‘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

50 POWERFUL QUOTES THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE FROM THE BOOK THINK BIG

·        To shake the tree of life itself and bring down fruit unheard off.

·        E.A. Robinson.

·        The renown that riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail; mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.  – Sallust (86-34 B.C)

·        There are loyal hearts,

o   There are spirits brave,

o   There are souls that are pure and true;

o   Then give the world the best you have,

o   And the best will come back to you.         -  Madeline Bridges.

·        It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books.  They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are true levelers. They give to all who faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race.

·        William Ellery Channing

·        Education is the only way you are ever going to escape out of poverty. It’s the only way you’re ever going to get ahead in life and be successful. 

–       Sonya Carson.

·        Don’t worry about everybody else. The whole world is full of ‘everybody else’. But only a few make a significant achievement.     – Sonya Carson

·        The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man; nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out. After an era of darkness, new races build others; but in the world of books are volumes that live on still, as young and fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.       – Clarence Day

·        Reading is the way out of ignorance and the road to achievement.

·        Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.      – Proverbs (16:32)

·         A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.

–       (Proverbs 29:23)

·         I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.

-         (Proverbs 8:13)

·        Always give your best.

·         A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.       – Dorothy Canfield Fisher

·         A teacher affects eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops.

·        Henry Brooke Adams

·        The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited. – Plutarch

·         Anyone who can’t learn from other people’s mistakes simply can’t learn, and that’s all there is to it. There is value in the wrong way of doing things. The knowledge gained from errors contributes to our knowledge base.

·        Donlin Long

·         Learn everything you can, but think for yourselves.

·         Be nice to people, all people, even when you don’t have to be. Everybody is important.

·         He is a portion of the loveliness which once made him lovely.

·         Life is ever a series of partings.

·         Let not young souls be smothered out before they do quaint deeds and flaunt their pride.     - Vachel Lindsay

·         When there is a chance no matter how small, that is when, I believe, we   must take risks and do everything that we can do to maintain that high quality of life.    – Ben Carson

·         If i shoot at the sun. I may hit a star.  – P.T. Barnum

·        To be of use in the world is the only way to happiness.

–       Hans Christian Anderson

·         As he thinketh in his heart so is he. – Proverb 23:7

·         A merry heart doeth good like a medicine but a broken spirit driedth the bones.  – Proverbs 17:22

·         An honest man’s the noblest work of God. – Robert Burns

·         No one can make us feel inferior without our permission.

–       Eleanor Roosevelt

·         Although I believe in consulting with and learning from experts and achievers, consultation cannot replace personal preparation. In my opinion, the base of personal preparation comes more from reading than from any other source. That some people do not like to read much is really no substantive argument, the more we read, the better we read and the more we enjoy reading. We cannot read too much and most of us do not read enough.

·         So many goals, so many creeds,

o   So many paths that wind and wind

o   When just the art of being kind

o   Is all this sad world needs.          – Ella Wheeler Wilcox

·         Knowledge is power.     – Francis Bacon

·        The brain acquires everything that we encounter.

·         I believe that knowledge is power

·        To overcome the past

·        Change our situations

·        To fight new obstacles

·        To make better decisions

·         Knowledge makes people special

·        No knowledge is wasted

·         Knowledge enriches life itself, Knowledge makes us better people. Knowledge broadens our grasp of the world around us.

·        No one needs an ignoramus. No one wants an ignoramus.

·        Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free. – (John 8:32)

·         Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways, in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.       – Aldous Huxley.

·         Isn’t it strange how princes and kings

o   and clowns that caper in sawdust rings,

o   and common people, like you and me,

o   are builders for eternity?

o   Each is given a list of rules;

o   a shapeless mass; a bag of tools.

o   And each must fashion, ere life is flown,

o   A stumbling block, or a stepping stone.          – R.L. Sharpe.

·        The mind, once stretched by an idea, never returns to its original dimension.

·         Here is a treasure chest of the world- the public library or a book store.

·         If we commit ourselves to reading, thus increasing our knowledge, only God limits how far we can go in this world.

·         Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.     – Ecclesiastes

·         More things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of. – Tennyson

·         Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

–       Proverbs 16:18

·         When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.

·        Proverbs 11:2

·         A man’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.     –

·        Haughty eyes are a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin.

–       Proverbs: 21:4

·         Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting. – Shakespeare

·          We are still able to grow as long as we are alive.

THE SHAMEFUL DONATION ENTERPRISE AND THE WAKE-UP CALL TO MUSLIMS

When I relayed the matter to the diligent painter, his response was not only funny, but surprising as well. Not forgetting the fact that it was an apt and a very logical answer. This painter responded in Hausa “Ni waawa nei, ko hankali na baashi gida nei? Kana kashe dan uwa na, kana baani abinchi?” (To wit; am I a fool or am I a non-compos mentis, you are killing my brother and you are feeding me?)

The issue he was responding to was the donation of 200 kilograms of rice and sugar each to the National Imam of Ahlu-Sunna wal Jamah (according to them, to support the Nima community and the Muslim community in Ghana in their Ramadan fasting) by the Israel embassy on the 11th of July, 2014. The presentation was done by the Deputy Ambassador of Israel, Eyal Lampert.

The first time I also heard it, I got shocked to the marrow and the erectile hairs on my skin got raised. The news also received a whole lot of backlash from the Muslim community especially those on the social media. The reactions had less to do with the donation and more to do with the timing of it.

The donation came at a time when the state of Israel had unleashed its severest act of savagery yet on our Muslim brothers and sisters in faraway Palestine. Innocent souls were being slaughtered and the surviving ones could not tell the night from the day because of the anarchical state in which they found themselves.

The later rejection of the items and returning of it was a step in the right direction although it will do nothing or little to mollify the battered spirit of Muslims in Ghana and salvage our bruised image. This is due to the fact that ‘the harm” as said “had already been done” as the donation exercise had wider coverage and blown through the ‘media vuvuzela’ (social media) into outer space.

Several explanations have come out from several quarters of the Muslim community. Notably, the office of the National Chief Imam, the office of the Imam of Ahlu-Sunna wal Jamah and some individuals whose actions have rendered the Muslim community in Ghana in this state of ridicule and mockery in the eyes of the world.

The back and forth of the issue has left in its wake, a number of questions to be answered.

• Who is to blame, at the end of the disgrace caboodle?

• Who acted as the representative of the Israel embassy?

• Who dragged the Imam of Ahlu-Sunna into this shameful enterprise?

• Is the office of the Imam of Ahlu-Sunna so weak and attenuated that any crook can come around and pick him up under the pretext of the Chief Imam’s calling and entangle him in a web of humiliation?

• So after the numerous dealings between the two great Imams, one office cannot ascertain an official envoy from the other?

• So of all the schemes and plots of the Jews in Ghana (as we are made to believe in the other vein that they deceived the Imam), they had no way of involving us with them than under the enticement of rice and sugar?

The last question raises another serious issue that has eaten into the fiber and fabric of the Muslim leadership and community in its entirety. Anyone who wants a favor from the Muslim community just brings some ‘chufunta’ rice and sugar and we fall for him flat. Hook, line and sinker! In the times past, politicians had hoodwinked us by sharing these things; it is very rife especially in the political spheres of our Zongo communities where you see members of the party in power fighting one another just because of a donated tin of milk, cup of rice or box of sugar. The horrendous aspect of it is the fact that, that is the yardstick used to determine the ‘hardworking’ politician in our communities. He who gives more rice and sugar wins. That is how low we have sunk.

Just recently, The Independent newspaper reported “Chief Imam endorses Alan Cash” just because Alan K. Kyeremanteng, an aspiring flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party had donated some gallons of oil, rice and other things not worth the caption given it, to the National Chief Imam.

Perhaps, the unfortunate Israel embassy incident should trigger the culture of change. We should move away from such irresponsible actions. No wonder we hold the largest number of mendicants spread across the length and breadth of the land and anyone who is not even a Muslim who finds himself in that business pretends to be one. This is seriously far from Islam. It is not and can never be Islam.

Our religion exhorts us to be more of givers and not the always cup-in-hand receivers. It is this premium placed on giving that the religion has Zakat as its third pillar. Zakat or alms-giving is talked about in the Quran in not less than thirty verses. “The payment of Zakat benefits the person paying, the person receiving and the community as a whole. By improving the status of the poor and the needy, we also improve the economy of the community. Everyone gains from the simple but effective system of bringing the poor and needy closer to the wealthy. The constant circulation of wealth within the community, as opposed to being hoarded in banks or spent on lavish material items, improves society and reduces economic hardships, jealousy, crime etc. the recipient of Zakat are assisted towards self-sufficiency. The Zakat may enable them to start their own businesses. This will give them wealth, taking them from being a recipient of Zakat to a payer of it.” This truth was stated by Mohammed Thompson in his book “Basic Principles of Islam.”

Apart from Zakat, Muslims, regardless of the weight of their purse are exhorted to give especially in Ramadan.

The Prophet is reported to have said “The hand that is up (the hand that gives) is better than the hand that is down (the hand that receives).

The shameful donation enterprise should be the wake-up call!

NB: This article was written last year and published on Ghanaweb on Saturday, 19 July 2014. Had to re-post it here due to similar occurrences the piece touched on.

Inusah Mohammed.