Abu Ramadan is a national pain. He is giving Charlotte Osei too many Supreme Court assignments. The Electoral Commission needs the peace of mind to carry out its rebranding to commensurate with the impeccable beauty of its star Chairperson, you don’t think so?
Most definitely the Supreme court ruling is clearer now, and more direct; “go and remove tomcard holders from the register”. This is a simple instruction that must not cause anyone to misunderstand the question.
Many people fail exams in this country, not because they are not good enough. It is because most people fail to follow the simplest of instructions. And unfortunately Charlotte has fallen victim to abusing instructions.
Go and remove voters registers. You were not asked to clean it. Georgina says remove, you too you are saying she says clean, why?
I think we are spending too much time on this single word, remove or not to remove. We have in our hands a beautiful democracy that we are dangling in the face of peace at the displeasure of violence. We will have what we want, but first let’s prevent ourselves from taking for granted that we have an unlimited peace, because we don’t.
We only have tolerant people, and when levels of tolerance is overstretched, it can implode, and the resultant effect is violence.
In the year 2000 and 2001 I was a CODEO election observer and research enumerator under a CDD and other projects. I was also a voter educator under IEA. Among my bosses were Dr. Franklin Oduro, Dr. Wiafe Akentan, and Dr. Kwesi Ennin. These projects took me to nearly all the regions in Ghana.
It was worrying to see how young boys had strong hopes in their idleness, strong hopes in their MPs, they did not need to work. They were waiting for their honorable MPs, when the MP comes he will give them money.
And while the honorable MP has not come, they would do everything and anything to defend him. And there were competitions amongst these grassroot school drop outs who wanted to ensure that honorable gets to know that they fought harder in his defense.
On several occasions I had expressed worry that the phenomena of grassroots party mobilization in the forms that were being done could get out of hands soon. I was then a young NUGS boy so no one took me serious.
Here we are, with party boys venting their anger on their own parties, burning cars, and locking out local government offices with impunity. We have the examples of violence in Odododiodoo and many parts of Ghana during registration exercises.
We have the examples of the by-elections in Atiwa, Chereponi, Amenfi West, and Talensi among others. In those instances it was reported that we graduated from mere mob actions to gun blazing and knife wielding grassroot party activism at the full glare of police officers.
We should all be worried. Every year our educational system throws over 50,000 adolescent boys and girls on the streets. The result has been the rise and rise of political machoism, undeserved patronage, abundant idleness, and supreme misbehavior during elections.
Presently it appears the politicians are busily training human bodies in the skills of causing mayhem. Our politicians by their actions and inactions create hopelessness in our youth, and they in turn use them for their political vandalism.
There is more to life than allowing oneself to be used to create pains. There is this gentleman who I will hereby call Lamptey, who is based in Awudome Estates in Accra. Lamptey is a talented hardworking screen printer.
Of all the screen printers I have contracted, he is the most honest, the most efficient in screen printing services. He is very calm, respectful, and always avoids troubles. Lamptey is hardly educated. Lamptey is hardly able to speak English. Lamptey is a machoman!
According to people who know Lamptey, several politicians have offered him political grassroot jobs, but he has turned all of them down. He will not compromise his life for any politician, and he believes he could channel his energies into his screen printing work.
Last year the NPP faced mountain task of the political vandalism. Many of their young persons engaged in wars within, and in one of the cases, they had offices and vehicles damaged.
This year it has been the turn of the NDC. Foot soldiers of the party at Atebubu Amanten constituency burnt down their offices in the most cruel manner, while one member was shot dead. This was because a new DCE was nominated to replace the incumbent. Last week the nomination of a DCE for the Wa West Assembly has resulted in the cruel burning of the NDC party offices, as well as the burning of the party’s campaign vehicle.
Who is capable of arresting any suspect in connection with these acts of vandalism? Who can pursue the culprits and bring justice to the party? The perpetrators caused the damage in broad day light, and they know that no police person can seek justice for the party. And maybe the party will not be interested in seeking justice for itself.
These acts of political impunity is a massive threat to our democracy. We live in a country where crime is committed, the culprits are known to all law enforcers, yet no justice will happen.
Because the perpetrators are the grassroots of the parties involved, and they are untouchable, because they are the defenders of the parties, they are the defenders of the powerful people in the party, and they are acclaimed with the capacity to visit similar pain to the opposing party.
In so far as our educational system continues to fail, we will continue to live in fear of grassroot dictatorship, we will live in the fears of elections going wrong, and the consequences thereon. We will pay the price of educational neglect, the price of corruption, of lack of proper educational supervision, and this will come in the form of the redeployment of vandals who destroy party offices as a way of expressing their decent and disappointment.
In this country we have seen failure in school to be the end of life’s prosperity. No employment. No hope. We believe in ourselves that once we could not make it beyond high school, it means we will not be able to achieve our dreams.
No way! We should not allow our temporary setbacks to hand us over as pencils in the hands of mere mortals. Why should I submit my hopes and futures in the hands of another person when I am myself a gift to share? And why should I become stooges of insults, and of torture on another person? Why should I become your feet of victory in such violent ways?
Destiny is a will in the soul. A perfect mindset is able to rise above any temporary setback to re-launch the fiercest of victories in the face of despair. Especially poor school performance has been proven to have no effect on the creative instinct of the human spirit. The quest for success does not end with lack of academic progression. Rather success has been proven to be a symptom of determined soul, and determined spirit.
We have such a mass of idle energies loitering in our cities, towns and villages. And we seem to have completely lost the ability to harness such energies for development, rather allowing such energies to be our tools of war.
Election victories or defeats must not be any individual’s duty to enforce. It must be the individual’s own conviction of thoughts, of opinion, and of decision. Political parties only need to sell their message. Nothing needs to be done to force any individual to vote against his wish. And nothing should be done to prevent an individual from exercising his vote.
I have always asked the question that everyone ask; why don’t we see the children of politicians being involved in the created violent confrontations? They take them to good schools, so they will hardly become dropouts. They protect them so they will never get involved in any such vandalism. They know it’s wrong so they will use willing vulnerable souls as frontlines as they keep their children at bay.
Life definitely has a lot of beautiful intentions for me. Life has beautiful intentions for you too. Regardless of how late it seem, there is every truth in working towards fulfilling the fortunes of faith, and of hope. Weak academic results, or lack of financial support, or a frustrated start in life, must not turn us into disposable spare tools, being used in and out of seasons.
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