Everything in Ghana is 'Basaa' Part II

More than five decades after independence from Great Britain, everything has been in a topsy-turvy style in our nation – but the politicians have been living like Arabian Kings.

Though truth is bitter to swallow, especially to us in Africa and Ghana in particular, I bring to readers today, the second part of a series I started on May 13, 2009. This piece is not an anti-Ghanaian write up, but an expose, meant to get us to wake up from our ‘sleep’.

Have you ever wondered why we are still steeped in a master-servant attitude, fifty-two years after ‘independence’?

Our judges still wear wigs with black and red, thick cassocks. They look very scary and sweaty in their colonial robes – maybe, those colonial relics instil some element of fear in suspects who appear before the judges.

However, the colonial way of dressing by the Ghanaian bench is just a ‘small’ reflection of what happens in the larger society. In fact, the Members of Parliament (MPs) define formal dressing as ‘three piece suits’. Therefore, Papa Kwesi Nduom, failed presidential aspirant was once refused entry to the Legislature by his westernised MP colleagues who described his African wear as informal!

Therefore, you would normally see MPs, public officials and other important persons dressed in three-piece suits under the scorching African sun – at temperatures above 35 degrees centigrade, what the hell must be running through you thick black skin in a three-piece suit?

I am not saying that suits don’t make you look smart. But seriously, we in Africa think that the only formal way of dressing is to be clad in a western designer suit. That’s why there is even a group in Ghana now pressuring Vice President John Mahama to ‘stop dressing casually’! According to the group, because the Veep doesn’t wear suits frequently ‘he dresses too informally’. The Veep must look European, you know!

Can you imagine how much money the Ghanaian textile industry would make if the numerous government officials, their hungers-on, and their predatory family members decide to wear only African cloth?

I remember that Ephraim Amu, one of Ghana’s most famed musicians, was once sanctioned by the European Missionaries for wearing a cloth – our MPs and all those who wear those sweaty suits might just be trying to act the colonial missionaries!

There are many intrigues in our country. Our family has had a certain land case, which has been in the courts for over three decades – so ask yourself, who would want to go to court? The other day, right in front of the Supreme Court buildings in Accra, two heavily built men engaged in an open free for all. Somebody called it an out of court settlement and I think that it is simply a very good testimony on the Ghanaian court system.

We are always contracting loans for roads – in fact, one of the major campaign promises of our morally bankrupt politicians is the construction of roads. However, road construction is just one of the very clever means the politicians use to milk the people dry. At best, some of the roads they construct only end up in inconveniencing the ordinary road user.

Driving on the Spintex Road is nightmarish, thanks to the greedy ‘rich’ who decided to construct that monster of a mall at the Tetteh Quarshie interchange to worsen our plight.

However, I’ve discovered something else there. A small underground bridge connects East Legon and the Spintex Road. Despite its narrow nature, the road has been very helpful to many of us. The hold-ups, which are often very chaotic, have now been worsened by an outlandish construction on the road.

Instead of expanding the bridge to make the road user-friendly, somebody decided that constructing an open culvert drain would solve the congestion problem on that short stretch.

Therefore, the authorities have constructed open drains on that small road turning it into a virtual ‘tube.’ Maybe, the architect who approved that design must be living on mars so he does not know that the solution to the crowding on that road is not the construction of open culvert drains.

I have also listened to our MPs on the ‘crazy’ ex-gratia awards they decided to give to themselves. There is only one consolation Ghanaian taxpayers should give themselves and that is that ‘if a thief gets educated, the society gets into trouble’! And this has been proven beyond doubt by the unimaginable greed being displayed by the political class of today’s Ghana.

Ordinary public and civil servants are not entitled to end-of-service benefits – but the politicians are! When you listen to the crazy behaviour of the former speaker of the Ghanaian Parliament and the lame defense being put up for him by the parliamentary leadership, one can only say that there is one law for the rulers and another for the ruled!

The man (ex-Speaker) looted everything from his official residence. When the theft was discovered, he offered to pay for the stolen items – those items run into millions of Ghanaian cedis!

Just look at this, how many common criminals could tell a judge that they would offer to pay for their loot? But hey, there is the NDC and NPP element here that you must not ignore.

There is a school of thought, which says that ‘oh it happened in the NDC days so departing NPP officials must also pillage a few things’! So the rape of the resources of the people continues unabated by the educated elites who have bottomless pockets with sometimes ‘sticky fingers’.

And the journalists. They have divided themselves into NPP and NDC. The NDC ones are out there struggling to make everything NDC look and sound heavenly. The NPP journalists are also falling over themselves over who should be the first in winning the debate over why the ex-Speaker should be awarded the Order of the Volta for looting his official residence!

When I put up the first part of this series, I had many emails and as I always do, I replied all the messages. Some emails sought to question why I write the way I do – and one writer even had the nerves to tell me that I was a bitter unemployed chap! After replying that email, I remembered that Ghana’s educational system teaches the student to be obedient to the status quo.

The students are taught to accept everything by authority as the ‘gospel’. Anybody who questions the system is called ‘too known’ – my guts tell me that the expression should be ‘saucy’.

So the other day, I decided to report a case at the police station. In fact, I tasted hell in the hands of the police. The police investigator sold even the police statement form to me and to make matters worse, I had to pay the police for taking me to an expert to assess the level of damage caused to my property for which I went to lodge to complaint!

Are you in Ghana? In case you are and you are looking for a problem, just go to the police station!

Please sorry for the way I squeezed many subjects into one here but hey, in Ghana everything is ‘Basaa’!

Source: Kojo Owusu-Mbire

Email: [email protected]