Monday, January 19, 2009

After "Antoa Nyamaa"ing Their Way Into Power, Now What?

Now that the elections are over and the newly-crowned champions are busy showing off their muscles all over the place, I want to blog about one of the most ugly aspect of the electoral campaigns. And that, has to do with the propensity with which some of our politicians were invoking the name of "antoa nyamaa" particularly in the Ashanti Region.
The whole barbaric practice of cursing one's political opponents, in my books, did reveal a lot about the state of mind of some of the politicians who having suffered for eight long years in the wilderness, were hellbent on ruling Ghana by any means, foul or otherwise.
Antoa, to them, was like the magic wand that unfailingly answers the abracadabra chants big time. During the campaigns, every time they didn't get their way, they pushed the panic button with thuggish abandon for this spiritual macho man, their angel of host, to come down and wreak havoc on their political enemies.
Supposing that no Ghanaian will dare stand in their way because of our collective terror of being pummeled instantaneously into the afterlife by antoa nyamaa, certain members of the ex-while opposition party made a continuous ritual of threatening people big-time with antoa.
And just like the 'kaakaamotobi' scare tactics used by adults during my childhood, the fear of this national (or is it an Ashanti ) kaakaamotobi seems to have terrified Ghanaians into voting massively for the scaremongers. Hehehe?
Having developed such an unparalleled appetite for calling upon antoa whilst in opposition, I wonder to what extent the believers will go to appease it(?), now that antoa has delivered the goods?
Atta Mills is a decent dude by Ghanaians, but the crowd around him is manifestly an uncool antoa-loving, juju-seeking, mallam-come and-club-this chap-for-me mob. You don't believe me? Read this and this.
I hope juju, antoa nyamaa, mallam(marabou) and other forms of witchcraft do not become national pastimes and sought-after means to attain political power in Ghana.

3 comments:

novisi said...

hello man,
interesting one there...

i just love the human spirit... we seem to be delving a "believe" into all sorts of super powers to suit our imaginations... not bad!

as for me i do not stand against any religious belief system be it Christian or Eckanka or Islam or Antoa-Nyama or whatever!

I do not subscribe to any such as a fundamental PROJECTION for socio-economic development of man! i prefer a common-sense and scientific approach to our common problems!!!

I saw Atta Mills yesterday on TV attending a synagogue in Nigeria during his visit and he was telling about some revelation and i wondered what all that meant...??? that it was the making of God??? I don't think so and I don't think that God was the one who gave us Rawlings or Kuffuor...

all the same, let whoever who believes in a stone keep his belief to himself... and let us have a secular state that respects the fundamental rights of all...

cheers man!!

posekyere said...

Hi Novisi,
If an honourable representative in the August House is being bombarded with juju at this early stage of the new political dispensation, don't you think that it is a grave matter?
I think so.

novisi said...

Hello,
i'm actually not saying that it's not a grave matter because i have no 'powers' to determine spiritual matters to that extent!

my only point which obviously i did not spell out explicitly is that somebody or some group of people out there are pretending that they know the world too much to determine that some believes are not Godly!!! so there is some deliberate attempt to paint 'Antoa-Nyama' as devilish which i find intriguing!!!

what i mean again is that, what is being attributed to 'Antoa-Nyama' cannot necessarily prove it bad because IN SIMILAR VAIN, some "Christians" could come praying to God with incense or candles with similar purpose to make the man dump maybe (like say may God strike his tongue in Jesus name...) ...and that wouldn't necessarily make Christianity bad!!!

so my noise is simply that i'd rather keep out of such matters!!

and as for Gyina Blay's Daily Guide... a report like this one from them is really questionable with a statement like the following and i quote:

"A parliamentary staff disclosed to DAILY GUIDE that a group of ‘mallams’ and people believed to be occult grand-masters were seen spraying a sweet-scented substance and murmuring some strange-sounding incantations in the main Chamber of the House during the late hours of Tuesday January 6, 2009."

makes me wonder...!!! grand-masters were seen by whom and how come they were allowed to go free??? SHOULDN'T THIS PARLIAMENTARY STAFFER BE MADE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS AND sacked IF FOUND TO HAVE ALLOWED THIS TO GO ON WITHOUT RAISING needed ALARM?????

and he should be sacked not because it is a juju matter (me think) but because clearly that would have been an unauthorized entry into the chambers of parliament?????

i continue to wonder...!!!