WITH DIVORCE OR SUICIDE, LATIF ABUBAKAR SHOWS HE IS A FORCE TO RECKON WITH

Paa Paul threatened me in the face that he is vehemently going to campaign against me. He said this because of what he saw at the National Theatre. I was then a candidate in the just-ended District Assembly Elections in the Nima-East Electoral Area in the Ayawaso District.  The reason for his threat was interesting to say the least.

Paa Paul is the CEO of Palrose Ventures, a printing and designing  company in Nima. He had taken a video of me in display. Together with my friends, we were in a state of frenzy, singing, dancing and clapping in a wild ecstatic style and fashion. It was the last day of the viewing of Latif Abubakar's What can come can come. And the spontaneity with which we came out with ‘jama’ from the main auditorium coupled with our completely outlandish display attracted almost everyone to us. That was  when Paa Paul captured me in motion. And when I am in motion, I become possessed like the egwugwu in Chinua Achebe’s Things fall Apart which he described as “guttural and awesome.”

The display was not rehearsed. Neither was it planned. It was certainly not a pre-conceived idea also.  It was just an outward knee-jerk manifestation of how the drama hit each and every soul of ours. It was absolutely a masterpiece and most of the audience were left with the statement “you have not seen anything yet” a cliché that run through the show from the most interesting character of the day. He kept repeating that like Chiwetalu Agu’s usage of particular language slangs or clichés in Nigeria movies.

We left the edifice near midnight wishing the show could restart. There was an untold feeling that we will jump at any show put up by the small in body yet creative in mind Latif Abubakar.

That is why I dedicated a considerable space on my Facebook wall to share the posters of his next play Divorce or Suicide, which had its viewing ending on Saturday 26th September, 2015 with pomp and occasion, stemming from its effect on the audience.

With five characters, Latif Abubakar trumpeted home invaluable nuggets of wisdom for marriage couples and to a larger extent those in relationships.

In a world where reasons for the overwhelming number of marriage break-ups are mostly as disgusting and irrelevant as a used sanitary pad, the play sought to imbue in couples the sense of guarding their tongues and fidelity in their matrimonial homes.  “You are guaranteed a successful marriage and even paradise when you use correctly what is in-between your cheeks and what is in between your thighs, your tongue and your private parts. And note that ninety-five  percent of all marital problems revolve around these. The whole world rotates around these. ” That is the personal message of the playwright to the audienece as captured in the play.

The use of veteran movie actors like Adjetey Annan and Ekow Smith Asante made the whole show  a delight to watch. One could sense years of experience reflected in their performance. Adjetey Annan who played the dual role of a pastor and a fetish priest did that expertly not losing touch of the distinctive characteristics of each. What leaves one gaping in excitement is the unusual situation of a fetish priest quoting copiously from the Bible to substantiate his claims."Life and death lies in the power of the tongue" he stated to Mrs. Wimbledon in the play. She was taken aback and retorted, "these are words of the Bible." He replied “yes, but the gods say so”. Isn't that intriguing?

In Divorce or Suicide, Marriage is  likened to the movement of the moon and sun which rarely results in an eclipse (the blocking or partial blocking of light from one by another). This phenomenon does not last when it occurs. Its occurrence is transient and a short-lived experience. Therefore, turbulence in marriage is just like the eclipse. It is temporal and fleeting.  It is up to the couple to realize that and never submit to the temptation to divorce during periods of turbulence in their marriage.

Another lesson that we took from the play was the inefficiency and incapability of deities that people believe in and that absolute power resides in the everlasting and eternal Supreme God. The fetish priests that people visit to have their problems solved are powerless and most times live in far worse situations than them. “How can you put your faith and belief in a god and in someone created by God? Someone who you can be more powerful than”?  A solid question asked by the unmasked fetish priest in the well-written, well-directed play.

Lastly, the writer of the play is a man whose career path charms my eye and fascinates my imagination. Latif Abubakar studied Zoology for his first degree in the University of Ghana.  He is now the CEO of Globe Management Institute (GMI), a training,  consulting and business research firm and a founding member the Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs, Ghana (AYEG).

With this career far away from the Arts and its related field, one then has to admit the diligence of this young man when he has written oversix plays that have all proven to be masterpieces n the own right.

I had the chance of watching the technical rehearsal of the play, Divorce or Suicide at the National Theater. After that I sent Latif Abubakar a message on facebook saying   "Boss... thanks! With what I have seen, I believe you have further entrenched yourself as a force to reckon with in the theater industry."

Inusah Mohammed

NB: The writer is Youth-Activist and a Student of Knowledge.

Okoromaazi@gmail.com

I WEEP FOR GHANA, OUR MOTHERLAND

Scandalized is an understatement

Petrified, best describes my mental statement.

Calcified I am for the day’s movement

That a Church mouse like me can procure judgment

From our law courts with a pittance, is no merriment

Judgment is auctioned to the evil diligent

In high-octane levels in the injustice market.

God save this nation of ours.

Cause we are helpless, absolutely despondent

It was Benjamin Franklin who said “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are”. And if you think that is permeating enough then take this one from Ernesto Che Guevara. He is quoted to have said

“I tremble with indignation at any injustice.”

Why should he tremble with indignation when he is unaffected, when he has no case with the injustice meted out? Why should he tremble with indignation when he should be eating beans and bacons because he does not know the people embroiled in the issue that brought them to the law courts in the first place?
 As if by divine providence, Martin Luther King Jnr provided an answer to that. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  Great minds they say “think in tandem”.

During the first viewing of the highly anticipated Anas exposé on judicial corruption, I was more interested in the public reaction to it than  the viewing.
 A nation is doomed if its citizenry view corruption as normal as they see a cow on Eidul Adha day. In some parts of the world, massive citizen protest marches are staged to show vehemence against the slightest case of corruption.

 There are Heads of State who got nearly impeached for a reason as ‘simple’ as speaking a lie.

“There was nothing extraordinary in the video.” This was the comment made by a respectable politician of the land. Another man told a gathering as it was moving out in the local parlance “This one is nothing. All of you have your various forms of corrupt practices.” Another supposedly level-headed guy I met stated that this is an exercise in fruition and that nothing will be done about it. If I had any feeling that corruption has come to stay with us in this country, then it was confirmed today. Corruption as a matter of fact has been institutionalized in the country.

The body language of the sea of crowed that thronged the International Conference center to view the Epic of Injustice as Anas puts  it confirms it all. It was normal. People were happy, jeering as if they were catching Latif Abu-Bakr’s Divorce or Suicide or Uncle Ebo Whyte’s Bananas and Groundnuts.

This explains why the whole country was quiet when Justice Dery sued Anas. No one came out to support the patriotic journalist with vehemence. We all sat aloof waiting for the showing to be cancelled. All gratitude is to Allah for sustaining the little justice that we still have.  We seem not to know the gravity of the case before us this time.

 That the last resort for a citizen whether poor or rich to gain justice is now a semi-permeable membrane is not a laughing matter. That the people supposed to uphold justice and fairness are grabbing bribes on all fours is absolutely no drama.

Of all the remedies suggested in the fight against corruption, I unflinchingly support what our incorruptible first President stated. Kwame Nkrumah stated  “the most effective way to fight corruption is to build a strong public opinion against it.”

If you build a strong  public opinion against it, Judges will not be seen negotiating bribes, haggling over prices like a yam in the Nima market.  If you build a strong public opinion against it , justice could not be sold for as low as 250 Ghana Cedis. In the community I live, I have seen people who spent more than 250 Ghana and more just  for lunch yet a judge took that to free a person standing trial for fraud. That is how cheap  and inexpensive a priceless and invaluable virtue as justice is being sold.

I weep for Ghana, our motherland!

That a judge could order someone to change a sheep brought to him as a bribe to a goat because he likes goat meat shows how low our judiciary has sunk.

That a court official  views money “as a treasure of fools” and will love to taste the redness of a lady’s vagina to thwart justice indicates the level at which corruption has reached in the country.

I weep for Ghana, our motherland!

That a judge could take 500 Ghana cedis as bribe to free a murderer is very cancerous to the fiber and fabric of our consciousness as a nation.

That the people who make us swear with the Qur’ans and Bibles before we speak before them throw the sanctity of these Holy books to the dogs does not augur well for the land.

That a Judge could swear, rant and rage that her Christian values eschew bribe taking yet kowtow to the temptation to take it shows how highly religious yet ungodly we are as Ghanaians.

I felt sad and still feel sad as a Ghanaian. I am unhappy. I have never suffered from any judicial injustice. However, the world is a cycle, moving round and round. I may find myself in the court tomorrow as everyone is a potential litigant.

Do I know what is in stock for me with this weak and attenuated judiciary?

Anas Aremeyaw Anas paints the picture well for us:

"A festering sore, raw to the core, inciting drums of war

They pose majestically with proud dimples
Leading others to swear by their Qurans and Bibles
To uphold the truth and moral principles
But soon do they themselves lose all scruples
And to the law and scriptures become false disciples
Shamelessly defying common decency
They trade their nobility for miserable currency
Strip the judiciary of its sanctity and potency
Also its ability to firmly anchor our democracy
Thus plunging the nation into needless emergency
Before the eyes of God, this is no fallacy
Neither an idle prophecy
Nor a case of journalistic fantasy
Facts they are, documented in strict accuracy
Narrated in the coming series with honest poignancy
Without any hint of tongue-in-cheek diplomacy”

Inusah Mohammed

NB: The writer is a Youth-Activist and a Student of Knowledge 

Okoromaazi@gmail.com

DR. MUSTAPHA AHMED MUST GO!

I don't want to talk about Dr. Mustapha Ahmed. I like him as a person. Cool, calm and collected. Very demure and absolutely neat in his appearances. His shoe alone can sponsor three students through their University and beyond due to its grandeur nature. He has signed documents for me before and I really appreciated it.
However, he has failed us as a people. He should have humbly stepped down but he has refused. Unfortunately for us, he has the support from a section of the constituents whom he greases their palms in times like this. 

I have suffered a lot for my extreme show of dislike for his mis-representation of us. I remember vividly how I was entering the Dunia Cinema in Nima for a meeting and a very big woman bodily, grabbed me with both hands by the neck and stated that she will kill me just because I expressed my antipathy towards his disappointing performance. I remember the day Ali Horoya Who I respect very much, told me we all grew up in Nima and that those who were born on 'borla' are known. He was saying that to insult me through my parentage just because I stated my dislike on Facebook. I will never forget that. 

The man has really failed us. He was first mandated when I was in primary six. I completed JHS, SHS, spent three years in the Polytechnic, a year as a Service Person, two years in UPSA, a year as a Service Person again and yet there is nothing monumental worth mentioning of his stewardship.

A chunk of the constituents in their own understanding say he has never spoken on the floor of Parliament. Others say they can even count the number of times he has spoken. He hardly comes into his constituency. He comes very rare and on special occasions just like a Solar Eclipse. Some of his supporters (who support him because they have high hopes that he will help them someday) still hate me for the fact that I strongly told him in a Public forum that "he has failed us woefully in 2011" and I don't give a damn to their puffed up hatred. I remember that same day, Ali Horoya tried to respond to my statements and the gathering ended in complete altercation. 

Our elders say " When a handshake goes beyond the elbow, then it has turned into something else".

When the people of Ayawaso North vote Mustapha Ahmed again to represent them, then our naivety has turned to foolishness. In July, I met Rashid Sambo of the Ghana Muslim Academy at the Teacher's Hall in Accra and he told me this. " In Nima-Maamobi, the NDC has taken us for a ride because of our foolishness. And the only way to say this is that we are gifted fools."

Inusah Mohammed

NB: The writer is a Youth-activist and a Student of knowledge.

  

‘MONEYCRACY’ IN GHANA: THE NIMA EXPERIENCE

My affinity for Citi breakfast show is so strong and lies deep in the very cistern of my heart. This is not because my first radio interview was by Citi FM. When I was in the senior high school (SHS), there was this marathon NAGRAT strike action which saw a Citi FM journalist storm our campus to interview students on the devastating effects of the strike action.

That was when I had my first radio interview. This affinity is certainly not also because of the rendezvous I had with Bernard Avle in 2008. In one of our Dream Team sessions at AVERT Youth Foundation, a community-based youth-led organization in Nima-Maamobi, we hosted Bernard Avle and Mr. Daniel Kokrokoo of Dafoko Concepts and it was absolutely inspirational.

Dream Team was a ten-year motivational programme rolled out by the then President of the organization, Mahmoud Jajah, to make members connect with their mentors and in the process rise up to their desired goals in life. I started following the Citi Breakfast show religiously since then.

However, my affinity for this programme is due to the topics the team decides to discuss, which strike chords in the ordinary Ghanaian’s life devoid of our parochial, nauseating and suffocating partisan politics. What entices me more is their choice of music which is mostly apt and right for the topic under discussion.

My observation was captured by Kwame Gyan, the Corporate Relations Manager of Airtel Ghana. On June 17, 2015 exactly at 8:30 am he updated his status on Facebook, “Citi FM has the best DJ on morning radio. All the music they play is apt to whatever discussion they engage in”. Apt!

It so happened that on Wednesday, 8th July, 2015, the Citi breakfast show led the discussion on how money played a very cardinal factor in the just-ended Talensi by-election which saw B.T.Baba emerge as the legislator to finish the unfinished business of Robert Mosore, who had to vacate the post due to his enskinment as a paramount chief.

This, coupled with the most recent New Patriotic Party (NPP) primaries, have revealed how the winning of elections has has become an auction sale which sees the highest bidder grab the position on offer. This really struck a chord with me as usual.

As I stated in previous articles, I am a Nima boy and a proud one for that matter. My interest in politics started in the 1996 elections when our land lady, a staunch National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporter, organized a group of like-minded people led by a brass band to parade the streets of Nima singing and chanting party songs.

One person I vividly remember partaking in it is the former goalkeeper of Tudu Mighty Jets, Mr. Omega David. As young as we were, we joined the fray in a state of heightened jollity and wild ecstatic jamboree.

After SHS, I started going for the weekly general meetings of the NDC at the Dunia Cinema, contributing in discussions and deliberations. I subsequently got the position of Youth Organizer at the Frankies Annex A, branch of the constituency, which made me eligible to vote in the primaries to choose who became the 2012 Parliamentary candidate for NDC in the then East-Ayawaso Constituency which comprised six electoral areas.

In late 2011, a public forum was organized for Mustapha Ahmed (now Minister for Youth and Sports), the parliamentary representative of the constituency since the year 2000, to highlight his achievements since he took charge. A quest which ended up with him trying to pull the wool over our eyes because there was virtually nothing to show for his stewardship save the increase in his bootlickers and sycophants.

As a young man who had started reading the Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah, I could not stand the injustice. While praise singers were heaping praises on him, I told him point blank in open air when I was given the microphone that he had “failed us woefully,” a statement that did not go well with his courtiers and supporters, thereby putting the gathering into a state of confusion. My name was mysteriously missing from the delegates list since then.

His response that day bore it all. He responded that delegates would decide whether he had failed us woefully or not. He boldly stated that because he had other plans. Few weeks after that, fresh laptops and copies of the Holy Quran were given to each of the over one hundred Youth Organizers. As if that was not enough, on the eve of the election, chairmen of branches took 100 dollars with super-designed wrist watches. Women organizers took home expensive cloths with Hundred Ghana cedis each.

Secretaries also took 100 dollars each. The other candidate who showed strength in that contest was Nasser Mahama Toure (Mac Naza), currently the Member of Parliament for Ayawaso East constituency. He gave each delegate a hundred Ghana cedis and a brand new Nokia phone. The number of delegates was more than four hundred judging by the outcome of the elections.

One funny, yet interesting story, I will never forget is of a woman, Hajia Hadiza, who fought everyone just because she did not want the position of women Organizer in 2012 since a woman organizer was not eligible to vote in the 2008 primaries.

In 2012, women organizers were made delegates. She caused a whole lot of confusion, saying that she was cheated. She ranted, raged, cursed and cried that the executives had deliberately excluded her from getting the goodies shared to delegates.

This is how high party functionaries view primaries. They call it “cocoa season”. They claim the elected officers never do anything worthy when mandated, therefore that’s the time to take their share.

In all of this, I believe the time has come for us to set a new agenda in our political affairs. We end up having square pegs in round holes.

President Kufuor labels this ‘monecracy’ as a crime. It is a crime of gargantuan proportion. It leads us to a path of social injustice. It leads to dereliction of duty and, in the end, gross inefficiencies in the system.

Trouble number six in Chinua Achebe’s The Trouble with Nigeria is “Social Injustice and the Cult of Mediocrity”. He wrote under that caption, “The greatest sufferer is the nation itself which has to contain the legitimate grievance of a wronged citizen; accommodate the incompetence of a favored citizen and more important and of a greater scope, endure a general decline of morale and subversion of efficiency caused by an erratic system of performance and reward. Social injustice is, therefore, not only a matter of morality but also of sheer efficiency and effectiveness.”

Inusah Mohammed 

NB: The writer is a Youth-activist and a Student of Knowledege.

okormaazi@gmail.com