Mr. Minister Stay In Your Lane!

I have watched in silence for far too long the insolence and temerity with which certain individuals have sought to play politics in our beloved nation. It has been allowed the room to fester in our politicking today and like a cancer it is spreading dangerously and leaving a legacy of which posterity would not like to remember.

The saddest part of this anomaly is that it is a rather small percentage of today’s politicians who engage in the politics of divide and rule and indulge themselves in a shameless dance of disgrace they call politicking.

As an elected official of a political party, you are sworn to uphold the ideals, philosophies and idiosyncrasies of the party you serve. You have been elected to serve the interests of the party and a mandate to further the goals of the party. It is therefore a shame when I see elected party officials – who swore to protect and defend the ethos of the party; they belong to – intentionally suffer from selective amnesia. They conveniently forget the machinery that won them their elections. They become mini-gods and measure themselves against the established order. It is better for such individuals to understand that you can never bite the fingers that fed you. Not because you will not have the will to bite but because when you develop the unsavoury desire to bite the fingers that fed you, you lose your teeth. You become a toothless dog whose bark is ignored by even little children.

I am worried by the revival of hypocrisy into national discourse. I forcefully oppose Information minister Mr. John Tia’s narrow definition of discernment. I am unnerved by his outburst, and his stance on June 4th celebration. Equally troubling is the minister’s assertion that “President Mills is “responsible,” “discerning” and will not engage in anything that will divide the country”, a posture that defies contemporary reasoning on national politics and history.

The minister in rebuttal to claims from the opposition NPP that government will use state resources to commemorate the June 4th uprising lunched a scathing attack on the ideals of the revolution. What the heck is this minister talking? That they no longer value the ideals of June 4th?

I reject John Tia’s stance which seek to please a few “greedy bastards”, while he devalues, the ideals of June 4th. How can an NDC minister of state reason that president Mills will not celebrate June 4th because it will divide the country? To deny June 4th its rightful place in national politics is to assault the values of freedom and justice for all.

What sort of double standard is this? Well, whether Mills goes or not, June 4th will be celebrated. As a Ghanaians, we cannot do away with June 4th and the positives that came along with it. Against this backdrop, the waffling mindset that “discerning Mills will not celebrate June 4th” is a flawed statement peddled by people who believe they can transition from being mere tramp yesterday into political celebrity on account of being a praise poets.

True social democrats are not, and should not be, ashamed to celebrate June 4th. If anything, the celebration should be internalize. As a nation, we will always stumble upon the malcontented John Tias who convulse at seeing others who don’t think like them. However, beneath the edifice of John Tia’s hypocrisy are patriotic revolutionists and cadres, who have contributed immensely to our nation’s growth and development, despite years of rejection by myopic politicians.

I am indeed trying my utmost not to be caustic but can someone and anyone please ask that man if his senses have taken leave of him or he has taken leave of them? How could anyone in his or her sane mind who claims to be a social democrat downplay the ideals of June 4th? It is sheer foolishness to make such an assertion. There is no one basis for anyone to conclude that celebrating June 4th will divide this country and as such I shudder to think how a man whose intellect is struggling to grasp this logic can successfully disseminate information to Ghanaians.

If you honestly feel that President Rawlings and the ideals of what he stood for are no longer relevant to the government of which you are the chief spokesman, come clear. Better still if you have nothing to say, just shut up your mouth! Finally, by no means is this article an attack on John Tia’s personality. He is a fine politician, and a gentleman. On the contrary, it is meant to call for dialogue, and reaching a common understanding that the ideals of June 4th lives on.

Emmanuel Dela Coffie

[email protected] /www.delacoffie.wordpress.com