We engaged in a hearty chat about our families, friends, church, work, and the upcoming elections. We spent quite a good amount of time discussing the brow-raising chronicles of political parties going heaven and hell to snatch votes from every tom, dick and harry.
Damn!! Our favourite Scooby doo, champions’ league fixtures and African magic have been crowded out with campaign adverts of all forms and lengths. Can you imagine? An aspirant sits behind the cameras at Labone kanda somewhere, appears before my screen, talks and talks several minutes of the hour till my head aches. He ends by asking us to vote for him and his party. How I wished I could also ask him a question!
Komla! Have you heard rumors of aspiring candidates distributing gifts all over the place just to win votes? Then I must suggest to you the country isn’t as broke as we are being made to believe.
See, I have come to the conclusion that if someone desires to control you, his first aim will be to capture and subject your thinking to his by telling you how miserable you are. When he’s done that, he can now hurt and loot you as much as he pleases, but remember "…to resist oppressors’ rule". Simple!
A chip in! I heard the story of a Danish student who came to Ghana some few years back to conduct a research towards her Master’s degree thesis. Her topic was something about Democracy and Elections in Africa.
During her interviews, she was told that in election years, political parties were their best and that they gave gifts to party supporters and floating voters in order to win their thumbprints on the d-day. She was shocked to learn that such gifts included bags of rice, tubers of yam, garri and shito, cash for pami (palmwine) and deodorant spray among others.
About a month after returning to Denmark, rumour started flying all over the place that she had no option but to manufacture her own set of findings for submission. (lol) The information she gathered here I believe was too difficult to swallow.
A close friend of hers confirmed the story but emphasized that the danish fellow later rescind her decision not to submit the original findings about tubers of yam for votes blah blah blah.
Back to the point, this year arguably has been the most dramatic to say the least. I dare say without a shred of doubt that 2012 would comfortably make the shortlist of top five worst years in the country’s history books beginning with the Woyome Brouhaha as the lead catalyst.
On 2nd June, we are met with this breathstopping news: ‘Cargo plane hits bus in Ghana airport crash’ was how BBC captioned it. ‘Airplane crashes around 37 military hospital, trotro hit, 11 die instantly, several injured”, others declared.
Simultaneously another airplane in neighbouring nigeria crashes into a skyscraper leaving all passengers dead. Both news indeed broke the nation and Ghana wept. You could almost reach out your hand and touch the pain that swept the country. My friend and former coursemate Evans tabariyeng aka Popo was one of the 11. May his soul rest in peace!. We had barely recovered from the shock when the first man of the land, having battled with an ailment passed on. The brouhaha surrounding his death leaves much to be desired, Surprised? Forgot he died many times before his death? Forgot the reasons attributed to his demise were as much as the people who spoke about it? Rest in Peace your Excellency late John Evans Atta Mills. The next day H.E John Mahama was sworn-in to step into in his boss’ shoes. Law and constitution? Yes.
It wasn’t long after returning from the graveyard than we had to return to it again to bury 18 men and women who lost their lives when the Melcom Achimota building collapsed. Workers of ‘where good things happen fame’ were trapped under concrete slabs as young men and women rushed to the scene to salvage our brothers and sisters. The salvation campaign lasted 4 days and nights so some survived. Komla, let’s snap our fingers for the Israeli government who sent in almost 24hours an 8-man team with a dog onboard a flight straight across the oceans to come help the rescue mission. NADMO is indeed grateful.
Komla, to think that building came down flat as if it stood on no foundation still baffles me, the last time I saw such a spectacle was in a movie. My goodness!! This tragedy caught international attention and I am convinced it should be the first of its kind the world over. Just this november, His Excellency Aliu Mahama the former vice president under Mr. John Agyekum Kuffour having battled a heart disease for a while finally gives up the ghost. Remember he was predicted to have died 3 days earlier? At this point, our BP’s rose and set to explode, my sincere condolence to his dear family. Our beloved country Ghana was going through turbulent times, on the back of elections perching in the corner i suppose on one leg, or two legs?
From nowhere Mr. Ayariga steps in legendarily to curtail the gloom by sending us into days of uncontrollable laughter and fun. As one of 7 presidential aspirants seeking the highest office of the land, he was obliged to participate in the Institute of Economic Affairs Presidential Debate at Tamale, one of two to be held before eligible voters went to the poll.
To our shock, Mr. Ayariga singlehandedly stole the night, bombarding 25million Ghanaians, the diaspora and online community with his own set of English grammar and conjured expressions. Making a mess of his subject-verb agreement, we suffered severe ear damages on both occasions.
Komla, ghanaians are becoming just as complicated as EPL fans. See, individuals and groups threatened to boycott the second IEA debate if Ayariga was not attending.
He had in the morning informed Joy fm radio station that he had caught a severe cold and would therefore not attend the debate to be held at the Accra International Conference Centre. Three hours later, he changed his mind, confirming his participation and the dulled ghanaian social media sprang to life again.See, most people thought he was a joke ever thinking of becoming the president of this country and suggested he considered a career in stand-up comedy. Well? What do you think?
‘Operation feed yourself’, ‘we don’t have oil, they have sold the oil’! ‘Ayarigarism! Ayaricough!’ ‘We will encourage their salaries!’ ‘My father my brother and my brother!’ ‘We will employ soil scientists! Agrikalcha!’ he declared. Mr. Ayariga’s popularity has shot up far more than the enemies he made overnight in the People’s National Congress (PNC). Some Executive members have since called for his head ahead of the Presidential Polls claiming he was out-of-touch on issues and that he brought upon the party irreparable damage. Mr. Ayariga seems unperturbed, a cause to worry.
I thought presidential hopeful Hassan Ayariga would remain tightlipped after the second debate in which many say he literally coughed Nana Akufo Addo out of his submissions; he went a step further during the Otumfuo-IDEG Kumasi Peace Declaration. Ayariga halted his campaign and got himself busy with preparing his speech. When it was his turn to speak, he took to the stage, acknowledged the teeming cheering crowds, defined Ayarigate as the latest word in the dictionary to be ‘someone who makes a whole nation laugh, smile and JOY’. So at that, Otumfuo, Rawlings and Kuffour smiled. See, I almost agreed to folks’ views sooner than i envisaged that the PNC flagbearer will consider a change of career, it would be stage or showbiz.
My friend, tension is high between ruling and opposition parties, scores of propaganda flying at each other, Issuance of Press Statements and counter Press Statements, Pockets of violence at Kyebi and Ashtown, Nana Akufo Addo and John Mahama rounding up their campaigns. Mr. Sakara and Papa Ndoum are also on the ground taking it slowly but surely. Komla, as it stands, the best our media houses can do to minimize the tension is to play sound bites of Mr. Ayariga’s IEA speeches. I bet it will do more good to the vain peace blabbering all over the place, which is forgotten as soon as it’s uttered.
The year has indeed been replete with bad news but we should be happy that we can still laugh together as a people despite our political differences, thanks to Ayarigate Worldwide. My final word, good luck to all aspirants. God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong. Let’s meet at the Jubilee house come January 7, 2013 in one piece and not in pieces.
3rd December, 2012
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