The Ghanaian Judiciary Under Attack!

One of the essential elements that hold societies together is a system of justice. Our great ancestor Noah, was instructed after the Flood that devastated his world, to institute Human Government (a justice system that could execute the death penalty for murderers).  The giving of the Ten Commandments through Moses, offered a formalized Codified Legal framework. Many have pointed to the similarities in form between Hammurabi’s Code and Moses’ Decalogue. But the fact that we could even identify Codified Legal Regimes with antiquity; strengthens the notion that:”Society and Law are inseparable”. A society without law is primitive, brutish and chaotic.

The Ghanaian Judiciary has had her challenges throughout our fifty-year post-independence history. Generally our courts have ‘silently’ done their work, except when faced with ‘high-profile’ political cases. Kwame Nkrumah’s Presidency was confronted with the trial of the suspects of the Kulungugu Bomb Incident- one of the several attacks on the life of our first President.
Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia was confronted with the Sallah case.
J.J. Rawlings’ share of the ‘disturbance’ of the Judiciary was the ‘murder of the three High Court Judges and the senior Military Officer’. Many saw this event as a move, not only to punish the judges for personal ‘unpalatable’ decisions at the courts; but to ‘intimidate’ the Judges into ‘staying away’ from the ‘holy and untouchable ways’ of the revolutionaries.

Some Judges, Magistrates, Tribunal Chairmen, and even the staff of the Judiciary; have been accused at different times of frustrating the wheels of justice through corruption, nepotism, ethnocentricism and all the wrong ‘isms’.  On the whole however, we have not had a ‘bad’ Justice System over the years. So many Judges and Magistrates can be counted among the greatest sons and daughters of our nation. The Ghanaian Judiciary can be safely acknowledged as one of the Pillars of our country. Together with the Legislature, the Executive, and the Mass Media- the wheels of State have been kept running.

My dear friend, the Ghanaian Judiciary today is under unprecedented attacks from the ruling government and her supporters. The refrain from several officials of state, including the Attorney General is that: “The Judiciary has been compromised by the Kufour regime and that it must be purged by hook or crook”. No less a personality than the current Chairman of the NDC, Dr Kwabena Adjei blew the whistle for the commencement of hostilities. Almost every NDC official or government appointee has supported the assertion of their Chairman. One is left to believe that this was a carefully orchestrated plot by the ruling party and the government of the day.

If the Chairman blew the whistle; former President J.J. Rawlings is the ‘mid-field-dynamo’. He shouts, screams and threatens anytime he had the opportunity. In fact he claims his present difficulty with the current President is that: “Atta Mills has woefully failed to jail the NPP criminals”. His taunts and jeers are calculatedly to cow the judges.

A High Court Judge has had to ‘chicken out’ from sitting on a case because he was accused by no less a person than the Deputy Attorney General, Ebow Barton-Oduro, of making prejudicial statements about the case in Takoradi. As funny and hollow as this accusation was, the judge recused himself from the case. When the judge decided not to continue sitting on the case, the ruling government’s perspective was that: “Yes we are right- he is a corrupt judge- otherwise why has he stepped down?” This is the government of Ghana- they can get away with anything. They are always right.

The Chief Justice has especially borne the brunt of this very dangerous juxtaposition of the NDC government. They have insulted, assaulted, maligned, impugned her integrity, lied and unashamedly assailed her with every verbal, intellectual and emotional weapon that could be brandished against any person. The whole Chief Justice- the fourth on the hierarchy of the national positional ladder- has been literally reduced to nothing in the eyes of the ordinary citizens of this country. In the absence of the President, his Vice, the Speaker of the Parliament, the Chief Justice assumes the seat of the Presidency. In fact, she was the one who swore the President into office.

The NDC wants to hound her out of office, so that another takes up her position. They reason that since the President is supposed to appoint a new Chief Justice (if they succeeded to get Auntie Georgina out), he could then put a government favorite to replace her. And then hopefully, the NDC could have control over the courts.

Justice Georgina Theodora Woode has been working in the Judiciary since 1974. Throughout the nineteen-year reign of Rawlings, she was a Judge. Both the Judiciary system and the succeeding governments have had no difficulty with her long standing record as an astute Judge. She was raised to the position of the Chief Justice during the last year or so of Kufour’s reign; and all of a sudden- this otherwise ‘woman of integrity’ becomes a ‘criminal-anti-NDC-Judge’, who must be ‘destroyed’ at all cost. Where is truth? Where is fairness? Where is Justice? Where is integrity?

The excuses the NDC offer for their ‘demonic onslaught’ on this lady are so surprisingly laughable.

“She set up a court on a Sunday”. The particular case was an electoral one.
Fact- She has the legal support to do this. The bottom-line is that the presiding Judge ruled in favor of the NDC. What was then her crime?

Another one was that the Chief Justice presided over a Ministerial Committee set up to investigate a high profile Cocaine case. The NDC claims that because she did the ‘bidding’ of the Kufour-led government, she was rewarded with the Chef Justice position.
The fact is that the then Chief Justice, Acquah, had died. He had to be replaced. He could be replaced by anyone of the Supreme Court Judges- and she was one of them- and equally qualified as any other. 

Another funny excuse is that she had bought a ‘Stolen State Land’. And because the current government is trying to retrieve the land; and she is the one who appoints judges to sit on cases in the courts; she as an interested party, cannot be a ‘judge in her own case’.
Fact is that Georgina Woode bought a government land at one part of the city (this is a general practice- that even the current President has benefited from). Kufour’s government decided to do something else with her original land and offered her the present one. She paid for it. What is her crime? And please remember Georgina is a Ga- and if even non-Ga government officials (with lesser pedigree) could purchase such lands- she is even more qualified to.

Another crime of hers is that her sister is married to an NPP lawyer and Parliamentarian- Ata Achea.  Fact: Atta Achea’s marriage to her current wife predates any of them rising to their current positions. What has this got to do with the integrity of the Chief Justice? Atta Mills is married to Naadu Mills- anything wrong with this- especially if both of them happen to belong to the same profession or industry? Is something wrong here?

The NDC government’s real beef is that they are losing high profile cases (initiated by the government against NPP Ministers and appointees) in the courts. And it could be for no other reason than the courts being wired against them.

However, under the NPP regime, so many NDC officials also won their cases in the same courts. Nana Kunadu’s company- CARIDERM won a case against Kufour’s government that grossed the company 

$5 million.
Tsatsu Tsikata won and lost several mini-appeals during his six-year trial under Kufour.
Interestingly, in spite of the accusations against the judges, several NDC operatives are suing people at the courts.
E. T. Mensah has sued some officials of the Civil Service for defamation.
Government officials like Tony Aidoo want everybody to know that they will resort to the courts to seek remedies for any harm aimed at him.
There is also the fact that currently some of the NPP functionaries have lost some of the legal arguments they have raised at some stages of their trials- presided over by the same judges.

You see that the name of President Mills is conspicuously out of the above discussion? The reason is that what he said about the issue amounted to ‘nothing’. On his return from a visit to the USA, all what he said was: “I uphold the independence of the judiciary”. Please note that he is not only the President, but also the Leader of the NDC. His statement was completely ignored by the Party. A day after his statement, all the Regional NDC Chairmen held a meeting and declared their support for their National Chairman, as against the President. This President is a Master of the Art of Double-Speak- I have used three weeks to prove that. The fact is that: “The President, his government and his NDC Party have vowed to reduce the Judiciary to a Rubber-Stamp. That if they pronounced anybody guilty, the Courts must endorse that. And they will not relent until they achieve this goal- Period!”

The Prophet’s Counsel
I want to appeal to the Judges to be strong, uphold and apply the Law without any form of fear and discrimination. God is with them; our ancestors are with them; all the good people of the world are with them. Even the NDC will need them, especially when they become an opposition party. The NDC’s position now is unacceptable and mischievous.  It is a short-sighted and dangerous position; and must be rejected by all fair and just minded people- especially members of the Christian church, committed Christians; and practitioners of religions that uphold the dignity of the human person!

Prophet Micaiah
prophetmicaiah@gmail.com ;
http://prophetmicaiah.blogspot.com/
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THE DANGERS OF PRESIDENTIAL DOUBLE –SPEAK III

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. ¹⁸When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for ^[a] his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. ¹⁹ But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself
( Ezekiel 3 : 17-19 NIV)

This is the third and final part of the subject. In our two previous write-ups, we outlined some of the speeches and actions of the President that send confusing signals to the generality of the Ghanaian public, because of their inherent contradictions and divisive ends. Some of these are so serious that they even threaten our efforts at harnessing and managing our rich heterogeneous ethnic orientations and histories; into our fifty-three year old experiment at forging ourselves into a unitary state called Ghana.  

The President is the Number-One Citizen of the land. He embodies our collective sovereignty, aspirations and honor. His thoughts, utterances, actions and inactions impinge directly on us all; irrespective of whether we are in his team or not, agree with him or not, love him or hate him. The same laws that give him such a high honor also mandate us to criticize him, offer suggestions and alternatives to his policies, and organize ourselves to vote him out when his immediate term of office expires- if so desired. And this we shall do in service to God and country!

Thus in service to country, this Prophet continues with his cataloging of the diatribes of the President, with the end that he will improve his serve.

Our President embarked on trips to Japan and China recently. Obviously there were some good things that came out of the trip. But the following fall-outs were rather confusing and troubling; to say the least:

It was widely publicized both in the Ghanaian and in the international media that bilateral agreements had been signed that was bringing loans totaling about $30 Billion to Ghana. In fact Alex Segbefia on one of the FM stations even stated that the loans could grow to multiples of the above ‘if Ghana played the good boy’ (or something to that end). Both the IMF and the World Bank raised some concerns about these ‘huge loans’. Later on, one of the Deputy Minister’s of Finance, Fiifi Kwettey, explained that the actual loans signed were up to about $450 million; and that the ‘huge ones’ alluded to, were only very loose ‘Intents’ and Memoranda of Understanding the two nations entered into.

Friend, what he said amounted to either  you or I (or any Kofi, Abdulai or Naadu) entering into any shopping mall or factory and collecting Pro-Forma invoices totaling millions of Cedis/Dollars/Pounds; and going back home to tell our family and friends that we have so much money coming ‘very soon’- just because of the invoices. How does this sound to you? And because of this propaganda and ‘spin’ over whatever transactions took place in China; several Ghanaians were mobilized to go to the airport to welcome the President when he finally arrived from China.
“Uncle Atta has done what even Kwame Nkrumah could not do” (obviously one of the songs that run through the hearts and minds of the gullible and hungry Ghanaians)

The interesting aspect of this whole ‘concert’ is that; on a similar visit by President Kufour somewhere in 2006, he had succeeded in brokering a $600 million deal with the Chinese for the construction of the Bui Dam. In fact this was the highest amount given to any other African country on that particular Chinese-African Conference.  I believe the Kufour delegation may have also been offered such billions of dollars of loans- ‘whenever they had what it took to access them’.  Indeed friend, you are I can get such undertakings even from our regular ‘Waakyi and Woley’ sellers!
Question: Why should an elderly Law Professor- who also wants to be seen as an excellent Christian- without any moral spot; stoop so low in political propaganda and pretensions?

The second leg of the President’s trip was to take him to Japan. However the President came home from China on 26/09/2010. His reason was to participate in the launch of Ghana’s Population and Housing Census on the eve of same day. This according to him was to demonstrate the importance he attached to the program and also to be amongst the first to be counted. The census itself was going to last for two weeks. He could have therefore gone to Japan and come back home early enough to be enumerated- without the fanfare of breaking his trip. This is a man who refuses to take per-diems on his trips- because he wants to be frugal. I hope coming back to Ghana from China and then going back to Japan truly saved Ghana lots of money- right?

President Mills and the NDC government embarked on a policy to rezone portions of government lands for redevelopment in Accra. A law to this effect was passed in 1999 or thereabout. But even before this law came into effect several government lands had been sold out to private individuals and companies for the purpose. Several NDC operatives and companies belonging to some of them benefited from this program. PNDC/NDC operatives also bought several of the over 300 divested government-owned companies from 1983 till the NDC left office. Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings and the 31^st December Revolution Women’s Movement and its offspring- Cariderm-  benefited immensely from these programs.

President Kufour’s government- so unwisely decided also to exploit this terrain created by the NDC to sell several of the government lands to themselves.
Atta Mills in his characteristic double-speak fashion- is drawing all kinds of strings and instigating his officers to drag this issue as far as they can gain political mileage on. He does not care a hoot about the ethnocentric dimensions of the discussions and the threat this poses to national cohesion and peace.

Personally I am shocked at the insatiable propensity of our politicians to acquire wealth once in office. It is a complete disgrace. Any politician who has already done this; or is planning to do so, must bow down his/her head in shame. I am worried especially that President Kufour who was quite elderly and an experienced politician- and who lived through the political trauma of the mid seventies and the eighties could descend this low in handling State property. Do people not care any longer about their reputations? I weep for my country. And I shall definitely revisit this subject!

The Prophet’s Advice:
Gentlemen and Ladies, we are building a country. We are still very young and fragile. Let us make sure the laws of this country are not selectively applied. The law is what binds us together. If we will use the law to criminalize one person and free another for the same offence- friends we are not doing well. We are undermining our stability. Mr. President, please sit up and pull the plugs on some of your actions and inactions that are driving us to the precipice.

Prophet Micaiah
prophetmicaiah@gmail.com ;
http://prophetmicaiah.blogspot.com/ 
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THE DANGERS OF PRESIDENTIAL DOUBLE –SPEAK II

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. ¹⁸When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for ^[a] his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. ¹⁹ But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself

( Ezekiel 3 : 17-19 NIV)    

Last week we considered the sincerity temperature of our President- Ofarinyi Kwaegya Atta-Mills.
In Psalm 15:3c, the scriptures prescribes “----speaking the truth in his heart”;  as one of the eleven virtues that must be pursued by anyone who may want to court and enjoy God’s blessings in all his ways. “…. Speaking the truth in his heart” could also be reduced to –Sincerity- that one must be sincere in all his dealings.

Here is a quote from last week: “A sincere person may not be a man without fault. He may not be perfect- but he at least sets off from a premise of honesty. He is always on the side of fairness and objectivity. He does not set off to deceive. His failing may just be because of his limitation as a man. He is always true to himself and to his neighbours. This quality is especially accentuated if he is a leader of any social grouping: Family, community, tribe, church, business, nation, school, etc”

The prophet then called on the President to critically observe some of his actions and utterances that border on insincerity, double-speak and even at times hypocrisy. Here is the continuation:

• The President on his pre-election campaign said at Mumford in Central region that: “Because Ex President J.A Kuffour is an Asante and not a Fanti from the coast: He has neglected the fishing industry; refused to build Cold Stores along the coast; but rather built Cold Stores in Kumasi.
  The fact is that the late Kutu Acheampong’s regime built some Cold Stores along some of the coatal towns and in Mumford. The PNDC/NDC sold off all of these facilities.
  Secondly, the cold stores in Kumasi were built by individuals and private companies. Many of them predated Kuffour’s Presidency.
  The ‘Asomdweehene’ therefore spoke a wicked lie that had a potency of fanning tribal sentiments. In fact he made several of such statements throughout his campaign.
• The President claims to have turned the seat of Government into a Christian Prayer Camp.
  Question: Which denomination or sect of Christianity is offering the prayers with: Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Adventist, Jehovah witness or which one?
  So those who do not share in his religious beliefs; what do they do at the Castle when he is praying with others?
  Do all his appointees and staff- Including Dr. Tony Aidoo join him in the prayer- willingly or unwillingly?
  Is he imposing his religious preference on them?
  Is he by inference prescribing that Mumuni also turns the Foreign Ministry into an Islamic Prayer Center? And if any of his Ministers believes in Afrikania (the religion founded and funded by the PNDC); is he also permitted to build a shrine at his Ministry?
  And then if all subsequent Ghanaian Presidents should also turn the Presidency into their respective religious-based Prayer Centers- that is a good example the learned Christian Law-Professor is setting- right?Our Lord Jesus Christ advised: “When you pray- enter into your closet and pray; your heavenly Father who sees in secret will reward you openly”. He offered a similar counsel for Fasting and Giving of Alms. In fact Jesus described those who do not heed this counsel as hypocrites- period!
• The President in opposition accused his predecessor of engaging in frivolous international travels. In office, both he and his Vice have embarked on quite a number of travels. In fact sometimes both of them have had to go to the same countries in turns.  He refuses to take per-diems, but it seems his Vice and all others take theirs (I stand to be corrected). By refusing to take per-diems, he wants to imply that his predecessor may have embarked on his trips because of his ‘love’ for personal gains. This view was expressed by most of the NDC supporters before the last elections and subsequently.
• He and his supporters vehemently and insultingly criticized Former President Kufour for planning to buy a total of six airplanes for the use of the Air Force and the Presidency (please remember that Kufour himself was not going to use any of these planes personally- because he was definitely going to be out of office at the time the planes were supposed to arrive in the country). One of the planes arrived sometime in the first week of October this year.  At its dedication, Ghanaians were shocked to learn that the Atta-Mills government has ordered seven more planes- bringing the total to eight. Can you believe this? And yet they feel they have done such a great deed; Ghanaians must give them loud praises for it!
• The PNDC/NDC governments sold off over 300 State Companies under an IMF Structural Adjustment Program. The NPP government, working under similar IMF conditionalities, sold off a few of these Companies. Here comes Atta-Mills and a crowd of his supporters, with placards vehemently protesting an action he had previously pointed to as ‘very necessary for the take-off’ of Ghana’s economy.
• He cried out loudly against Kufour for daring to call for ‘Evidence’ from those who accused his appointees of ‘Corruption’. Atta-Mills interpreted this as Kufour’s complicity in the whole process of ‘ripping Ghana off’. Interestingly in Office, the President is asking for same ‘Evidence’. In his case, when even this evidence has been adduced by the accusers, these ‘whistle-blowers’ have themselves become the target of recrimination and victimization. Civil and Public servants who have dared ‘expose’ their ‘thieving’ political overlords; are being hunted down all around. In one particular case the President posed a rhetorical question: “Is this the first time a Minister of State is travelling with a girl-friend?” This was in response to the accusation that a Mohammed Muntaka had falsified documents to enable his girl-friend in one of the government ministries to travel with him to Germany at State expense.  In answer to another question as to whether his ministers had declared their assets as he had directed done within (I think the first three months after assuming office); the President said: “I have declared mine. Ask them if they have done theirs” (and this was several months after his deadline).
• The President swears to the God of heaven that he will prosecute ‘corrupt’ operatives of the NPP government; yet when NDC operatives were tried and punished for similar ‘corrupt’ allegations, Candidate Mills was all over the place shouting that the trials were politically motivated and biased.
• Before President Kufour left office, he conducted the then President-Elect Mills around the Jubilee House- the supposed Residence for the new President. Uncle Atta seemed to be quite elated and paid some glowing tributes to the edifice. He comes into office and refuses to occupy the rather ‘expensive’ national pride. And then he sends his Foreign Minister there. And then every now and then he steals in there to do a thing or two. Then comes the big surprise- Uncle Atta has changed the name of the Presidency to The Flag Staff House (same name given the original dilapidated structures that occupied that space by the Colonial Masters). By so doing, I believe the Holy Learned Fanti Professor, has finally exorcised the ‘Kufour Profligate Demons’ from the edifice. He may now be ready to take occupation!

There are so many of such Presidential Double-Speak that I may want to end here without boring you any longer. You are a better judge as to where such contradictions will take us as a nation.

The Prophet’s Call:
Uncle Atta; Ghana is for us all. I believe Ghanaians elected you because they trusted you. You have doubtlessly done some good since assuming office.
You know that former President Rawlings was a young man when he assumed power through a Coup ‘de Tat. He did well- but in the process he insulted Ghanaians to the extent that they had to insult him back to retain some ‘human’ pride. He is afflicting you with the same insults presently. This action of his desecrated the Presidency. President Kufour was called upon to return some of these insults on a few occasions. But on the whole he was quite decent.
You have the opportunity to bring even a greater sanctity and dignity to the throne. Please cut yourself off the extreme partisanship and political game-man-ship. Cut off the pretense. Jerry did his part; Kufour did his; you must do yours. All three of you are Christian-Church-Goers. It is only God who knows your hearts. Please stop the pretense and get to work!

Prophet Micaiah
prophetmicaiah@gmail.com 

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THE DANGERS OF PRESIDENTIAL DOUBLE-SPEAK

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: ¹⁸“When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. ¹⁹“Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul” (Ezekiel 3:17-19)

My Dear reader my subject for our discussion today is: The Dangers of Double-Speak.
Our theses text Ps. 15:3c- “…… And speaks the truth in his heart”.

In order to get the meaning within the context, please permit me to quote the full text of Ps. 15 (from the New King James Version of the Bible). I have highlighted the 15:3c:

Psalm 15

¹                   Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle?

Who may dwell in Your holy hill?

²                   He who walks uprightly,

And works righteousness,

And speaks the truth in his heart;

³                   He who does not backbite with his tongue,

Nor does evil to his neighbor,

Nor does he take up a reproach against his friend;

⁴                   In whose eyes a vile person is despised,

But he honors those who fear the Lord;

He who swears to his own hurt and does not change;

⁵                   He who does not put out his money at usury,

Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things shall never be moved.

The other verses will be the subjects of future discussions.
The Question in verse one: “Lord who shall abide in your tabernacle?”- could be stated in so many other forms. I will however want to state it this way: “Lord, who shall carry your favor with him always?”
The Psalter provides eleven qualities that must be vigorously pursued by anyone who wants to be used of God. Amongst these is subject of our discussion: “And SPEAKS the TRUTH in his HEART”.
This simply means that such a person must be sincere. The following synonyms are provided for Sincerity: genuineness, honesty, seriousness, earnestness, naturalness, unaffectedness, authenticity. One of its antonyms is insincerity.
A Sincere Person may not be a man without fault. He may not be perfect. But he at least sets off from a premise of honesty. He is always on the side of fairness and objectivity. He does not set off to deceive. His failing may just be because of his limitation as a man. He is always true to himself and to his neighbors. This quality is especially accentuated if he is a leader of any social grouping: family, community, tribe, church, business, nation, school etc.
Whiles all of us are exhorted to pursue this virtue with ‘all of our hearts’; I want us to especially put our dear President- Professor Atta-Mills under the microscope today. This is because, as a Prophet, I am completely convinced that, his wholehearted embrace of this virtue will go a long way to help him navigate the ship-of-state through the rather rough waters we are sailing through.
My President, irrespective of his past, which some people believe was painted in the ‘Atta Mortuary-man’ satire by former President Rawlings at Tamale; is today trying to be seen as a fine Christian gentleman and statesman. Many even want to paint him as being more ‘saintly’ than his great mentor- Papa Jaye. Anyone who attempts to be more saintly than our great Wofa Agyiwodin- must be in one BIIG-TROUBLE indeed!!!
In any case Uncle Atta, the Ofarinyi Kwaegya is trying very hard to HELP Ghanaians and the whole WORLD to see and know that, he reeally ‘looves’ the LORD, and is VERRY VERRY HUMBLE; and is not like the ‘CORRUPT and THIEVING’ Kufour in anyway. He also wants to be seen as a VERRY VERRY STRONGMAN who can ‘keep Papa Jaye confined to his corner’. He has done well so far- right? Or is it all a ‘huge game plan’ to pretend antagonizing Papa Jaye- whiles indeed, when they meet in private, they have big laughs over the whole ‘show’?

Whatever it is, friend, this Prophet is becoming very worried about the Prof’s sincerity as captured in the following examples:

·         He presents documents to the IMF and the World Bank to signify that his predecessor has made Ghana’s economy Credit-Worthy; and by so doing succeeds in securing support from the IMF and the World Bank.
Back home however, he and his supporters will cease every opportunity to call Kufour and his government ‘criminals’, and threaten them with prosecutions;

·         He claims to be the father-of-all-Ghanaians; and yet through his very ‘loud-silence’ observes his supporters and friends attack almost every opponent within their reach- without winking his eye.

·         He has appointed into office some of the most verbally offensive, insulting and disrespectful personalities in our political history into office. Most of these people are motivated by tribal-hate, ethnocentrism, jealousy, greed and just anything that is offensive to the sensibilities of a great majority of Ghanaians- interestingly- including Papa Jaye himself!
And in spite of these, the President every now and then comes out in his usual ‘humble-talk’ manner to make ‘appeals’ mainly targeted to his opponents, to keep their ‘utterances free from insults’- Wow!

·         The Judiciary and especially the Chief Justice are under siege from the President’s men. Everywhere, they are maligning, defaming, libeling, threatening, and obviously bringing the Judges and Magistrates of this country under the contempt of the general public. And yet the President makes a ‘lame’ statement of his commitment to ‘upholding the independence of the judiciary’, without calling his Party and his people to refrain from their taunts and jeers.

The Prophet’s Call:
Every matured and sound-minded Ghanaian knows that the President is confronted with a difficult task of managing the contradictions in his own party; and the challenges of governing a country at this very difficult time of the world’s history. But these are even the more reasons that he must be sincere; and stop immediately the double-speak and pretence which are gradually developing into a profession and an art- one which even he himself will not purchase- if presented to him by another!
The Prophet means no harm- only the good of the learned Prof and our dear country.
God richly bless us all. Amen!!!

Prophet Micaiah
PS: Read the column on Thursdays in the Daily Searchlight!
prophetmicaiah@gmail.com
http://prophetmicaiah.blogspot.com/

Tribal Politics: The Two Vanderpuyes

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: ¹⁸“When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. ¹⁹“Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul” (Ezekiel 3:17-19)

This blog is dedicated to commenting on our Ghanaian national life from a Biblical perspective. Whenever any world event also catches our eye, we shall do likewise. This is what makes it a column for all who also hold the Bible dear to their hearts. Indeed all patriots and nationalists who are equally committed to the non-partisan discussion of national and global issues are called upon to freely make their voices heard.

Our instant discussion is going to center around Ghanaian national cohesion and those who use the medium of political parties to prosecute petty tribal and self-serving ends; to the detriment of the good of the broad masses.

The case study here is going to be two people who bear the same name and seem to come from one of the noblest tribes that constitute Ghana.

Vanderpuye (1) is the Mayor of Accra. He seems to be doing so much good on his job. As a human being however, he has definitely made some mistakes- and may make some more. This is the good side of this Vanderpuye. I pray however that he does his work with compassion and humility.

President Kufour’s government decided to immortalize some of our past sporting personalities by naming some of our stadia after them. The Asantes have not raised a whimper for the naming of the Kumasi Sports Stadium after Baba Yara (a non-Asante).

Some of our Ga brothers and sisters, for whatever reason, did not want the Accra Sports Stadium to be named after a non-Ga and more so an Akan- Ohene Djan- the revered head of the Central Organization of Sports (COS) under President Kwame Nkrumah. The Kaneshie Sports Complex was named after our boxing hero- Azuma Nelson- and that was OK with these Ga friends!

Vanderpuye (1) just a couple of weeks ago announced that he was reversing the name to the Accra Sports Stadium. According to him he was only executing the decision of the Metro Assembly he presided over.

Now to Vanderpuye (2): He worked at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and was one time a Sports Commentator. Quite an affable person, except when it comes to politics. He is presently an aide to the President of Ghana- and one of those that are bringing the Presidency into disrepute. This man goes to Cape-Coast to participate in the Fetu Festival of the Chiefs and People of Cape-Coast. The Fantes are an Akan tribe. He is a Ga, but he was in Cape-Coast because he is a Ghanaian and an officer of the Government of Ghana.

Vanderpuye (2) then in his pride and arrogance elects himself to decide who should go and greet the Fante chiefs and who should not. Or was he rather mandated by either the President or State Security? Regardless of whoever appointed him- why was a non-Fante and a non-Akan elected to play that role? I am just ‘reversing the logic’ of Vanderpuye (1). Knowing Vanderpuye (2), I don’t have any shadow of doubt that he is one of the prime movers behind the change of name of the stadium.

I hope, my dear friend, that you have already noticed the huge contradiction between these two Vanderpuyes and their unproductive politics- right?

Now here are some few questions I have for us all:

·         To Vanderpuye (1):

1.       Why don’t you go ahead and change the names of all the State-owned edifices and institutions in Accra to Ga names or just label them after Accra?

2.       How long did you live in the USA? Do the Mayors execute such myopic petty-tribal agenda?

3.       If every Ghanaian becomes as ethnocentric as you are- what will become of our country?

·         To Vanderpuye (2):

1.       If you think it was wrong to name the Accra Stadium after a non-Ga and especially an Akan; was it right for you to take center stage in deciding who should sit, stand or move where at a purely Fante festival? Or maybe you are a super-man who can be a ‘champion’ in Accra, Cape-Coast, Kumasi and everywhere else?

2.       I am sure you felt every bit a part of the Fetu Festival because you are a Ghanaian- right? If the Accra Stadium were named after the Chief of Cape-Coast- would you have accepted that?

3.       Do you know Amartey Quaye and the role he played in the Rawlings Revolution? Did you learn anything from him?

·         To President Atta-Mills:

1.       Are you satisfied with the behavior of these two Vanderpuyes- especially in the particular instances sighted above?

2.       Will you be happy if your successor decides to undo the decisions you are taking- to such petty ends?

3.       Are you afraid of your appointees? What emboldens them to disrespect you to this extent? Do you speak in tongues or have friends who do? Did you hear what Tony Aidoo said about ‘Tongue Speakers?’

·         To my Ga friends:

1.       I know that amongst you are several noble men and women: Are you happy with what these two of your kind are doing?

2.       If ‘Yes’- why? If ‘No’- what are you doing about it?

3.       Is it an honor or dishonor to host the Capital of Ghana?

Dear reader, I am no tribalist. I am only trying to ‘reverse the logic’ of the two Vanderpuyes. The Bible teaches: “Answer a fool according to his folly; Lest he be wise in his own eyes” (Prov.26:5)

I am just trying to expose the logical implications of the above-cited actions of the Vanderpuyes.

The Prophet’s Call:
There are several of us Ghanaians, who are just like the two Vanderpuyes- bundles of pride, tribalism, arrogance, confusion and contradiction. And yet we all have the capacity to do so much good if we will just repent and tie our fortunes to God. Let us use whatever power and position we have today to sow seeds of love, unity, peace and kindness. These will guarantee us and our children a better future.
God richly bless you all

Prophet Micaiah
prophetmicaiah@gmail.com