“I Don’t Carry Water” – A Linguistic Interpretation

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Those of you who have regularly been reading my media fare for a remarkable temporal span ought to know, by now, that I am absolutely no fan of “Tarkwa-Atta.” Interestingly, a few readers have written E-mails taking exception to an article that I wrote and captioned “President ‘Chimp” in a Balancing Act.” For one correspondent, the concern had to do with the fear of losing a huge chunk of my audience – something I have never seriously considered, since most of the chat-room comments to my articles (largely personal and abusive) often have no relevance, whatsoever, to the subject of my discourse. And since in cyberspace about the only measure of one’s audience is predicated on feedback, there hasn’t been much to pique my interest, or even curiosity, as to who reads or does not read my articles.

My journalistic objective has far less to do with audience size than the societal influence of the presumably few who actually get to read and digest the thrust of my articles. In other words, I aim to obliquely influence policy than simply to be admired by readers for whatever reasons the latter may have for registering such admiration. Of course, there is absolutely nothing remiss about being admired, though I would rather my ideas percolated where they matter most – quality-of-life issues in Ghana and elsewhere around the world.
Anyway, what brought me to the subject of “Water Carrier” was an article originally published by the Daily Guide and posted on Ghanaweb.com (See “I Don’t Carry Water – Angry Mills Charges” 6/6/10). The president was reported to have made the preceding remark in an interview that he recently granted a BBC radio personality. That the Daily Guide editors got the name of Ms. Bilkisu Labaran Ohyoma, the BBC Country Director for Nigeria, wrong did not surprise me the least bit, as these days abject disregard for accuracy has virtually become synonymous with Ghanaian journalism. For the Daily Guide editors, Ms. Bilkisu Labaran Ohyoma is simply “Bilkis Labaran.” Of course, I can understand a British news anchor mispronouncing the name of the quite popular Nigerian-born radio producer/presenter. But when such faux pas comes from a denizen of our proverbial neighborhood, then, of course, that becomes something else.
Anyway, while yes, the Mills-Labaran interview regarded the putatively lackluster implementation of policy promises made by then-Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills in the lead-up to Election 2008, significantly, the president aimed for far greater effect than merely answering criticisms about his snail-paced administration of the country point-by-point. In alluding to the image of a “Water Carrier,” the president may well have been deftly and poignantly declaring his ideological and procedural independence from the man who adamantly imposed “Tarkwa-Atta” both on the now-ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and our national at large. Discount not the fact that Togbui Avaklasu Rawlings had, himself, become a sphinx-like monster on the Ghanaian political landscape for some twenty years, and continues to annoy the bulk of responsible and well-meaning Ghanaians with what one critic characterized as his “Motor-Mouth.”
And so in vehemently insisting that he did not carry a water-pot on his head, as was widely carried by the Ghanaian media, President Mills was simply cautioning those who glibly presume him to be governing at their behest, or on their marching orders, to stay clear of his path. Unfortunately, this most significant and subtle aspect of the Mills-Labaran interview was lost on the editors of the Daily Guide.
Indeed, it was to the preceding effect that the former Legon law professor kept reminding his audience that as a trained and experienced legal academic, he would not allow himself to be recklessly pushed into arbitrarily and summarily putting his political opponents in jail, as had been routine with past governments, particularly the governments of the Nkrumah-led Convention People’s Party (CPP) and the Rawlings-led Provisional/National Democratic Congress (P/NDC). And here, we both eerily and vividly recall the fact that in recent months both Mr. Rawlings and his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, have been pressuring President Mills, whom the bloody couple appear to envisage as their ward, to expedite the prosecution and imprisonment process of largely members of the now-opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) who the Rawlingses deem to be deserving of the slammer, as New Yorkers are wont to say.
Then there was also the professionally flagrant case of Justice Kpegah, a former Supreme Court judge, who appears to have abruptly resigned from the bench, during the waning days of the Kufuor-led government of the New Patriotic Party, in order to be appointed “Chief Anti-Akan Prosecutor” of the land. Mr. Kpegah, evidently disappointed that the Mills-led NDC government had not made him the centerpiece of its legal/judicial policy, would pen and publish a desultory screed seeking to document his systematic attempts to politicize the judiciary as a pro-NDC activist than a conscientious advocate of equity and fair play.
What is risibly pathetic about the Mills-Labaran interview, however, regards the president’s rather hollow attempt to fault his predecessor for the abject state of infrastructural development in the country. Thus criticized for the imposition of unbearably harsh utility taxes on the people, President Mills retorted: “What did they do in the eight years that they were in power?” Needless to say, the more relevant question that President Mills ought to have posed is: “What did the Rawlings-Mills government do in the twenty years that they were in power?” At least I can think of the National Health Insurance Scheme – affording virtually every Ghanaian citizen a liberal and generous access to medical treatment – as opposed to the hardnosed, IMF-World Bank-engineered “Cash-and-Carry” Darwinian policy of medical access for only the rich and powerful in Ghanaian society, all under the specious guise of “Social Democracy.”
It is also interesting when President Mills damns ex-President Kufuor for inaction on the West African Gas Pipeline Project, particularly when one horribly learns of attempts being made by the Mills-Mahama government to mortgage expected revenue from the country’s newfound oil bonanza over the course of some twenty years to a South Korean building contractor.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of English, Journalism and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is a Governing Board Member of the Accra-based Danquah Institute (DI) and the author of 21 books, including “Atumpan: Drum-Talk” (iUniverse.com, 2004). E-mail: [email protected].
###