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Opinions of Friday, 22 October 2004

Columnist: Okyem Duku

Serious Political Parties Or Concert Parties?

In the old days when Ghana had only one TV channel, and the TV was only in black and white, the programme that most people liked, was Akan Drama; and it was only during this programme that most people switched on their tellies, because at that time GBC spend about half of the transmission time on funeral announcements so leaving the telly off and saving electricity was a better option.

Of the groups that appeared on this programme, one of the favourites is Jaguar Jokers which I think was led by a character called Opia. He had that knack of getting people to reel in guffaws; in his show whenever elders meet to discuss serious issues, he would start to talk about food and other silly things.

The goings-on in the current election campaigns took my mind back to the days of Opia. One would have thought that the politicians who are canvassing for votes would be preaching some convincing messages like how they were going to address the worsening standard of living, the falling academics standards , the trooping out of the country of professionals etc etc , but it is amazing the amount of time they are spending in insulting one another instead of coming up with solutions for our national problems.

Not long ago the president organised a national prayer day and I believe one of the things they prayed about was political instability; but for as long as politician would insult one another and not come up with any sensible solutions to our woes, political stability would always elude us. Despite all the prayers of the Asofopons, Asofo Akukurudams and Asafo Atwotwowuros (pardon me if you are not Akan speaker, it simply means priests of various ranks) manna will not fall from the skies.

The other time it was one politician accusing the other one of not having any relations in Ghana therefore no business meddling in its affairs, at another time it is other politician sounding the battle horn that if his party does not win, it would be fire!

You see, all these and other abusive utterances would tell any discerning voter straight away that the politicians don?t have anything more to tell the voters and therefore they should not be taken seriously! For the kind of campaign politics that is going on, I believe Santo of blessed memory could have done it better than all those amateurs that are trying to be Santos.

I say again to all voters:- take stock of all these events, analyse them carefully, and you would find that any people who cares about us voter would not time indulging things that can wreck our common destiny. So I ask all voters this question; Would you belong to a serious political party or a concert party?


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