Impacts of the Knowledge Society on Economic and Social Growth in Africa (9781466658448): Lloyd G. Adu Amoah: Books | IGI Global

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Impacts of the Knowledge Society on Economic and Social Growth in Africa (9781466658448): Lloyd G. Adu Amoah: Books | IGI Global

Ghana@57-A Patriot's Reflections

I have not been blogging for a while. But today I return to this undertaking on my country's 57th Independence(Chinweizu prefers the description "self rule"; and he is right for Ghana like all African countries have yet to be quite independent in the real sense of the word) anniversary.

I slept early yesterday. Part of my ritual so as a scholar I can work at dawn. But I had gone to bed with Accra's rather dry spell of waterlessness on my mind. I had heard that the taps were flowing during the day; the assurances of a contact at the GWCL gave some hope however dim. When I turned the taps on I was greeted by a farty flow of wind. My contact asked that I try again late at night. So I woke up at mid-night and the taps were flowing. That meant work. Storing water in receptacles lest the gods of the taps in their tyranny recede back to their plush redoubts to return a week hence. So here I was spending a good close to two hours on this chore; my books and laptop and articles relegated to waiting. And all this on Ghana's 57th anniversary. Water has became a luxury in a land awash with this liquid. In my parents house in Ashale-Botwe the taps have been dry for well close to two decades. I wonder why we fix taps in Ghana at all. Those who have run this country have conspired to author a perverted spatial calculus in which the greater one's distance from the official waterworks(Weija and Kpong) the greater one's water supply woes. Here in Accra people actually drink water not even fit for wild beasts. What happened to our country that has left my generation to reap the fiery whirlwinds of the failures of those who came before us?

In just three years two generations will have arisen in this Republic since independence. Countries in Asia have overcome their poverty and shame in less than a generation. It seems we wasted our generations. New China emerged in 1949. It bore the burdens good and bad of a 4000 year civilization. China had to confront the schemes of Western and Japanese imperialism. By 1990(51 years later) China had emerged from the ashes. I have been reading a fascinating book that traces the intellectual architecture of one of Singapore's leading statesmen Goh Keng Swee. He made profound statements. One is this view in a speech he gave in 1960 titled " This is how we spend your money": 

" a government is judged not so much by its expressions of good intentions but by its concrete achievements in the way of economic prosperity and public welfare." 

Changi Airport Street- the signs of the brilliant minds that built Singapore in evidence

On that score our lot in Ghana is one of misery except for those who gloat in comparing our existence with the most wretched of the earth. While those in government and access to power are fixated on expanding their girths and grabbing all the material goodies in the world they have left the rest of us to a hellish fate. The doctor-patient ratio is a harrowing 1: 15, 292. Beyond simple diseases we all sentenced to death unless one can find the means to approach the Northern hemisphere and now increasingly Asia. Ghana has no power literally. Today when the lights go off and return one does not hear that joyous uproar wafting from homes as it used to be in the past: the citizen harried and dribbled by fork and glib-tongued politicos has developed an understandable cynicism almost bordering on self resignation. Education has become the politician's electioneering play toy; to be toyed with to garner votes from an ostensibly hopelessly stupid voter. Even the internet age has passed us by it will seem. Our internet speeds are pathetic making work by scholars and other professionals(and the ordinary citizen) pure tedium; and they do not come cheap! In all this I remember when Ghana was 40. That was 17 years ago. As always we shot the breeze. I bet my last bottom pesewa  that short of a miracle we will blow the time by the time we 60-our record is clear. 

I return to Goh again. The strategic economic mind he reflects on Singapore's advantages as it begun the ardous task of nation building :

" our central geographical position, our banking services, our port, our stable currency,easy exchange rate control regulations, ample supplies of power and  water, cheap land, low building cost..." 

The port of Singapore yonder

I visited Singapore last year. For me it was a policy education trip to see the country I have studied very closely. Ghana had and still has  such advantages Goh referred to and more. We have begun to lose some(certainly for power and water we are goners). The cedi is chaffy; a very pale shadow of its former self some very long decades ago.Certainly our current forex regime is darn primitive. The banks are recording manually in those fat ugly books forex transactions over the counter. Our policymakers never heard of transaction costs of neo-classical economics(and even heterodox economics) and the need to reduce same as stringently as possible. Singapore has one port. We have two. We can create more(the Boankra inland port is a case in point). What have we done with all of the advantages we had some of which we are beginning to lose? And where do we go from here?

Singapore skyline: "it is glorious to be rich"

As it stands we are in many ways still a toddling colony content as we are with paltry handouts from others. Senior government officials have made this beggary central to their discourse. Not yet Uhuru it seems. One thing is positive though. By sweat, blood and toil we have forged for ourselves an intelligent framework for changing governments periodically. This process must justify itself or become a fetid ritual. This process must deliver for us patriotic leaders who will make not a difference but the difference.

I return to Goh finally:

"There are no benevolent foreigners knocking around the world anxious to discharge these duties and responsibilities which are rightly our own. Let us not face the economic problems in the era of freedom with the mental attitudes appropriate to colonial servitude. Let us never forget that self-government is not possible without self-reliance. This is true both in politics as well as economics."   

I will return to another anniversary reflection in 2017. Still I love this country warts and all for it bears my umbilical cord and the bones of my great ancestors! Happy Anniversary Mother Ghana! 

  

                     

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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DUBAI

The inimitable Malcolm X with Alex Harley(Credit-Facebook) 

This is certainly my last blog for the year 2012. What a year it has been. In my personal, family and professional life the year has been about learning, persisting and growing. The Ananse story about the palm nut and the hole in the ground  has held so much meaning for me. Ananse the great eternal anti-hero and thinker(I thank my very senior friend Nana Nketsia V of Essikado for teaching me the deeper meaning of Kwaku Ananse and the enduring tales span centuries ago about him) was as usual caught up in a drama where the entire village was threatened by famine. He chances upon this hole with strict rules about how many palm nuts to put in the ground to allow access to a bounty of food. Ananse defies the rules in the interest of greed and loses a great chance to cure his hunger and that of his family. The story is about temperance, patience and fortitude. One cannot always force things in life. Sometimes things fall at your feet without you trying. The Orientals call it Tao, the Way( Christianity in its earliest manifestation was also called the Way...well, well, well) . In a year in which  my thirties draw to an end I learnt the ying and yang of effort and effortlessness.

Cranes hug the Dubai skyline(03.09.2005)

I will blog about the elections when the dust finally settles. As a patriot and nationalist the elections is teaching me lessons about this Republic and her people in all their viciousness, cunning , hubris, forbearance, large heartedness and calculating coldness. This story is not about the Dubai you know which oozes with opulence,luxury and all the allure of the consumer's paradise. I have to thank Malcolm X and my compatriot Ayi Kwei Armah for drawing my mind as a youth to the East. These two made me understand that the East was not far after all. And appreciation is due also to my Dad Yaw Adjei who encouraged my then playful interest in heading Eastward. I remember what he said to me then: " Lloyd go East. The pulse of the changing world lies there. Go and see that world with your eyes." Of course he had been to India before I was born. So in my Eastward journeys I have come to know Dubai. The last time I passed through was last month. I watched closely to see if this Gulf state had lost any of its shine after the last global financial bubble left most of its multi-million dollar steel and concrete heaven bound edifices empty. As I snaked through the airport I espied that large advertorial on the wall announcing the Dubai of tomorrow to all who passed through this city. I collected several of the country's free newspapers(we in Ghana do not want anything free; its corrupting!). Reading some of their papers can be tedious; it feels like trying to get your arms round a Baobab tree. Dubai has not lost its glitter yet.The all white queues waiting to buy shimmering gold was there.The glum,sated, snotty sheiks with their flowing white gowns were still there. The wafting scent of perfumes that threatened to excavate all your olfactory members were still present. The markets were alive brimming with luxuries and the gaunt, listless workers from Pakistan, Philippines and   Indonesia were still there seeking their fortune or misfortune. Dubai has become a legend. Like Timbuktu and Djeni and Gao long before the philistines laid siege in our very wretched times. And that is how my Dubai has taken the sobriquet for himself.

I met him at the car wash. I wondered why he wore shorts at all if his prime agenda was to expose all of his boxers and his butts. His mimicked Beckham's hair cut(displayed at his ill fated last world cup). He was energetic and enterprising, full of zest and life. He gave my jalopy a nice shine. We got talking. I have always been interested in all sorts. His name was Dubai. He wanted to go to Dubai and bring stuff back to Ghana to sell. He obviously had heard the tales carried by those restless Ghanaian business men and women who hustled their way across the world to their self engineered prosperity. Dubai loved the Sarkodie blaring away in my car. He was a budding rapper he intoned. He was looking for a producer. He delivered some punchlines to me. Later on Dubai intimated that he was a factory hand too on the Spintex Road on that Lebanese Enclave Stretch. The next time I saw Dubai he was selling an assortment of shoes on the pavement in Sakumono. Dude had taken a portion of the street. I have given up trying to keep this neighbourhood a residential area. Soon it will be an ugly slum with all its open spaces taken over by citizens trying to make a living in a stiflingly unresponsive environment while the MPs and party general secretaries and presidential staffers move to and fro in their "toys". And they say we are lazy; a dubious narrative that even some serious scholars believe in.   Unless policy formation touches the little man and woman its a farce routinized in winding speeches, sod cutting ceremonies and reels of texts and figures.

What next for Dubai???????????  Happy hols to Dubai and to us all!!!                   

To a Great and Rare Teacher-Mr. Aidoo

I remember like it was just yesterday when he breezed into the classroom-Class 6S, Morning Star School, Cantonments, Accra. It was the Accra of the 1980s. That young flight-lieutenant who had taken state power by force of arms was in full flight and in control of the Republic of Ghana. Those were really hard times of curfews, excruciating shortage of what was labeled rather ominously and tastelessly ‘essential commodities’ and fabrics for our school uniform(white shirts over khaki shorts). What struck me was his almost Afro-style hair and his Fu-Manchu that snaked into a fairly shaggy but tended beard. Under his lower lip was this collection of hair as well that tended to jut out on an account of his almost impulsive habit( as we came to discover) of pulling at them in anger(he tended to display when rubbed wrongly a fiery temper) or happiness. Mr Aidoo had intelligent very aware eyes and framed by his facial hirsuteness he had the air of an intellectual about him.

Mr. Aidoo taught us for a while in Class 6S and then moved on to Class 7 H(my year held that distinct record). This implied that he prepared us for the crucial Common Entrance Examinations held countrywide to determine the future of youngsters. If you did well on that exam your chances( there was no guarantee given an admission process marked by favouritism and shady backroom dealings which even we as youngsters came to know as “backdoor connection!”) of getting to an elite secondary school were high. Otherwise you made do with the supposedly second and third league schools. The brutality of this pecking order produced a psychological dead weight with its attendant strains and stresses on our young minds.  It was an intense race to the best schools the Republic had on offer and we would discuss this under those Nim trees sitting on those rocks having lunch or snacks. On hindsight I think it was all unnecessary; probably over estimated and hyped. My father Yaw Adjei is probably right: every man or woman is the architect of his or her own destiny. A great secondary school might help but it provides no guarantee and might sometimes even provide a false sense of “everything stitched up without hardwork” with devastating future consequences. I have seen too many of such very sad examples thus far.

 Mr Aidoo recognized this struggle we faced and gave his all. My mathematical skills improved vastly under his feet. He made us think methodically and in an orderly fashion as he walked us through those quantitative puzzles and math problems. He had a sharp tongue when you slipped up unnecessarily and it helped(even though some of my mates balked at it all). Those mathematical skills and tricks he taught us have stayed with me to this day as I write an ode to a true Ghanaian hero. For me this speaks to the question of basic education and the quality and access for the masses of our Republic. For upon the way our very young minds are nurtured very early depends not just the development of this our Republic but crucially her SURVIVAL. That is why I find the debates or rather shouting matches on basic education and socializing and universalizing it desiccating. This is a matter we as society MUST find answers to or forget about our place in the sun on this globe. If we do not have the money we NEED to find it; it is that simple beyond the tardy esotericism, plain disingenuousness and pettily cheap ideological points scoring that has attended it all. On this matter we should not be PARALYSED by analysis but be INSPIRED by it: crossing the river by feeling the stones.

Where would I have been without this gentleman? He had such great facility for the English language and from his vast store of vocabulary some of us feasted to the point of satiation. But more importantly he shared with us what our future was going to look like. He will teach us simple equations and then indicate that as we went forward those same equations will take on a certain sophistication reflective of a higher stage of learning. He shared with us his experiences in his Teacher Training College. He seemed particularly enamored of the motto of Adisadel College: either the best or with the best. It became the unofficial motto as we stomped away to face the final exams. His social consciousness was deep. In a Morning Star School that was itself somewhat cloistered and sniffy he will lay it down as he deemed fit. Some of our school mates were spoilt arrogant pompous brats and he will take them on without batting an eye lid. I loved him for that. I think Mr. Aidoo could have expanded his professional horizons given his formidable mind. This brings me to  opportunities for teachers especially at the basic level. This can occur only through deliberately targeted policy that is alive to this matter. Ghana needs some of her best minds at this level not only in the banks and other corporate enclaves as seems to be the case.     

In a serious country Mr. Aidoo would have his place among the stars for the generations of pupils he moulded. It was under him that a dude like Ransford Brenya was formed. Ransford went to the University of Ghana Medical School and on graduation virtually won every prize on offer. Mr. Aidoo nurtured bankers, lawyers, economists, business people, artists, teachers and other professionals who are making a difference in Ghana and the wider world. Our nation never remembers such greats as it remains beholden to shysters and punks upon whom we shower and waste our resources and veneration. Some of us refuse to go down that wretched road and so I remember you and sincerely. And I am deeply grateful for all the hours you spent teaching in rain or blazing sunshine so I too could become at the very worst a useful thinking citizen. There will be no national flag draping your coffin nor a cortege drawing your remains nor a 22 gun salute nor screaming bill boards with syrupy infantile inscriptions. But the truth is that you were infinitely greater than so many of your country men and women including so many of our past presidents. Sleep well Sir!!!!!!           

Two books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two books I just bought. Chomsky is my prototype of a public intellectual: engaging, witty, tireless....I thank my professor Dr. Martin Odei-Ajei for exposing him to us in our undergrad years!!! And I love the ringside report of the key policies that constructed China's "miracle" from one of the key architects Li Lanqing!!!!

Of Dopamine and pudendum!!!!

Naomi Wolf's latest work on the female pudenda is as provocative as it is informative and downright bold and even intellectual. I am struck by the mysteries of dopamine and its inspiration for the Nirvana induced states(albeit momentary) for the fairer sex during coitus. The Economist of 8th-14th of September, 2012 has an interesting snap take on the book on p.68 and the Guardian weighs in as well with a rather longish piece   http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/07/vagina-new-biography-naomi-wolf-review

 Ghana's women's Manifesto is back in the news and Ghanaian men and male dominated political space needs all the info germane for more sensitivity and ACTION than has been expressed  :)!!!  

One for the weekend(hopefully of less blackouts :()

The Commander-in-Chief passes in Harness: Reflections on the Mills Presidency

 Ring the alarum-bell!—Blow, wind! Come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back.

                                                                                   -   Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5, Page 3

The former  Commander-in-Chief at work 

In medieval Ghana history the imagery will be one in which the Ɔhene(loosely translated as king/chief) fully clad in his very potent  batakari kese(smock) festooned surfeitly with magical powers emitting and inducing sɛbɛ(amulets) leading the charge of the Adonten(the main fighting force of the Akan military infrastructure; Aboagye,2010,p.219) in an important frontline maneuver  is mortally wounded. The Ankobeahene(head of the king’s own special guard division), Gyasehene( head of the king’s administrative division) and the Kyidomhene(head of the rearguard divison) confer in the  heat of battle in a fortified lush green forest redoubt under the blazing African sun as the Ɔhene gasps, moans and then transitions. In the defense of his kingdom, the Ɔman, the Ɔhene has died in harness; in active combat. The next most important task will be committing the distinguished remains to Asaase Yaa(Mother Earth) all the while reflecting on his stewardship and preparing the ground for his successor. Odupon atutu(the mighty tree has fallen): the wail will rise from the battlefield and reach the most cloistered recesses of the kingdom on whose behalf the Ɔhene has fallen.

The modern state is pivoted on the tips of bayonets and certainly begat it. That is why the Commander- in- Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces is received every morning at the portals of the seat of government by a police contingent bearing bayoneted guns for a rite that reinforces this reality. In the event of war the president of the Republic of Ghana will be called upon to provide the central strategic directions for ensuring that not an inch of this territory(air, land and water) is ceded. Post 1948 the launching of projectiles as the foremost mark of state policy has receded. But another war-like contention has attended the policy function of the Commander- in-Chief: development.

In the daily motions of confronting this question the Republic of Ghana lost its foremost personality in this contest President John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills on the 24^th of July, 2012. The occurrence is history making in the same way that Pres. Mills became part of the presidency in Ghana’s Fourth Republic. Veep Arkaah was jettisoned by Jerry Rawlings(the first time in the Fourth Republic) as he gunned for a second term in 1996 after a very public and ignominious spat: in came Mills the genial, overly self effacing academic who had morphed into a bureaucrat and then a politician. Twelve long years later Mills was to return as president(the first time a veep had achieved this in Ghana’s constitutional history) after a nail biting election which the New Patriotic Party(NPP) had worked hard to lose.

The National Democratic Congress(NDC) 2008 campaign(which Mills led aided by Rawlings) was pitched in moral terms pivoted tactically around the genteel, taciturn, almost lily white angelic character of  then candidate Mills. For an NPP administration which seemed out of sorts(in its second term), languid and inordinately focused on who was to replace Pres. Kufuor this strategy seemed to resonate with the Ghanaian electorate. The NPP had of course not helped its cause with seventeen candidates galloping at full throttle for its presidential candidate race, the building of a presidential mansion which seemed ill-timed and an ill advised display of pomposity, grandiosity(Kufuor’s self decoration was a classic example), good living and wealth. In that event Mills' broad policy orientation as a president came to be shaped by this moralizing, “I care for you”, caring father and his children tendency. Ghana’s economic universe was to become the foremost palette upon which this tendency was to be boldly sketched. For the sake of his “children” President Mills decided to reduce the price of petrol(which was a campaign promise). This decision was however rescinded in the light undoubtedly of the turbulence and uncertainty of the global petroleum industry. This turnaround however would seem to have dented or at least raised questions about the commitment of his administration to a pro-poor, pro-people economic agenda. To his credit other pro-poor, pro-people policies were pursued by his administration especially the youth employment, school feeding (which the NPP had started), free school uniform and school infrastructure( putting up buildings aimed at making schools under trees history) programmes. In the main however and in spite of Ghana’s oil sector emerging as a key part of the economy the Mills economy was marked tellingly by a management focus. The usual targets were macroeconomic indices: inflation, debt financing, interest rates and exchange rate stability among others. One of the key corollaries of all this was that the Mills economy struggled immensely with job creation(the figures are still a matter of deep contestation) and thus has sputtered over cost of living and standard of living questions. Matters have not been helped by a cedi inching precariously towards a free fall and an overall wretched global economy. In a sense then deeper questions regarding the restructuring of Ghana’s economy (away from its primary commodity focus) have been shunted to his successors (NDC or NPP).

In other crucial policy areas such as foreign affairs, urban planning (slums are mushrooming and festering) and architecture, transportation(especially commuter transport across the Republic), sanitation, housing(the STX deal and the heaven high promises attending it and the fiasco it has turned out to be is particularly sobering),  the welfare of children, women, the physically-,mentally- challenged and senior citizens one struggles to find a Mills master stroke. Probably it is all about the limitation of the presidential system for a developing polity expressed in the tenure underlying it: how much can a president achieve in four years or at the upper limit eight years? This reality should provide lessons for future presidents in the very crucial art and science of prioritizing without which drift can set in disguised by the daily routine of policy formation which creates a false sense of being on the ball.  

One enduring feature of the Mills presidency was its very open and forceful ecclesiastical bent. This was less so in the Kufuor presidency and the Rawlings one. The former Commander-in-Chief was reportedly a friend of T.B. Joshua, a popular Nigerian evangelist. President Mills regularly presided over what has become known as National Prayer Sessions which involved key personalities of the presidency and bureaucracy. His public discourses were also profusely peppered by allusions to the Judeo-Christain God and his unrequited benevolence. This bent was even to have policy consequences (albeit one off) where the pouring of libation was banned at national events in a Republic that has historically played up its African heritage. On a very personal and philosophical level one need not fault Pres. Mills. It is not difficult to contemplate however the effect of this very sacerdotal public display on the popular consciousness: this side of heaven prayer and the invocation of God is the answer to every problem. One would have wished he acted decisively on charlatan pastors and priests and championed the need to define the parameters of the setting up and operation of churches.

There also was this schizophrenia that marked the Mills presidency and tended to have a jarring, discomfiting effect. Some of his appointees of ministerial ranking became infamous for a pattern of indecorous remarks passing off as communication for government. Historians of the Ghanaian presidency in the Fourth Republic will be cerebrally hard-pressed matching the cultivated affability and gentle persona of the president and the free rein diatribes of some of his ministers. Probably lost on watchers of the Ghanaian presidency is this: it takes a man of steel and some notable cunning to cavort with Jerry Rawlings and bubble to the top of a party that has a very macho DNA. And on Jerry Rawlings one wonders why Pres. Mills’ penchant for peace did not allow him to patch up with his former boss in what has become a very public parting of ways. Now this parting has been stretched to eternity and may yet reflect the complexities, contradictions, strengths and weakness of a seemingly simple man from Otuam in the Central Region of Ghana who became president of our Republic.                                  

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.

  

A “Planet” in Ghana

Kwame strikes a Ben 10 mania pose!

Children dabble in flights of fantasy which tend to change with the speed of light. For my son Kwame his newest craze is outer space triggered by Ben 10  and unmistakably The Adventures of Tintin in Destination Moon. I must add that these Tintin comics are a tad too expensive in Accra but I digress. Last weekend after this industrial existence got in the way so many uncomfortable times Kwame and I got to visit Ghana and I am told West Africa’s only “planet” on earth.

Visitors at the Ghana Planetarium ready to stargaze.

To be exact this “planet” is in reality what is properly called a planetarium. At its spatial locus in Cantonments this learning centre looks like an igloo from the outside given its very oval pate and lily white hue. You understand the nature of the roof once you get inside. The innards of this planetarium are essentially wired to trigger curiosity about this our universe. Posters of the various stars and planets stare down from the walls and the dome serves as a giant screen where simulations of the pitch dark night sky dotted with planetary bodies appear and educational movies on astronomy, the space industry and all things galactic are shown. As I expected Kwame was blown away; I could imagine his mental universe stretched a quadrizillion times; his imagination animated and fired up. For days the ears of abusuafo(the clan) have known no peace from this encounter. For myself as an adult it was both a learning and reflection experience. 

Long before Allotey and  Hawkings the Dogons of Mali knew that sigi tolo (Sirius in English) is the brightest star and had appropriated their advanced astronomical knowledge for social organization. Our own fisher folk at Chorkor, Apam and elsewhere utilize their esoteric knowledge of the movement of the stars to navigate the vast watery expanses of the oceans. I have pondered this infinite expanse beyond this earth where water glides away(you simply cannot fetch water in space) and where the human body is prone to muscular and bone atrophy. Today nations are staking territorial claims in this void with Chinese taikonauts making the latest bid. In the space race is locked the eternal power question: has Africa lost out(too many if not all of the stars have European/Western names; naming power huh!) ? This is my strategic mind wondering.

Dr. Ashong and his team at the Ghana Planetarium have shown great courage and determination in pushing this project forward to allow Ghana’s children to DREAM. How I wish more funding will pour in especially from government(and hopefully corporate Ghana without their buntings,logos and other advertising frills taking over)  to make this “planet” grander and reflective of its national and West African pretensions. I dream of lush greens; oriental ponds; exquisite landscaping; rolling trees; a larger planetarium that can seat at least 2000 children(from all over Ghana) and their parents and all that will trigger meditation and inspiration on the infinite powers of the human mind and the inventiveness and courage of the human spirit.   

             

WHILE WE DISPENSED THE FROTH…….

The week gone by will go down as one of this our Fourth Republic’s most paroxysmic, comical,  farcical and emboldening too. In a near manic outburst a legislator had in essence raised worrying questions about the ongoing biometric registration in the Odododiodio constituency which was by his lights turning into some ethnic accounting system: if you fell into the appropriate column you could register. Unwisely our legislator urged retaliation. Irked the state initially invited the legislator and then proceeded to arrest this unarmed citizen with a blatant display of force and power as crass as the raw emotion with which the initial alarm was raised. Then the grand farce began in which our institutions of state displayed so publicly and tastelessly their putrid underbelly. Just laying the charge was dramatized and involved location theatrics marked by a sudden change in the choice of court. And then with blinding speed the charges swung crudely from treason to terrorism to genocide. In one fell swoop the legislator had taken on the lives of Jerry Rawlings, Osama Bin Laden and Slobodan Milosevic. And all this for an irate command that no intelligent citizen obeyed. An accidental hero is subsequently made in the full glare of national and international publicity in the facebook age. An ashen faced state recoils leaving its defense to febrile assigns whose perverted logic will shame Lucifer himself.

While we dispensed the froth freely the students of my Leadership Class in Ashesi University presented their end of semester projects. The students trawled through communities ranging from Nima, Osu, Mamprobi, Berekuso right up to Goi in the Volta Region trying to give back to their compatriots. Their remit was to identify some challenge in these communities and respond to them in a creative, sustained and engaged way. Our students among other things taught adult literacy classes; built a website for a budding theatre group in Nima; organized a book fair; built bookshelves for the primary school in Berekuso and acquired malaria testing kit for an ante-natal clinic which did not have one and raised millions of cedis in the process. The comments from the students were heartwarming. One struck me: their projects had taught them that Ghana’s problems were theirs and that in their actions they were in reality helping themselves. And this from nineteen year olds without the power to order tanks unto the streets or hot water cannons to spew their lethality. One would have thought that these are the dire social problems that our State will train its maximum efforts on and not the exercise of free speech that had crossed bounds of decency and reasonableness. 

Truth also is that after the legislator’s comments our peoples went about their normal lives. No one was asked about his or her hometown before seeing the doctor or entering my class. In order words Ghanaians can differentiate a bark from a bite. At this point however cool heads must prevail across divides and the opportunity has been offered for some serious policy work on arresting the coarsening of our public discourse and indeed the abuse of our media space. For me that is the deeper lesson after the dust has been cleaned from the armoured car that carried the legislator.        

POLICY/ECONOMIC HITMEN AND WOMEN

I have been observing the public sphere and the sometimes very confounding analysis emanating from some quarters. I have been reading John Perkins Confessions of an Economic Hitman(2005, Random House) and I think our policymakers, academics and broadcasters need to read this book.Perkins was essentially a first degree holder who was transformed(recruited into a putative think tank called MAIN) into a fake economist and econometrician providing fake figures and reports for international organizations like the World Bank and "advising" a swathe of countries in the developing world on engineering, energy and construction projects.Perkins was part of a massive racket involving fake CVs, conjured track records and the publication of dubious "academic articles" . These individuals and entities are STILL HERE!!! My chapter in this work http://www.brill.nl/african-engagements looks at some of these issues.

A few quotes:

" The fact was that I had never thought of myself as a bona fide economist.I had graduated with a bachelor of science in business administration from Boston University with emphasis on marketing. I had always been lousy in mathematics and statistics(Perkins,2005:137)."

" My status as chief economist.....could not be attributed to my capabilities in either economics or planning(Perkins,2005:137).