Norman Goodman Misserial’s
‘ESCAPADES OF KWEKU ATTA, ESQ.,’-An African President
Kwaata, of Mpesaase, known to the world as His Excellency Nana Sir Obrempong Ewiasewura Kwaku Atta I, Esq., QB, SAG, OBE, KFC, was speaking with deadly certainly, his large, moon shaped face certain with confidence, his elocution perfect, the words coming out with well-defined singularity.
He was reading from a large tele-prompter on the screen of a mobile device propped up in front of him on the podium. The tele-prompter had been designed in such a way that it minimized the need to keep on looking down and up after a few lines, creating the impression that he was speaking directly from the mind, instead of reading, which was what he was actually doing.
It had been installed secretly into the podium and just as secretly delivered overnight into the Chamber of the House of the Peoples Representatives. It will disappear just as secretly later today, while the focus was elsewhere.
The magician has his tricks, and only he knows them, he thought cynically.
Of course, it did not hurt that over the past few days, he had been rehearsing and rehearsing with his closet staff, so that given his prodigious personal capacities for memorizing, he also had most of the text memorized.
But memorization or not, there would be no mistakes here. For back-up he had brought the written speech as well. It was well-typed, fourteen points, in Arial Black font and bold. It had been in his personal possession, never leaving his sight, for the past twenty-four hours. He checked it constantly. Kwaata was nothing if not a student of history. He did not intend to make the same mistake as two of his predecessors. The late Professor Ignarus de Malis Pax Atta Wokor, the man who died in this seat as President of Ogyakrom, and the man who succeeded him, Alhaji Dr. Efovi John Joojo Asante Zubaida alias Chameleon. The late Professor Atta Wokor had very poor eyes which were getting weaker as a consequence of disease. In fact, he had lost complete use of one eye by the time he became President. He had made the mistake of delivering one State of the Ogyakrom (SOTO) Address with one weak eye, leading to long, embarrassing and painful periods of ‘scanning’, where he could be seen actually following letters with the one good eye, mumbling them before continuing with the address. Even in the midst of this misery, the opposition, His Excellency’s party, had subjected him to great railing and riling. It had been a painful exercise to watch, and His Excellency had no desire to make himself out into such a spectacle.
More enjoyable had been the mishap of Alhaji Dr. Efovi John Joojo Asante Zubaida alias Chameleon. The Chameleon had made the unfortunate mistake of leaving his speech-writing to a journalist on his staff, who, on one occasion, had left out several pages of the speech the Chameleon was to deliver at an international event. With the cameras rolling, the man had been forced to confess that parts of his speech were missing, forcing him to speak extempore. Given that the man did not have much up there to begin with, it had been a humiliating experience for him and the nation.
In the past week, he had had his eyes checked (perfect vision), his reading glasses changed and tested (one can’t be too careful), had the tele-prompter secretly installed and shipped to the Chamber, trained with a second copy of the device and podium, and brought a properly paginated and annotated copy of the speech with him as well. Plan A, B, C, D, and E for back-up.
So far, the confidence that comes with good preparation was upon him, and everything was perfect. The deadly certainty of his elocution demonstrated his great preparation.
“In conclusion, I must say that in the past six years,” he said in a firm baritone, brimming with certainty, “My government has constructed One Thousand New Schools, and every child in Ogyakrom will attend school for free!”
Properly cued, the members of parliament on the Majority side screamed “Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
It did not matter that most of the ‘new schools’ only had minor renovations done on them and that only about fifty or so new schools had been built. The rest of the ‘thousand’ were renovations, from renovation of extremely dilapidated structures, to minor renovations. But renovations all the same.
His Excellency was steaming forward, saying firmly, “In the past six years, we have put up five thousand markets in five thousand communities!”
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
Actually, the figure was just about five hundred, most of which were renovations, but who was going to check?
He rumbled on, “I have personally commissioned a hundred hospitals and five hundred hospitals are under construction!”
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
He had commissioned ten, his Vice had commissioned about four, and ten more was under construction.
“We have connected fifty thousand communities to the National Electricity Grid!” he shouted as the Minority sat in stunned silence and the Majority screamed “Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
“We have constructed one hundred thousand kilometres of roads, more than the entire national stock of roads six years ago!” he screamed!
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!”
“Yeaaaah! Yeh!” The Majority screamed back, standing up in a spontaneous round of clapping and shouting in admiration at the stupendous achievements of their government in power. All of them wanted to be seen in this shouting frenzy, so that they can be noticed by the big man up there. But before arriving in the chamber, a lot of them had been complaining about the havoc the poor road network was causing on their expensive four-wheel drive vehicles.
His Excellency Nana Sir Obrempong Ewiasewura Kwaku Atta I, Esq., QB, SAG, OBE, KFC, was however mainly watching the astounded opposition members, who had been ‘backshished’ with fat envelopes of dollars to keep quiet and act like mummies. No depreciating local currency for them. In his mind, he was laughing uproariously. You people taught us well. You once said that if it was a goat, say it is a cow. Well, now, if it is a kid, I am saying it is an elephant!
To be continued.
(This article was first published in the column ‘ESCAPADES OF KWEKU ATTA, ESQ.,’-An African President’ of the Daily Searchlight on 04/04/2022. The Daily Searchlight appears on the newsstands of Ghana every working day and is for sale online twenty-four hours a day throughout the world on www.ghananewsstand.com).
