PERISCOPE DEPTH (01/12/2021) With Our Publisher
Patriotism is a funny thing. Sometimes, people shout it, preach it, stomp it, roll in it, and in fact, do everything that is humanly possible to do with it, except, that is, believe in it, and practice it.
Did I say patriotism is a funny thing? So is integrity. Sometimes, people shout it, preach it, stomp it, roll in it, and in fact, do everything that is humanly possible to do with it, except, that is, believe in it, and practice it.
Alban Bagbin And His Dubai Foray
On Friday, as the debate over the fate of Ghana’s 2022 Budget and Economic Policy Statement raged, Ghanaians were told that the Speaker of Parliament was about to travel urgently to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, to seek medical treatment.
A few hours before, Ghanaians had seen Ghana’s Number Two or Number Three Man (the level of power-drunkenness of some people in Ghana is beyond imagination) very actively presiding over affairs in parliament, and I wondered when he developed the emergency that required him to go to Dubai.
Subsequently, I came upon a copy of the letter from parliament to Ghana’s Embassy in Dubai seeking courtesies for Bagbin, and that letter was signed on 25th of November, 2021.
I have a few concerns and questions. Assuming, that the arrangements to travel to Dubai had been made previously, why didn’t Bagbin find it prudent to change his plans, given the fact that it had become apparent to all, that a crisis was about to develop in parliament, where he presides, over next year’s budget? Is Bagbin not aware that parliament as it stands, is polarized right in the middle, with a division of 137/138? Is he not aware?
Is Bagbin not aware that it is his duty, as Speaker, even if he is bedridden, to seek to find compromises between the two sides? Is he not duty-bound to accept compromises when they are offered, instead of the other way round? Was he bound to accept the rowdy display that led to Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta being excused from the chamber of parliament? Should he have left Ghana at the moment he did, with the problem we have, and in the face of clear disunity as to the nature of exactly what has taken place in parliament, when what was at stake was a whole year’s budget of a government?
The cost of whatever treatment (is he on a trip for treatment or it is a joyride with his spouse at our expense) is going to be paid by the long-suffering Ghanaian, and therefore I think that I am entitled to ask what ails Mr. Bagbin, such that he cannot seek medical treatment at the 37 Military Hospital, or at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital? We must find out if he flew by air-ambulance, or by business class, if he walked healthily into that flight or he was carried.
I am asking these questions because, even if the arrangements for the journey had been made prior to 25th and 26th November, 2021, Mr. Bagbin, given the developments on the floor of parliament, and the fact that what is at issue was the whole national budget, had a duty, a responsibility, to cancel his intended arrangements whilst he sought a solution to the crisis at home.
Any other decision, particularly the decision to junket off, is unpatriotic, particularly when the reason is listed as a ‘medical review’, in other words, a doctor’s appointment for a pre-existing condition. If it is a doctor’s appointment for a pre-existing condition, which is not a dire emergency, then Bagbin had a duty to cancel the trip and schedule it for a more convenient time. Otherwise, his decision to leave Ghana is fueled by partisanship. Partisanship, in that once he is out of the jurisdiction, the Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament would be forced to preside, thus presumably crippling the Majority in terms of numbers. It is a decision fueled by diabolic intentions to undo the government and make it suffer; it is not a decision taken with Ghana’s interest in mind. It is not a decision taken with even his so-called specious medical condition in mind.
If Bagbin had been a progressive, instead of a ‘little man’ in outlook, he would have recognized that the problem in parliament was a great opportunity to demonstrate his leadership and patrimonial skills. It is not the time to run out of the kitchen like a vengeful little cat. Because that is what he is doing, getting even with Akufo-Addo and Kyei Mensah Bonsu over their little catfights.
At the beginning of this write-up, I mentioned integrity. Integrity has to do with corruption. Is it true, as some people are alleging, that the Office of Speaker Alban Sumana Bagbin, has spent a whopping 25 million cedis in just about ten months? This allegation should be investigated, just as we should investigate what is ailing the Speaker, and why the only place he can find a medical doctor for his ailment, is Dubai.
Proceeding very quickly, maybe, the events currently taking place in parliament, however, will serve as a valuable lesson to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) leadership, in the immediate term, and for political party leaders generally in Ghana and elsewhere in the long-term. The government’s problem in parliament today is a simple matter of numbers. Numbers for good, numbers for bad. The number of parliamentary seats occupied by each party. If the NPP had even two seats more, Bagbin would not be Speaker. A different person would be there; maybe not the best individual the nation can offer (that is another debate for another day, about men given opportunity to make choices that should bring progress to the nation, willfully choosing to do otherwise). And the ruling government would not be compelled into a position where it would have to go, cap in hand, begging the opposition to play ball. As it is, the NDC has the government firmly over a barrel, able to dictate the pace of the game. It had the government over a barrel in January, and it still has the government over a barrel in November. Apparently, while Ghanaians have been sleeping, leaders on both sides have been sleeping even deeper. No bridges are being built, publicly or privately.
But I digress. To get back on track, ahead of the NPP’s primary to select/elect parliamentary candidates to represent the party in the 2020 general elections, a group of people in government and in the NPP party leadership took the ruinous decision that the incumbent 169 parliamentarians were going to be insisted upon as the candidates for the NPP in the 2020 general elections. This idea was going to face obvious constitutional and practical difficulties. First, a proposal was suggested to amend the constitution of the party to make this wish a reality. When this failed, the party leadership, with General Secretary John Boadu in charge, set off on a number of nefarious actions intended to discourage candidates who were challenging some incumbents. I know. I was a victim.
Deliberate Mischief
Some incumbents too were deliberately targeted for removal, such as the lady at Akwatia, who was targeted because of her educational background, no matter that she was the people’s choice. In the view of some people, she was not educated enough to be a member of parliament. Through the use of unlawful and improper tactics, candidates who were supposed to win, lost, and those who were not supposed to win, won. By the time the dust settled after the general election, the NPP had lost an astronomical 30-something seats in parliament, and the NDC had achieved one of the biggest political comebacks in history.
And it was not even because of any message that the NDC peddled. And it was in spite of the horrifically poor governance of this nation by the NDC in times past, including NDC’s abysmal human rights record under Rawlings and the appalling economic record of theft and corruption under John Mahama. In spite of the history of the NDC, in spite of the fact that that party came to the people of Ghana in 2020 without any clear message on how they hoped to govern, Ghanaians were prepared to give them back the nation in preference to the Akufo-Addo governance. The NPP in government must have been doing something terrifically wrong, for the people to go through such a radical transformation in outlook in just four years. It is for the NPP as a party and the NPP in power to recognize that they are on a path to one of the greatest political train wrecks on the continent of Africa in 2024, if it does not change how it has conducted itself thus far, from 2017 to date.
Belling The Cat
So, I ask; who will wake up President Akufo-Addo to the reality that he is the driver of a train headed for a massive wreck? Who will beard this lion in his den, wake him up to the reality that he is giving this nation back to the NDC on a silver platter, that he is about to consign the party that propelled him to the highest civil and political position he would ever reach as a human being, to the NDC again?
Who would remind him that he is about to give over the people who looked up to him for salvation in 2016, back to the people who threatened them in 2016, and that he is about to give over the multi-billion Atewa Forest Reserve to John Mahama and his brother, Ibrahim Mahama?
Who will wake up this lion from his complacent slumber, that all is well in Ghana?
Just as the debate broke last week on the E-Levy, news also emerged that President Akufo-Addo was about to set off on a trip to Atlanta, where he would stay at a hotel called the Four Seasons, with his bill reputed to cost $73,395.00 (seventy-three thousand, three hundred and ninety-five dollars) for a few days’ stay. At a rate of GHc6.30 to the dollar, that brings his bill at the Four Seasons alone to GHc462,388.50 (four hundred and sixty thousand, three hundred and eighty-eight Ghana cedis). I find it hard to justify why the President and his team would justify this type of expenditure, at a time his Finance Minister is so desperate for funds that he is trying to tax people for daring to just exchange money from one pair of hands, to another. Because that is what the E-Levy is; if you dare to use the electronic system to make a payment, then no matter the purpose of the payment, the government would take a share of that payment. If we are that desperate for money, should we shovel it by the barrelful onto the platter of some greedy American capitalists?
Somebody should wake up the President to the reality of the choices he is giving the people of Ghana, that the people find themselves at an unpleasant place, between a rock and a hard place, and that unless he begins to establish clear lines of affinity with the people of Ghana, he is sending his party back to opposition.
Many people often say that the President simply does not care, because he has had his turn at being President. I sincerely hope, that this cannot be the truth. That cannot be the case. But if that is not the case, then the President should begin to demonstrate it.
(Periscope Depth is published every Wednesday in the Daily Searchlight.)
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