Controversy Unlimited: Kaleidoscope

Do not be bothered by the seemingly ‘big word’ that constitutes the title for this article. It simply means a continually shifting pattern. Controversy Unlimited this week discusses a multiplicity of observations, events and opinions that have come to the fore in the Land of Our Death, apologies to the late Steve Biko of The Ghanaian Chronicle fame. This column has been informed that the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) is to embark on a demonstration in the first week of August, specifically on the 4th day of August. According to sources, it will be the first open public demonstration against the administration of President Atta Mills, as an earlier demonstration planned by a women’s group was ‘neatly’ undermined by the police service, invoking their politically (in) correct mantra of “we cannot provide the requisite protection at this time”. This time, the President has stated clearly that anybody who wants to demonstrate against the walls of Jericho should be given all facilities, including air reconnaissance cover if necessary; after all, ours is a democratic state, his is a “father for all” government and the police is to interface phases of the father for all syndrome. Welcome then to the beginning of demonstrations. Yet, one has an eerie feeling that de ja vu is lurking around the inner perimeter of AFAG’s sanctum.

At the time of its formation, the statements that emanated from within its ranks showed clearly that this was a group that was poised to take on the ruling NDC government as far as issues related to governance were concerned. AFAG represented a new voice that questioned policy issues of the new government on the economy, law and order, personal security and governance as a whole. Thus when one hears that such a group is to embark on a public demonstration, the immediate question that comes to mind is whether or not the press releases or confabs have not helped the group achieved its objectives. Truth is, demonstrations are a different kettle of fish, for although the posture of the ruling authorities is one that facilitates and encourages the democratically enshrined right to public protests, veterans of ‘demonstration politics’ would also tell you that there are those who rabidly oppose demonstrations against ruling governments. They are the ones whose natural inclination is to organize counter-demonstrations because if they don’t do so, “the government would appear to be unpopular”. There are also those infiltrators who deliberately join otherwise peaceful demonstrations, deliberately foment trouble and thereby induce the police to break up the gathering of demonstrators. Sometimes, the police would go the extra mile to “test” their hot water canon; I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that. Free advice: AFAG should search itself, for at its apex are people who make the double agent status that Kim Philby achieved look like a mediocre attempt at deception. If the minutes of their executive meetings are leaking like the roof of La Wireless JHS into the pages of NDC papers, they should search within; those who flaunt their arrogance arrogantly are a very good starting point.

Ghana has a larger than life ex-president. Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings is his name. Our ex-president has been speaking a lot lately and from his words, it is clear he is not amused about the slow pace of activities of the man he lifted from political oblivion into national prominence. Flight Lieutenant Rawlings is not one to keep his opinions to himself; he has never done so even before he burst unto the political scene of this Land of Our Death, therefore “Rawlings watchers” are usually not surprised when he makes his views, controversial as they may be, known even if those views tend to cast his own party or government in a negative light. Ex-President Rawlings is reported to have said that he will no longer ‘criticize’ the ruling NDC government because President Mills has told him, that he President Mills, has appointed ministers and board chairmen to occupy positions of trust in République du Ghana so henceforth, he will get off President Mills’ case and redirect his “fire” at these appointed ministers and board chairmen. I don’t envy those appointees at all, for Flt. Lt. Rawlings has already described some of these same appointees as “mediocre people and characters”. Now if a mediocre person or character is not up and doing, can you imagine what sort of fire would be directed at him/her now that President Mills himself has shown his former boss where to go? Just imagine a certain Ato Ahwoi chairing the GNPC board or a Kwame Peprah on the SSNIT equivalent and not ‘performing’; what do you reckon the former President Rawlings would do or say? You see, like it or not, President Rawlings like his successor President Kufuor meant and mean well for Ghana. Their styles may have been different but irrespective of their relative shortcomings, I sincerely believe they have Ghana at heart. So if our former President finds out that the armed robbers are being ‘instigated’ by NPP kingpins and Cletus the Avorka is not doing anything about it, what do you think President Rawlings would do or say to him? If word reaches ex-President Rawlings that a relatively young minister has hobnobbed with the new managers of a certain telecommunications company and thereby stalled a purported investigation of the sales agreement, can you imagine how the principles of June 4, celebrated publicly and grandly for the first time in since 2000 would be invoked and unleashed on the witty torso of the young minister? I honestly don’t envy ministers and board chairmen at all. As with the AFAG people above, I offer free advice: all ministers and board chairmen should get steel helmets for it is right through their craniums that some ‘friendly advice’ from our ex-president would be knocked into. Talking of free advice let me say thank you to whoever read this column and immediately went to paint the former President Rawlings’ walls. They look very neat and as I maintained in the article on eyesores, the place now has an aesthetic effect; if in doubt, you can cross-check with the Aflao chiefs who recently paid ex-President Rawlings an ‘invitational visit’, or those deflated members of my party who would form a beeline to go begging for mercy - does real power not truly reside behind those repainted walls?

There appears to be a new industry growing around the electronic media in this Land of Our Death. It is clearly the political economy of interest and business privilege maximization, one that casts a media house, programme, presenter and sales in an unsophisticated vortex of allegiance to those who call from barricaded edifices to instruct editors on how to situate and twist their in-house policies to suit the preferences of those behind the barricaded edifices. I admonish readers of this column to devote just a week to check the manner in which panel members of any discussion programme are skewed in particular directions on the major radio stations in this Land of Our Death, especially the ones in Kokomlemle. You see, I have stopped listening to anything that comes out of Kokomlemle for in particular. When we were helping to make Kokomlemle the powerhouse of electronic media activity in this country, it was because we believed that theirs was going to be the signpost of fairness and thereby set the standard for all other upcoming media houses to feed the generality of Ghanaians with non-parochial information. You do not need a Kweku Baako to threaten to go on air with a station’s refusal to listen to a party to a raging debate before what is right is done, neither do you have to notice that “we have lost that caller” when certain people call into the phone in segments of those radio stations to come to the conclusion that some people are playing games to please some faceless masters. When the representative of an investigation body sits on a programme and the chairman of that body is called to clarify issues on that same programme, does it not sound strange that those whose work was being investigated are neither invited to sit on that same programme or called to throw light on things they are being accused of? But some of us are not surprised. Ghana is such an interesting place where any sense of discretion is hard to come by especially within media circles. There is a certain ‘media arrogance’ that has taken root in this country since our return to constitutional rule in 1993 and mutated in recent times to dangerous levels. It is the type of media, especially electronic media arrogance, that engenders the traits I have indicated above that have made many including my humble self stop listening to certain radio stations. When presenters from a certain media group, submit their alcoholic delights to the dictates of Kasapreko, which in reality has become Ghana’s most successful company (Kasapreko came 4th in the Ghana Club 100 after companies that are not wholly Ghanaian; also won the CIMG Product of the Year and capped all with Manufacturing Company of the Year) and publicly belch out that the National Security Coordinator is paying them for their mid-noon noise making antics, does it surprise anybody that panel compositions are as skewed as they are now? If such braggadocios are small fry, what do you think the so-called bigger fishes would be taking as ‘strategic media support’ from Zizi’s office? Free advice: manipulation of the media is a two edged sword. You can never tell when, how or under what circumstance it would slice you in the wrong place, especially when monetary considerations influence the in-house decision making processes vis-à-vis the journalistic principle of fairness.

Did I read that some 160 people have been dismissed from the National Security setup? So when we add 160 to 800, what do we get? If 960 people have been quietly laid off our security rooster, have we not thereby sown the seeds for future trouble? There are those who argue that many of those dismissed personnel are indeed sympathetic to the immediate past government or its party the NPP. Is that reason enough to get them out? Are there not ways of checking if their loyalties are to the state or to the NPP? Now that they have been given the sack, have we also debriefed them enough to ascertain who their agents and active/dormant assigns and informants are? So if the whole rational is to insulate the security setup from political interference and possible disloyalty, by which criteria are new recruits going to be employed into the employment of the setup? Would we then find ourselves in a bind if there is yet another change of government which would enable the yet-to-be-appointed replacements served a dose of what the 160 and 800 before them were served? How do we build a country and institutionalize its security arrangements that way? At least, I know that former security capos who have now been reinstated in Accra were not sacked, even if they were exiled to watch Forday Sankoh’s beard fall off, or today are being sent to be Ghana’s local president in Akwesi Broni’s country; why don’t we do that to seasoned operatives who are being politically punished at the prime of their lives? These dismissed people have relatives and dependants. What political signals are we sending out as a result of this action to relatives, dependants and the body politic? I sincerely think Zizi can do much better than that for there is nothing more dangerous than a sacked trained operative on the loose, especially when their links, contacts and “capacity to penetrate” have not in anyway been undermined by a purported sacking. We might have unwittingly created our own “Achilles Heel” and sent a potential danger into temporary gestation or uncertain hibernation. It is the certainty of uncertain hibernation that gives cause for concern for hibernation mostly needs to mutations, the type that is usually uncontrollable. How do we control possible “mutation” for we have in effect freed people to start doing that which they otherwise would not have done had they remained an integral part of the system? Free advice: the best resource for any intelligence agency is its agents. The friendships that were formed between dismissed and retained operatives are too strong not to expect continued cooperation between the two. It may be wise to ask the dismissed personnel to reapply for the relatively non-political to be co-opted. That might save somebody someday in this Kaleidoscopic Land of Our Death. Jehovah Izoz Hakaboth be with you!