35, 45, 70? Firaw(Volta). Who Cares Anymore?

Canoes on the Volta

Depressing memories of  the Akoto Lante Tragedy keep flooding to my mind lately. In the early 80s while still in primary school fourteen school children drowned gorily in a discarded well in James Town. They were as children like to do romping away carefree atop this abandoned well that had apparently been sealed off. The whole of Ghana went into mourning. The national flag eternally proud in its arresting hues of red, gold and green with that tellingly prominent black star was flown at half mast. Rawlings then chairman of the Provincial National Defense Council(PNDC) was at that harrowing burial at Awudome Cemetery. This our Republic went into mourning as one man(woman). As a lad I had nightmares the result I guess of my mind playing back all those painful images of caskets bearing the frozen lifeless bodies of kids whose only crime was that they were playing.

Here we are today. A massive national tragedy has befallen us. On the Firaw several of our compatriots have lost their lives. It is a telling testimony of our collective state of mind that this occurrence is seen as just one of those things. No flags fly at half mast. I have not heard any statement from the presidency. The opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo is not showing leadership on this: he is as mute as the vast expanse of Mars! There is an almost cursory, laid back, breezy, jocular, nonchalant attitude in the media(though it must be said our media has carried the news but without its famed intensity on Obinim and NPP and NDC issues). Civil society is not up in arms on what has become an almost maddening routine of our ordinary compatriots dying needlessly on the Firaw. NADMO seems out of sorts; an almost pathetic national disaster response outfit run by an otherwise intense gentleman who seems tired. As I write we are not sure how many actually perished.  As I monitored the news NADMO’s  presence on the Firaw was all but absent. No divers with oxygen tanks on their back racking the under belly of the Firaw to find at the very least the bodies (including babies and our dearest women)  of this our dear compatriots; bona fide citizens of this our Republic. No speed boats in sight. On one television network the report was that there was just one naval officer on site after almost 48 hours. I recall the recent tragedy at a ‘Galamsey” site that involved quite a number of young people. The same national nonchalance;  same ambivalence by our national leadership.

The regrettable irony is that we mourn with solemnity (with some pointed official gestures) the recent Japanese Tsunami victims and the dead of  9/11 and the Norway massacre( and rightly so because of our common humanity) but think it is okay for our very own to die foolishly. Have we become numb to tragedy and death and suffering and inhumanity as a nation? I mean dead bodies are always graphically shown in the media without the slightest respect for the dead which our far wiser ancestors would not do. If needless pain and death is now acceptable with what urgency will we pursue our national transformation drive? With what urgency will we get pontoons on the Firaw, fix our roads and hospitals and schools and filth choked environment? There is a very short route from such inhumanity to cutting each other up and ultimately incinerating this our beloved Republic. Yen oman yi abo ana??????????????????????????????????            

我们怎么了(WO MEN ZEN ME LA)!!!!!!!!!!!!! 我们怎么办 (WO MEN ZEN ME BAN)!!!!!

If  the strokes and words above remain undecipherable to you I understand fully. You do not dear reader owe me an apology for that. Not in the least. However it indicates that you are not particularly ready for  China’s (and with that Asia’s) increasingly visible presence on the African continent which I predict will grow exponentially as this century marches on.

Let us do some class work now. Written Mandarin comes in two forms. There is the han zi which are those seemingly esoteric strokes( but ultimately very learnable; after some perspiration though) you see on the signage for Chinese restaurants. Then there is the pinyin which uses Roman alphabets to capture the sounds in Mandarin( a highly tonal language). All this can be exasperating for the uninitiated. Like I am with the managers of our Republic on this matter.

I flip to the centre pages of the September 3 edition of  the venerable Daily Graphic (p.16). And there I find the Veep   Mr. John Dramani Mahama with a trowel in hand ably laying some stones to symbolically mark the commencement of work on Ghana’s new Ministry of Foreign Affairs complex. The damage to Ghana’s treasury is a cool $15million interest free loan from the Republic of China. This should be a joyous occasion undoubtedly. I recall rushing out camera in hand to the forlorn and burnt out Ghana Foreign Ministry building a few months ago. I was in deep pain. How many historical documents have we lost? All the hard work of Kwame Nkrumah and others on Ghana’s foreign policy gone up in flames? Where will researchers start from? There was no enquiry on this documentary question as far as I can recall. How did we come to this? A little detour. But back to the subject. Of course our Foreign Ministry needs  a new home. But key question is whether Chinese contractors( in this case Yanjian Construction Company of China) should have been handed the job?

Any country’s foreign policy has both clandestine and overt components. The physical infrastructure serves as a vital vehicle for the conduct of foreign policy. For such a building will serve as  a crucible for highly classified conversations, documents and strategic maneuvers in the pursuit of any nation’s vital interests. An edifice such as this should also serve as a spatial and architectural statement of our Ghanaian-ness and the ideals we seek and the force and spirit we represent and embody as we deal with the world. Wisdom should dictate that Ghanaians run the show in such critical national projects. China’s record in Ghana on constructing vital national buildings has left China’s marks and gifted the Chinese with too much knowledge of Ghana’s national secrets I think. The new Ministry of Defense building is a classic case in point. That building looks Chinese not Ghanaian (with  han zi inscriptions to boot). Ditto the National Theatre. The Jubilee House (now controversially christened Flag Staff House) was a baby of such confusion in our leaders minds. After all the dough for the proposed Foreign Ministry building is a loan from China not a gift and utilizing Ghanaian minds and brawn in the main makes sense. And in making this point I do not seek to question the logic of tapping into foreign expertise Chinese or otherwise. Key point is to do this on our terms. As the Chinese do and did and India too.

Here I will not blame the Chinese. I studied in that country and can humbly claim a more than perfunctory understanding of the Chinese mind. If China’s strategists have an advantage they will squeeze it dry. The Ghanaian case seems to be a typical example of a buyers market for China in which the sellers(Ghanaians) have seemingly abandoned their interests. Caught in such a situation the Chinese will quip in exasperation: 我们怎么了 (what happened to us)? And then add too: 我们怎么办(what do we do)?                   

     

BEREKUSO NI. ASHESI NI. GHANA NI.

Mist bathed campus

I was at Berekuso last Saturday. My mission was to attend the formal ribbon-cutting for Ashesi University’s freshly minted gleaming campus perched strategically broodingly atop one of Berekuso’s numerous hills. The atmosphere was pregnant with tones of expectations for Ghana ’s future and Africa’s tomorrow. The guests came from all over the world and included rightly the vice-president of the Republic of Ghana Mr. John Mahama(he looked dapper and natty in that suit; I wish he would appear often like that!). It seemed as if Nature itself had to also make her presence felt: the campus was bathed in floating gossamer-like mists while a lazy, light drizzle let loose now and then as the tightly cheorographed ceremony unfolded.

Guests take a tour of the Ashesi Campus

If in very recent memory in this our Republic a temple has been erected for Knowledge, Reason, Wisdom and Selfless Service this is it without dispute. Over $5million was literally given to Ghanaian architects and contractors to essentially play with and the result is this potent testament in brick, stone, steel and mortar to African genius which marries in titillating spatial artistry the traditional and modern in Ablade Gloverian finesse or better still El Anatsuian harmony. Who said Ghanaian genius has gone to sleep forever? Ashesi’s new campus is a fitting riposte to this view that even our leaders(politicos especially) have come to believe in. And if leadership -selfless, focused, strategic, futuristic, empathetic, intense, ethical, transformative and relentless - matters in unleashing the best Ghana and Africa can be Ashesi’s campus embodies this. Anguished by the threats to his country’s brain power base and with it the undermining of responsible leadership of her educated classes, Patrick Awuah(Ashesi’s founder and president) went to work with virtually nothing but his own savings and that of his wife Rebecca(an American). Enduring many travails including naysayers, doubters and mockers Patrick persevered and endured and fought on as he helmed his team(with the able support of friends and people of goodwill reflecting the best of the human spirit) to this significant juncture. But dreams must find fertile grounds; the Chief of Berekuso Odeefo Nana Oteng Korankye provided it. Nana Korankye abandoned a lucrative real estate project for the Ashesi dream. Who said chieftancy was an anachronism; a spent ancient institution content in eking out a parasitic, unproductive existence century after century and obfuscating our journey to our reasoned, chosen modernity? In Ashesi’s campus that view is concretely contested.

Patrick Awuah was thinking about tomorrow not himself. Nana ditto. So were all those who have labored and toiled and battled to raise this inspiring sign-post to Gha na’s greatness tomorrow via today. The World Bank through the International Financial Corporation chipped in some heavy resources too for this project. Our politicos are embroiled currently in a shouting match over the STX and $3billion loan from China. Rightly there must be value for money when we contract such loans and transparency in the terms of the contracts. But in the long run it is selfless leadership marinated in palpable integrity which will ensure that these loans transform our Republic. That is the greatest test. Loans must be paid back on time and used for the express purpose for which they were sought for ( in the interest of our people and our Republic). Ashesi’s new campus tells a profound story. May we all learn. Berekuso ni. Ashesi ni. Ghana ni. Africa ni.

PS: It is a cringing shame the way Prof. Frimpong Boateng has been treated. He should have left Korle-Bu on the wings of a great send off party drenched hopelessly in the choicest champagne. He embodies Ghanaian genius at its finest without a doubt.

(Lloyd G.Adu Amoah is an assistant professor at Ashesi University and the executive director at Strategy3, a strategy and public policy research and advocacy think-pad based in Accra.)

Tro- Tro

I wrote this poem in 1997 when I was a fresh-faced, very innocent youth. It forms part of a manuscript of my writings I plan to publish. My Dad Yaw Adjei(one of the truest Ghanaian patriots I have ever known)insisted while his gleaming official cars (first a Pajero and then a Suzuki) sat in the garage that his children took the public transport system. The vehicles he reminded us time and time again were meant for national duties; service to the Ghanaian Republic not trifling junkets bordering on abuse across the city. And so it was that I was exposed most intimately to Ghana’s public transport system in Accra: its wretchedness; its indignity; its butchery and maiming capacity and curiously its humanity. My very good friend Kimathi Kuenyehia and I still reminisce on the occasions when literally marooned and trapped in snarling queues in Accra-Central our mastery of the art of shoving and maneuvering and pushing made all the difference in boarding a tro-tro. It’s been fourteen years down the road and not much has changed. How many decades more? After all it is to my mind an intellectual insult to our Republic ( and especially to Ghana’s elites)  that all we could offer our people is this grotesqueness in the 21^st century! Enjoy!  

         

                                        Verse I

“Accra, Accra, Accra”

At the “Bus stop,” a surge forward

Unveils a mad scramble to Enter

A veritable scrap-heap on Four-wheels

“Four” “Four”, a command bellows

The Driver’s mate knows the score

Four is Four, you may be pencil thin

Or tubby and flabby as the Makola mummy.

                                         Verse II

It’s a weird world in here

A hotbed of forced labour

To sit “seats” must be skirted

Now and then seats are pushed,

Shifted, lifted, hugged, even caressed

As if in tandem, man and woman

Oscillate their bodies into Positions

The Prague contortionist surely envies

Between man and woman intimacy physical Predominates

The Brother’s hands rub the sister’s breast

The sister’s buttocks rub the brother’s face

Thigh and Thigh, foot and foot

Communicate in an atmosphere sweaty

So much for Personal Freedom

The Ever present cliché

Of  Modern Ghana’s Political lexicon.

                                        Verse III

Time remains inconsequential

You are an Enemy

If watch looking is a habit

For movement is at a snail’s pace

What with fellow citizens jumping

Off now and then, here and there

And the Lord at the wheels

Chatting with a Buddy

Here and there, Now and then

Some Advice:

“Buy your own car,

If respect for Time is your credo:

Here Time has no meaning”

                                   

                                        Verse IV

In the Timelessness

A battle Rages

Fare payment inspired

Hear Prince Driver’s mate:

“  I have no change!

Your currency is torn”

Abuse, invectives, curses

Rule the Roost

Sometimes blood has flowed

Verse V

Along the Way

Men in black Extort

Men in black are bribed

The Law is mauled

And disabled

And too limbs if not lives lost

From Ashale- Botwe to Accra

Trapped in this rattle-trap

Forever or for a season

We wish we knew!

A Quip!!!!!

Last week I headed out to the Shai Hills area to meet some young people from Nigeria. The journey though a short one was quite relaxing. And such a feeling was aided in no small measure by the overwhelming lush greenery which calmed the senses (brutalized and abused by the daily frenzy of urban living). I loved nature’s artwork expressed in those craggy formations which swirled and twirled in multiple directions as if executing some esoteric contemporary dance move. Inevitably I     pondered over Ghana too. When, I thought, will the creative genius of the Ghanaian mind be unleashed to harness such neglected wealth for our collective advantage? The next generation becomes critical I thought as I watched those young Nigerians stream into the seminar room all feisty, chatty and innocent.

These youths (all teenagers) are from a high school which has decided to send its students to Ghana yearly for a tour of historical sites and leadership seminars. This was my third engagement as a motivation speaker with such youths from Nigeria. But why “small Ghana” as some of my Nigerian friends like to describe us? I asked them to share impressions of their stay. Their views both humbled and scared me. They loved our cuisine and our accents(when Ghanaians spoke English!) too. Our streets were almost surgical theatre clean. Electrical power was too surreally stable. Some wanted to come back to study in Ashesi University where I teach. Ghana was an oasis of progress for them. And in these statements they were echoing a sentiment a top Nigerian military officer friend of mine had expressed to me some years ago. I dismissed him then. Coming from these youths however got my mind into a spin to understand it all. Then that questioning quip from one gangling lad complicated it all: “ does Ghana face any problems at all?” I struggled to provide an answer to interlocutors who had made up their minds. My future Ghana I told them was one that could hold her own against the leading countries in the world on major economic and social indicators. Ghana’s rise it seems could provide such a compelling example for other African countries. That was humbling for me. However such supine adulation from other Africans for what for me (and many fellow compatriots from all walks of life I have spoken to over the years) are excruciatingly modest achievements could induce self –delusion. That scared me and the fact that some of Nigeria’s youth had concluded that their country had not lived up to her much vaunted potential.   

And  then last week London smoldered and then went up in flames. The youth again. In the global news. I remember the London I first saw. It was a rain soaked and windy October day. It was dark and overcast. That did not make the mood right. I was disappointed. The organization of space looked too staidly quaint for me. Still does after a couple of visits. My bad.  I have seen a few major Asian cities and been smitten by their scarcely hidden gusto and experienced as a bonus the warmth of total strangers on those streets. I love the sweep of some leading North American cities as well. But back to the point: why will youths set their city ablaze and go on a frenzied looting frolic? Is it seething anger stirred by hopelessness and a lack of opportunity? Cameron (himself quite youthful) and his team must find answers to such fundamental questions and cut the frothy, threatening, clichéd, criminalizing speeches which stripped of their veneer appear intent on protecting privilege and power. Maybe the youths of Tunis, Cairo, Damascus, Tripoli, Sanaa, Muscat, London, Lagos and Accra share the same pain after all in a world in which bankers and politicians filch billions, throw our lives into a tailspin and are glad handled and compensated to boot.

PS: Which Ghanaian official(s) chose the green hue for our biometric passports? It is so ugly. Can we please go back to the dark blue? On a lighter note I thought Nigeria held the patent for the  colour green? Oya!!!!!!!!!!!!!         

   

Roasted Plantain, Ongayo and the Sogakope “Vandals”?

The Great Volta in full majestic repose

Obesity may yet become one of contemporary Ghana’s key public health challenges. The post-industrial world has sprung upon us-while we napped- with its fast foods, canned stuff and sedentary life style. And it is the obese little ones who give me distress. My wife Sylvia and I refused to allow our little boy to stuff up on what children tend to crave and then get hooked on: fizzy drinks, candy and junk food. Thank goodness he is like a reed now and taking tae kwan do lessons too to keep those muscles working.  I make a conscious choice to eat our local foods regularly. I am not one of those who think eating greasy food every lunch time is hip or bourgeoise. I love my roasted plantain and crisp groundnuts. In the Accra afternoon when one pauses a while to savor life, the feel of roasted ripe plantain and groundnuts on the tongue and palate is heavenly for me.

And so lately I made a bee-line to this spot in Labone where I get my roasted plantain and groundnuts fix. I have become friends with this middle aged lady. We make small talk about family, life and Ghana’s future. She is not happy about her son who is good with his hands but not his brains at school. She wants my advice. I proffer some: Ghana has potential; the industrial machine will soon hum; craftsmen and women will be in high demand; there will be work and happiness; God dey. Woman marshals the sliced bits of plantain over that great fire sweetly and delicately; almost caressing those pieces with a sensuous artistry; she moves one there; shifts the other there; she is the overlord of a bewildering tapestry of smoke, live coal, searing heat, soot, gold, white and black. As I talk she shepherds her charges over the great fire. Then she paused momentarily. She lifted her head slowly revealing the strain pocked face and stared at me. Then she spoke slowly and with such feeling and intensity. I froze. “ Those big men and women never think about us. Do they? Here I am. A commoner. I sell this stuff. Been at it for years. Never travelled out of this country. These big wigs have seen the world and all they could give Ghana is this wretchedness?” I left with my stuff and an appetite that had gone gaga. Ordinary folk know that the Ghanaian elite have taken them for a ride. Failed them. It is a big pretense and a circus of power play, self aggrandizement, materialism and fork tongued deceit. I have been pondering her words ever since. Thought I will share it.

And share Ongayo’s too. A fellow academic from Kenya studying in Utrecht, Amsterdam. He is in Accra doing some fieldwork for his doctorate. His commentary on Accra is chilling. While we sat at lunch recently he thought he saw a country made up of two separate worlds: foul opulence in the face of grinding poverty. He said Kenya had reached that point and surpassed it. Ghana was getting there. In Kenya dudes with a Masters degree were mates in the matatus( their version of tro-tro). Crime executed with sophisticated weapons was rife in Kenya; G3s and others in that category were the weapons of choice. The rich live in barricaded enclaves with towering walls; beyond 6:00p.m.one dare not go out on some frolick. Ongayo has been in Accra several times and in the rural parts of Ghana too. Word.

And talking about Accra and beyond my first encounter with Sogakope was through the Hotel Cisneros some years back. This hotel rubs against the Volta literally. The Volta is so majestic and almost haughty. I still remember the boatman riding the Volta in that canoe. I waved. He returned my gesture. I admired his courage; tiny-tot upon this watery vastness. I think the reported destruction of some property of Sogakope Secondary School recently by some irate citizens was very bad publicity for a place I fell in love with. Hard earned national resources from the GETfund just went to waste because of some grievance. And the irony of it all was an elderly gentleman caught on camera justifying what took place. That senior citizen insulted us all. Where are the police? And the regional minister and the Regional Security Council? I want to see some arrests on this matter and swift punishment. After all these “vandals” also threatened to poison the water of this school. Such arrogance!!!! Impunity anywhere in our Republic cannot be allowed. I am watching closely.         

Re: Re: Re:Re: IMANI Report

My rebuttal to IMANI; in blue!!!!!




Dear Sir,

1) I do not need to indicate that. In any case if our Republic's Armed Forces decide to go into commercial ventures I see no reason why they should and cannot.

 

That is neither to say that you believe, and can demonstrate, that this is a positive development nor that it will yield positive outcomes for the Republic, which is the only true test. Everything else is detail.

        

     I thought my position was unambiguous.

 

2) The technical and financial questions lie squarely with the Ghanaian Armed Forces to decide. You are not suggesting  that this institution simply jumped into the venture without taking into account these matters. At best as civil society and engaged citizens the key point would have been to enquire about whether due diligence had been done rather than the veiled(and patronizing) suggestion that the Army was bat blind in venturing into such an enterprise.

 

Sir, your reading of the tenets of accountability and probity in a constitutional dispensation is both quaint and arcane:-) It is NOT for the Armed Forces to decide. It is for the civilian Executive to decide, subject to any reviews by the other two arms of government. Where there is a manifest possibility that the public purse shall be unduly burdened there are actually statutes that govern what is permissible. We pointed out clearly, and factually, why the technical and financial partners that have been engaged may not be up to measure. If you have contrary evidence, kindly share same.

    I have not indicated or argued about any sacredness of the Ghanaian Army when it comes to critique. Do not play God on these matters of judgement. Interesting you use the word " believe".   

3)  You cannot be cute on this point. A synthesis of your piece morphs into this syllogistic argument:

 1) Global trends are having a deterministically positive effect on how militaries are interfacing with the market( Quotes from your piece: "This is indeed the thinking across the developed and middle-income world."Why is Ghana rushing to embrace a concept – that of military ownership and management of commercial ventures – when most countries are fleeing from this practice?"

 2) Ghana's army is not following this global trend as it goes commercial. 

 3) The Ghanaian army's investment is thus bound to go awry.

 Essentially your piece in a very veiled fashion suggested the " "mischaracterisation of "western" to mean "global." " In any case the literature clearly locates the source of the rise of market triumphalism in Western academies which the privatization of the military's industrial activities reflects. Your primary example of the USA under your " Global Trends"  sub-heading was a Freudian slip I guess ;)!!!!

 

We did nothing of the sort. We liberally cited the work of Dr. Siddiqa, whose work has focussed on the so-called "emerging world", and the ideational winds blowing in that universe.

       You are dodging the issues. Don't find refuge in Dr. Siddiqa. 

4) The lack of clarity is your fault not mine. My very public positions on these issues and my work show where I stand. I will not bore our esteemed readers. In any case your point blithely wish away the ideational power assymetries that characterize the flow of ideas in our contemporary world. Again to think about development on your terms in not the same as saying that the ideas that are thus spawned are unique; that was not my argument. You creating a straw man in order to obliterate it with an ICBM!!!! 

 

We are not sure which of our points you are referring to.

      Again that is your burden. 

5) "Our central thesis is that "ownership and direct management" by the armed forces has been proven less effective." How do you prove that conclusively? By what metrics? This what I am contending; this law like posturing is intellectually unsustainable. In any case do you have the full facts on these regarding what pertains in the US/UK etc. 

 

Please share any evidence you have that this central thesis is flawed. Your present position is glib but not very lucid:-) Our analysis clearly pointed to a global trend of military de-commercialisation.

       You seem seduced and inebriated by your own rightness and a certain tunnel vision. The WB itself is now after falling flat on its   face calling for public-private partnerships after demonizing the state sector in Africa and elsewhere. Go dig the literature(Ha-Joon Chang will be a useful primer).  

6)  So why did you not indicate what you consider  " mere bagatelle" in your piece so we can consider that and at the very least come to an informed position. Or you were playing a sophisticated "bagatelle" mind game? You cannot "suspect" with a public document that deals with the Armed Forces of the Republic of Ghana; an institution that with all her faults stands up to the very best on this globe.

 

Your approach is slef-contradictory. On the one hand you want these matters to be subjected to "critical analysis", on the other hand you consider every action of our Armed Forces sacrosanct. That is not a critical approach we are familiar with.

    The contradiction arises from misunderstanding what is crystal clear.  

 

7) and 8) You cannot comment on China's military and its relationship with their civilian counterparts in power shorn of that country's post-1919 history. It is not for nothing that every Chinese leader is head of the CMC. I think the military establishment holds the reins of power in China. Check out the Chinese constitution; in that light I will utilize a pragmatic approach in understanding the re-orienting of China's military- business relations than a trendy one. 

 

Of course the General Secretary of the Communist Party is also Head of the CMC. In every country in the world the Head of State is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Again, this is irrelevant to the thrust of our argument in this particular context, which is that: "the Chinese State is bent on removing erstwhile military enterprises from the direct management control and ownership of the Chinese Armed Forces".

        A 10th grade government student knows this. I was urging a historical reading of China's evolving military policy or strategy(zhanlue in Mandarin). 

 

9) I insist that your piece was not balanced. You were fudging to push through you own understanding of things. If you said so I will not bat an eye-lid :)!!!

10) You are not suggesting that we simply read your piece perfunctorily. I  introduced a critical approach and did my deconstruction  surgically and that involved reading along the lines. In any case the issues you raise are situated in the whole privatization of military research, operations etc question. Question: IMANI will applaud if the government of Ghana sets up, manages and runs a corporation that produces say military boots?

 

No we are suggesting that when you introduce a critical dimension to this debate that you stick to it. Your present reactions are a bit all over the place, pardon the metaphor:-)

      My or your confusion? 

 

I acknowledge your public spirited-ness though I must add. Passing of the offer of two pesewas enriches me I guess ;)!!! Kitiwa biara nso a !!!!!

 

We are also unswerving admirers of your scholarly work. You are very kind, Sir.

     Being charitable is a virtue. I enjoyed this ;)!!!