeters and soccer pitch markings traced out with some powdery substance. Ceremony attended the start of each match. The teams will troop onto the field led by their various captains(it was a privilege to captain a team; one was chosen democratically by one’s classmates; I was captain for the seven years I played in that competition) to the uproarious cheer of a raucous crowd; there was the tossing of the coin and the lucky side will choose their preferred side of the field and then the referee’s whistle will start proceedings.

It was in this unforgettable milieu of our childhood that Ebenezer Saka Amoako’s inimitable character will leave its stamp on us all. I was his classmate from class one to class seven. Once in a crucial inter-classes match he left the goal-post(in the heat of proceedings) he was tending because we were excoriating him for some bad judgments. He was always his own man very early. It probably was all in his genes. He was one of the sons of one of Ghana’s prominent entrepreneurs (until Rawlings’ inferno that left Ghana at the very best half cooked and scalded and all but incinerated the business sector) back in the day: Amoako Leather Works. He grew tall very early and cut a strapping, well built and handsome figure in our class. Uniquely his temper was not sharp and I hardly saw him in those childhood scrapes in the most obscure corners of the compound beyond the teachers’ gaze where Don King pretenders ruled.

Academic work seemed to be a formality to be endured. He seemed destined for business. He became a business man as usual doing his thing beyond the sometimes stultifying demands of routine and form. Here was a free spirit whose laughter raspy and throaty and full still fills my ears and staunches the pain as I write this eulogy to the first of the 1986 year group of Morning Star to have gone to sleep. We were very close and we had our moments. He will make those clandestine runs to the waakye(a very tasteful rice and beans West African dish)seller we had been forbidden to go near and for good reason. The kindly waakye seller's location was out of the school’s gates and heaved with cars and potential evils of all sorts. When electronic watches became all the rage Saka turned himself into the one to hire watches from. He always had some funny term or phrase on offer all stamped with his idiosyncracies. One was: "whatz happ’nin." He would say this with an exaggerated American twang and in rapid fire bursts. Saka was just simply fun loving. Once our teachers were having a meeting and asked us the seniors to keep some order in the classrooms. I was with him when we went to Mrs. Abdulai’s class. The class 2 pupils sat there at the mercy of our superintendence. Saka moved to the front of the class and straight to the blackboard. I knew there was going to be drama. He took a piece of chalk almost solemnly but what followed was just the opposite: he asked the poor pupils to find the square root of their posterior orifice! If it were today he might have found himself before the bar of child abuse. That was Saka at his mischievous best.

We left school. All of us in search of our dreams. I used to see him in East Legon, Accra. I was almost always in a moving vehicle. The last time we met was in a tro-tro some fifteen years ago. We barely caught up on each other’s lives when he jumped off. We re-connected on Facebook. We were just about re-connecting. Saka jumped off again. Eternally!!!!!! No one be like you Saka!!! You left us pain but just reliving the past brings joy. Thanks for your friendship. You are sorely missed.     

LET THE LIGHTS FLASH!!!!!!!

Oil painting of John Mensah Sarbah, Esq

A changed and changing world has long been upon us. One is here forced to remember Heraclitus. He of the Ionian school it was who famously and almost incomprehensibly quipped that one cannot step in the same river twice. The Akans of Ghana will say that "mmre dani(to wit the times change)." And on this matter of change light has proved a peculiarly formidable and ubiquitous expression. It is at the lower spectrum of light (with wave lengths of 10 raised to the power -8 downwards) that this whole cyber reality becomes profound. At the visible and invisible levels light has made communication both instantaneous, real time and even irritating.

The Ghanaian Supreme Court in a historic case was attempting to shield itself from the glare of light both literal and metaphorical in the age of light(the cyberage). But really who can? The metaphorical case for letting in the cameras has been made already. The Supreme Court of Ghana is the people's court; owned by the citizens of this our Republic. Today it is not a complicated undertaking to beam sound and images  live to our tv, phone and pc screens. It is just as well the Supreme Court saw reason and seized that rare historical moment. It risked to my mind eternal historical opprobrium if it had been indelicately obstinate about this; a far more politically charged and even volatile Kenya had allowed the cameras in and not imploded. This shame would have been Ghana's shame as well; the lode star of this great continent would have lost its way.

 I had visited the Supreme Court once in my early twenties. There was no case in session. It was a visit driven by curiosity and a love of my country. I just wanted to see where all of those major cases which have tended to affect the very minutiae of our existence were heard and argued. Even in its quiet repose then shorn of any activity it had an overwhelming aura about it; a certain almost arrogant serenity that was at once infectious and repulsive. Here one remembers the intellectually razor sharp J.B. Danquah and his nephew Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who is a very interested petitioner in the case at hand, And before them the pioneering role played by the incomparable John Mensah Sarbah(1854-1910)(the first Ghanaian barrister) for Ghanaian thought, independence, legal profession and jurisprudence. It must not be forgotten ever that it was the law in the hands of Sarbah and his enlightened logic which prevented the infamous Lands Bill of 1897 from becoming law. This invidious bill had sought by a clever artifice  to  vest under section 3 "all waste-land and all forest-land in the colony" " in the Crown for the use of the Government of the colony." Sarbah's response is worth quoting in full here:

I am specially instructed to say that this Lands Bill is an elaborate and expanded form of the Crown Lands Bill of 1894. That Bill refers only to what is termed waste land and forest land whereas this Bill refers to the whole land of this country, depriving the aborigines of their right in the soil of their land.(Azu-Crabbe,1971) 

Sarbah had saved the Gold Coast and Ghana that great land question that other African countries are still grappling with today.  

Again I cannot resist to quote the Gold Coast Leader on Sarbah in Azu-Crabbe(1971: 2)

As a lawyer of more than twenty years's standing, we know of no widows, or indigent and impotent folk whom he ever entrapped with ingenuity, cleverness and artfulness. He had no sordid commerce with the technicalities of the law or the sophisms of Pettifoggers. He has broken no hearts,wrecked no homes, nor raised himself upon the debris of lost reputations and crashed ambitions. He is no bland and subtle schemer, ready and eager to play upon the folly and ignorance of the unsophisticated bucolics and innocent clientele. He has forged his way ahead and built up a lucrative practice through honesty, sincerity and assiduity in the discharge of his responsibilities and obligations.(kindly note the delicacy of the diction in 1910 Gold Coast and cf with Ghana's papers today)

And so I saw like millions of my compatriots the innards of the Supreme Court. For most of our compatriots it was the first time on the historic 17th of April, 2013. At stake is the presidency and the legitimacy of the one holding today the instruments of ultimate state power. In times past in this our Republic bands of  power thieves will conspire at night and steal power in the morning. We all cowered because this stolen power was propped by the shiny, treacherous bayoneted tips of guns. Today "stolen" power could be challenged in a civilized, solemn, cerebral way shorn of the barbarity of weapons.

 The matte wooden panels reflected the lights in the court room on April the seventeenth. Some of the key lawyers in the full glare of these lights in this case had gone to the school that Sarbah had helped to found with his own money: Mfantsipim. Messrs Tsikata and Addison are products of Sarbah's selfless and exemplary patriotism to the country of his birth. The motto of the school Dwin Hwe Kan(Think and look ahead)  was the progeny of his mind. He might have been talking to the supreme court judges a century later who will decide the case and all of us bona fide citizens of this our most beloved Republic. We wait.    

DISPATCHES FROM NAIROBI-MOSHA(1 in Swahili)

Chineke himself might not have gotten over Achebe's work  

Nairobi has its verve; its energy and flow. One has to be sentient enough to feel it. This is the East of Africa. Coming form the West of Africa my mind has always tried to understand this city I have now visited at least close to a dozen times. The Kenyatta Airport always seems to exude some confounding serenity. I do not know if I must ascribe it to the times I get into that city: mostly dawns. But I get the feeling when I use the airport at other times.

As the city parts its lips as the car throbs in the driving has my heart in my ears: Nairobi driving is a course in derring-do. These streets took the life of my compatriot and sublime cartoonist Frank Odoi   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17828605.
I know you caricaturing away with your deft pencil. And the weather. The soothing very cool winds that I encountered have a pampering effect. One remembers Accra's searing heat about which no one official outfit is giving us any explanations. Of  course government has more pressing matters to explain like dough for a pilgrimage to Israel; bungled letterheads yada yada. Tweaaaaaaaa as my elders will say in Obosomase and Mampong Kontokyi.

Nairobi's streets do not glitter that much from automobiles' shiny bodies like Accra's. Accra is the car lover's blinding paradise. I mean I saw Toyota Corolla models that you will struggle to find in Accra's scrap dumps. And then the right hand drive has a way of jarring my West African left hand drive orientation. The matatus(trotros) are a sight; pock marked with very well made grafitti and heaving with music at high volumes and crammed with bodies. The Kenyan authorities could do well like Accra's with a better public transport system I guess. Who cares? Signs of the elections are everywhere; posters haggard from the elements peer from the battered walls. As the election petition at the highest court takes on a life of its own and captures the attention of Kenyans life goes on. I like that. The laughter is there; the frank banter; the politeness and also the despair over a very beautiful country that can go very far. I mean Kibaki was given a tractor and very well bred cows by the army as his farewell gift; Madam Kibaki got a dinner set that needed almost a unit of soldiers to carry(I watched the newsreel on Kenyan Television). My Kenyan colleague called it ridiculous: the poverty is vivid on Nairobi's streets as the poor huddle about in over-sized wind breakers and literally prowl the streets.Somehow I feel there is some 1960ish order in Nairobi as the city mutates under the sway of cranes. And on their TV I think they leave Ghana's in the shadows. The quality of their anchors; the studio setting; the quality of the stories; the pace; the energy; the alertness and consciousness(the Kenyan and African perspective is in evidence). If Ghana Television generally(with the exception of say VIASAT 1) is lard Kenyan TV is boiling soup!!!!! And the newspapers keep my attention: I mean I find it difficult throwing them away after a thumping read.

And then Achebe(the Kenyan Daily Nation's cartoonist eulogises him in the drawing above) passed. For three days(and still counting) the tributes have poured in. The Kenyan establishment has had its go through Odinga's piece which appeared in the Daily Nation. Kenya's literary scholars have offered perspectives of Achebe's value to the African and global cannon. I have not been drawn to Achebe like other African bards like Ayi Kwei Armah. But I should return to him given the accounts I have read. In the way in which Achebe has been hailed I reckon Senghor will roll in his grave over his infamous: reason is Greek,emotion is Negro. In the maw of materialism's onslaught in Africa Achebe in death has shown that this continent has ALWAYS been the home of great thought. I pause but only in suspended animation like the Eneke bird because "men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig."Thank you Achebe!!!!                

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