Let me start this article with a Kusaasi old fairy-tale of a cunningly wicked love affair that once existed between the scorpion and the toad. It was a story told by old men and women of wisdom during moonlight when we were growing up as children. In that yarn, the scorpion faked a starry-eyed love for the innocent toad who was dishevelled in a complicated love affair. Lover scorpion used every opportunity to speak of how compassionate a husband he would be and also boasted to his victim of his sexual proficiency.
So, unable to resist the sugar-coated promises of the deceitful and smooth talking scorpion, the toad fell into a genuine love with him, hoping to have idyllic marriage. She believed that apart from the extraordinary love she would’ve enjoyed, her new husband could satisfy her in bed better than the former husband.
But unknowing to her, was a fact that, the boastful scorpion had never fallen in love before and had no inkling of how to handle marital issues. More shattering after that marriage, was another discovered fact that, her new husband had no manhood to perform the sexual miracles he professed during the courtship. The tail brandished before her as his adept manhood was actually a poisonous tongue of death. It was meant for him to pay back the sins the toad’s great grandparent had committed against his family many years ago.
The story tellers concluded that, in the first night of the marriage, the toad suffered severely from stung of the scorpion deathly tail which was nicely packaged to her as manhood during their courtship. It was then, she realised that she had been tricked into a marriage of death. So she complained bitterly to everybody on sight that her new marriage was rather hell and not heaven as promised her. The poor toad, not able to withstand the fire unleashed to her by the scorpion left the marriage without a word to him.
From this story, told many years ago, I cannot help than to situate President Nana Akufo Addo and his government as that deceitful scorpion and Ghanaians as the innocent toad that was looking for genuine love. With the happenings in the country now, I can state that Ghanaians run from a marriage that was flourishing and begetting off springs we fortuitously thought were not beautiful enough to a barren marriage full of pains and regrets.
President Akufo-Addo, our husband who swanked about his sexual prowess during the courtship is miserably impotent. He’s a complete sexually ‘dum-man’ who is wickedly destroying our private parts with broken bottles in the name of sex. Though, he can see and feel our pains but he’s blinded by the saying that a liar will always have to tell another lie to cover up his/her previous lies in order to look good.
Therefore, I am not shock that the Akufo Addo’s government continue to beat its chest, claiming to have chalked up some sort of achievements in an otherwise barren and arid tenure. The government’s squealing propagandists led by the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumiah can continue organising town hall meetings in all the towns, cities, villages and even cottages across the country to extol the virtues of their off-colour government.
They should eagerly cite external factors as the reasons the ailing Ghanaian currency continues to be oxygenated on a sick bed without signs of recuperation. The government can even tell Ghanaians that God is the reason for the sky-rocking prices of good and services in the country. Yes! They can boast of these as the biggest credentials of a President who must be given a second term.
They can cruise on also because of the loud silence of groups like OccupyGhana, AFAG and the rest, that could hitherto, even initiate ‘Why The Baby Died’ demonstrations, just like Occupy the Flagstaff House and ‘AGBENAA’ during former President John Mahama’s four years. The government and its propagandists can continue the promises they started years ago in distressed opposition in spite of their appalling failure in government so far.
However, before they fully begin to roll out the drums and clink the fragile glasses prematurely for the purported achievements, the Akufo Addo’s wobbling government should be told that their much-trumpeted achievements are rather so much hot air, or at best a fragile foothold to many awakening Ghanaians.
To start with, the cankerworm of sky rocking fuel prices in the country has gone mad and out of control. It has been a contentious issue for the past almost three solid years now, without any kind of solution in sight. And to compound it all, prices of gas for domestic purposes are comfortably competing with that of petrol and diesel. Women are now moving speedily back to the olden days of using charcoal and coal pots to cook. That is the reality of the lives of Ghanaians today.
How can these same women applaud the government when they spend all their hard earned money on charcoal and firewood to prepare food that is not even affordable, which could be used to secure their children’s future and businesses? A gallon of petrol was GH¢ 14.00 before this clueless government took over in 2017 with the promise to drastically reduce it. Today, a galloon of petrol is sold at GH¢ 25.00. The poor taxi and commercial drivers are biting their fingers in pulsation regrets. So what is there to celebrate about? And that is the reality of lives; all drivers are faced with today.
What is the state of our only refinery in Tema that the government then in opposition made noise of having it run in its fullest capacity when elected? It has now become a caricature of some sort. It has been literally shutdown. The once shining oil refinery is begging to survive and its workers cannot receive their monthly salaries. The reality is that the lives of their families are miserable. They can only afford just much food as will keep the breath in their bodies. No worker in Ghana now knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after the end of the month. The reality of the lives of every Ghanaian is misery: that is the plain truth. And no town hall meeting can change this.
Are we not, as an oil-producing nation, still importing fuel and fattening the bank accounts of foreigners whiles we take delight in collapsing our local industries? Isn’t it monumentally ironic that we import what we have under a government that claimed to believe in made in Ghana products? Isn’t it the reality that our President who believes in made in Ghana goods still seeks medical attention in foreign countries? It has been a sad story so far! Three years on, there’s nothing to boast about. That is the reality on the ground. Nothing more!
And before the government and its propagandists, deafen our ears with their empty hot air, they should be aware that there is no body with conscience, Ghanaian or not, observing the way things are going in the last three years, that would not wish that this government was never voted into power in the 2016 general elections.
Many of us need not struggle with our memories to recall that, three years ago in this same country, it was GH¢ 4.00 to one dollar. A bag of cement sold for GH¢18.00, a bag of rice sold for GH¢80, a tin of milk sold for GH¢1.50, and so on, today what is the story? The story is that, we are paying more for same commodities. That is the realities Ghanaians are faced with. Nothing more!
Yes, the former President Mahama led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government was accused of massive corruption by the then opposition party now in government with a bloated appointees in the history of the world. Then 2016 came, and a human rights activist lawyer and a supposed anti-corruption crusader well over 70 years, took the saddle. Many Ghanaians had already bought into the narrative that he was ‘a man of integrity’, forgetting the truth that integrity alone, whatever that means, does put food on the table, they voted and encouraged others to vote en-masse for him. So, he won the elections.
Suddenly everything changed with the change from good to worst. First, he dramatised the appointment process with reading of long essays about his appointees on national television. During those wasteful hours, he told us how competent the appointees were and the reasons they found favour in him. When he finally finished, it was the same old recycled names, some of whom have corruption cases hanging on their necks till today. Even the former Finance Minister under the previous NPP government, Mr Yaw Osafo-Marfo who led Ghana to a barbering shop in Europe to contract a loan is the Senior Minister. His essay was the longest.
Then prices of commodities went skywards, the Ghanaian cedi quickly crashed against the dollar, living conditions of Ghanaians became so expensive, so much so that the last two Christmas were the only Christmas that became the worst in living memory of Ghanaians. Easter is here, yet it is not here with us to celebrate because the system is cruel to everybody. But the government believes that Ghanaians are better off than they were under the John Mahama’s administration.
As of today, Ghana has been reduced to a sadistic state. There have been several reports of violence brought about by the ‘terrorist wing’ of the ruling party since it took over power. Even our state security agencies are not exempted from the callousness perpetrated by these people and their appendages. Barefaced daylight armed robbery with impunity in every corner of the country has been legendary. Maybe if the town hall meetings to cover-up the government failure can be as frequent as the rate of robberies in the country, they could possibly convince some people that Dr Bawumiah still has a grain of credulity in him and should be trusted ever again.
As I write, the young girls kidnapped in Takoradi, are still in captivity. Yet, you have a police CID boss who organised a press conference unprovoked to tell Ghanaians and the kidnappers that she and her personnel knew where the girls were kept and got promoted to the status of a Commissioner. It’s been weeks now and there is no news of the girls being rescued or returning to unite with their families. One is left with the only option of believing that, the kidnappers simply carried out directives of the police administration to adopt the girls and keep them from the families for unknown reasons.
If all these negatives are all that there is to this government, maybe it would have been bearable. But no, they are not. The security of lives and properties of Ghanaians, in the last three years, has become a mirage. Nobody is safe, not the family of the Journalist who was killed in broad daylight nor the banker who was shot dead on his way going home from work. No! Not even the family of the middle-aged woman who was slaughtered in her sleep in a 24-hour heavily security guarded estate. And that are the realities on the ground!
Yet, we have a government whose body language is clear that it would not accept voices of dissent, but rather telling us that we should sleep in peace with all eyes tightly closed. The truth is that, hardly a day goes by presently that we don’t wake up to news of carnage or some acts of illegality in the country, to the extent that Ghanaians don’t care anymore. A mass burial was organised recently for over seventy accident victims of the Kintampo road crash. First in the history of Ghana yet, the government ignored such and celebrated a kenkey-party to send off IMF. The sad days of the serial killings are back with us. That is the reality in Ghana today.
As if that is not enough, there are also reports that this President gave an order to somebody to recruit the unrepentant ‘terrorist wing’ group’s vigilante members of the party into our security forces. They were unleashed on Ghanaians during the Ayawso West Wungon by-election and their brutal criminal activities on that day are there for everyone to testify to. Many innocent voters were shot in a Hollywood horror- war movie style that left them with life threatening wounds in a manner that left bulging eyes and dropping jaws in that day alone. It is a clear signal to Ghanaians and the world at large of what awaits Ghana in the 2020 general elections.
The government’s response, was to blame the despicable act by its hoodlums recruited in the security services on faceless individuals, that it does not have neither the will nor the nerve to name and prosecute. After the usual paparazzi that attended to such state security breach, formation of the Justice Emil Short commission, that, indeed, sat shortly, its report that is under lock and key at the corridors of power, nothing has been done about it. The government and its assigned propagandists have simply replaced that with their routine of dangerous politicking and talk shops. Nobody will be prosecuted nor punished.
So I asked; is this government with conscience? Is the president and his government not suffering from a case of chronic collective messianic posture, that they still think that after all these glaring negatives including the almighty dumsor return, they can keep on deceiving Ghanaians? I, however, must acknowledge that, expecting this government that rode into power with wicked lies to be truthful would be a form of injustice to them as the concept is both alien and anathema to their party since its inception.
As former President John Mahama continues to say ‘the government can continue to do propaganda with everything in the country but the realities of the lives of Ghanaians will expose them’. They should continue shamelessly with the wicked scorpion love for Ghanaians, and as the toad did, we have discovered the fake lover man, Scorpion Akufo Addo and his government frolics and are walking away.
The writer is a Senior Journalist, Managing Editor of The National Tribute newspaper, a columnist with Ghanaweb.com and Modernghana.com and an activist of the National Democratic Congress, NDC. Email; thenationaltribute@gmail.com
