The Obviousness Of The Mushrooming Sycophancy

It is given that leaders are a breed of seasoned, mature and principled men and women who exhibit a certain measure of honour, dignity and personal pride as well as a great deal of level-headedness in all their dealings.

Let us be frank, there are certain standards we expect from those to whom leadership has been entrusted. Wimps, sycophants and praise-singers have one pathology in common: they are all good-for-nothing, incompetent, desperate, despicable and untrustworthy bunch who will go to every length to sell even their mothers for the sole purpose of keeping a turf that is not theirs in the first place. They do so because really they have no morals, no ethics and obviously no backbone and they know that there is no prospect of landing another job similar to what they fear they are about to lose.

When so-called leaders resort to unbridled sycophancy to keep their job as demonstrated recently by Mr. William Ampem Darko, the Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) [read here], and Mr. Ras Boateng, the CEO of the National Health Insurance Authority which administers the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) [see this], then we as Ghanaians must begin to ask ourselves whether these individuals are capable of rendering a competent service in their assigned positions in the first place or they are in it for their own selfish pursuit.

To order a programme live on air to be cancelled because somebody from the ruling party is not pleased with the opinions being expressed on air is simple unbelievable.

The GBC is not an extension of the NDC nor is it a mouthpiece of the government. So the Director-General should have sent Mr quashigah of the NDC, who phoned the DG demanding the programme to be taken off air, packing. Why should the interest of the whole nation be held to ransom by the partisan interests of a dictatorial regime? Where is the adherence to the independence of the national broadcasting service provided under the law.

Anybody with half a brain will tell you that no insurance scheme can be sustainable on a single premium. It will never work. Those who have studied actuarial science will laugh at you if you expressed such a view. That was the cheap, unreasonable, impractical populist campaign promise of the NDC and Mr. Ras Boateng should have known better to point out the futility of the idea. But to go to the extent of suggesting that he, Ras Boateng, is capable of instituting a scheme where every body pays a single premium for life, in my humble opinion, bothers on gross sycophancy and pronounced lunacy.

Mark my words, the NHIS will not survive under the NDC regime and then they will turn around and blame the previous government for implementing an unrealistic scheme.
As I write this post, reports are emerging of the harassment of businessmen in Kumasi who are perceived to be sympathetic to the NPP. The main perpetrator of this arbitrariness is one Samuel Sarpong, an NDC apparatchik, working in the Kumasi Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Another obvious sycophant trumpeting the herald of human right abuse and the trampling of our constitutional rights!
It appears to me that every minute a new breed of goons are being hatched! And like the biblical locusts, they are about to turn the nation upside down.
Nation wreckers, if you ask me!!

The Tragic Arbitrariness Of The Momentarily Crowned

Are the ever-increasing cases of arbitrariness in the Ghanaian society a sign of blissful incompetence on the part of the new kids on the block or are they an ominous telltale sign of the resurrection of a sadistic and barbaric dispensation? Is it a case of the leopard unable to change its spots or a rather pernicious manifestation of some deep-rooted monstrosity beginning to rear its ugly head? Whatever the case may be, Ghanaians cannot, should not and must not allow the shackles of lawlessness and duplicity to be re-imposed on them after the freedom from the brutal oppressions of the past . Whilst John Atta Mills continues to reiterate promises of decency, the rule of the law, justice and unity, hordes of NDC thugs from North to South, East to West are unleashing a campaign of savage terror on ordinary Ghanaians without even a whim of disapproval from the powers that be.
Gee, how absolute power corrupts! Now NDC thinks they are in charge so they can do as they please, brutalise who they choose to, when they choose to without any regard for due process and the constitutional rights of their targets. Such is the nauseating arbitrariness of the current regime in Ghana!
John Atta Mills promised to do things differently, alas we are witnessing a state of affairs akin to the what prevailed under a by gone era. Pal, how else would you explain the following occurrences:

• Members of the previous government being humiliated in broad-day light by being booted out of their personal vehicles and the vehicles subsequently driven to the seat of the government. Why do they have to drive the cars to the environs of the presidential offices? Doesn't Atta Mills have much more weightier national issues to deal with? Why are the cars not being driven to the police pools, for example? Where is the decency, the decorum, and due process? Another question is: why are they targeting vehicles and not immovable properties? It appears to me that the current government is manifesting a great deal of misplaced priorities. To them a car is the ultimate possession. NDC is not just in power, they are the power, so they they do as they please. What has been the response of the government? They simply said sorry, but the lawlessness continues unabated.
• The shameful interference in the recruitment drive of the Ghana armed forces. We are now being told that hundreds of young Ghanaian men and women already recruited before the election of John Atta Mills are to be sent packing because some people in the present regime are not happy with the population of certain ethnic groups amongst those recruited. They are eager to reconstitute an entirely new recruitment drive to achieve a preconceived tribal ratio which is acceptable to them. This is ethnic purging, if you ask me. What is the government response to this allegation? Silence.
• The unlawful attempt to retrench all the security details of the former government. Since when did it become a crime to be deployed as a an officer to guard government officials. What is the response of the John Atta Mills government? A shrug!
• The Offices of certain assemblies being invaded by thugs and hoodlums on the pretest that a new government is in power so the people in charge so leave immediately. Some people were beaten and robbed in the chaos that ensured. What does the government do to these thugs? Absolutely nothing.
• A number of Ghanaians being threatened to pack up and leave where they are residing by NDC thugs. Some have already been killed and others maimed. What does the government do or say? Nothing.

All the above and many others clearly point to the re-emergence of self-serving arbitrariness in the land.

If this is what Ghanaians voted for and are therefore keeping mum to this tragedy unfolding right before their eyes, then Ghanaians do not know that they do not know what they really want!

The Standard Deviation

I was brought up on staples of good universal norms, principles and discipline.
Principles and norms that have helped to keep my feet on firm ground wherever I have been. And believe me I have been to many, sometimes incredulously unfriendly, places without compromising what I believe in. I have always believed that everyone needs some guideposts to help keep them striding along with little or no mess for themselves and others.
I believe in taking responsibility for one's life.
I believe in the sacredness of work.
I believe in love, in faithfulness, in commitment.
I believe in family, in friendship, in companionship.
I believe in generosity and the extension of one's hand to help when necessary.
I believe in cutting my coat according to my size, in not living beyond my means.
That, perhaps, is why I find it extremely difficult to understand some of the twisted specimen I meet now and again along the paths of life. People who consciously decide to live like predators, reaping where they have not sown. They choose to become incorrigible pain in the ass of everybody they come into contact with.
I refuse to accept that a fully grown man who wants to be taken seriously can decide to swindle the very people who cherish him so much so that he could embark on a wanton journey of pleasure seeking.
Such a standard of deviation sucks, especially when it comes from someone who you took for a friend.
My advice to you, my former friend is this: get a life!

A New Day

I have paused enough.
Now is the time to restart this business of speaking my mind, of finding my voice.
I have analysed enough.
Here is the hour to retrace the verdict of my heart, of stringing together portions fed upon.
I have taken in enough.
Now is the moment to release the streams of sacred tastes, of singing texts never hymned.
I have seen enough.
Here is the time to restate the visions of my expectations, of fondling dreams long desired.

The Ominous Silhouette Of Another Wasted Opportunity

Without sounding hyperbolic, I believe that a smart resolution of the simmering discontent within Ghana's ruling party over the ministerial nominations is as much a challenge to John Atta Mills' government as is the diminishing capacity to unearth talented and resourceful Ghanaians capable of finding creative ways of funding the economic programme in the face of the current global lending freeze and the massive risk margins being charged by ruthless loan sharks prowling in the market.
A great deal of acumen in multi-partisanship aimed at discovering critical skills and expertise for public office, as demonstrated by Barack Obama, is one of the keys that John Atta Mills and his team could have resorted to to minimize the bumpiness on the road to our economic renaissance in this season of business unusual.
Alas, John Atta Mills has demonstrated that he is cut in the mold of the old school of cut and paste politics. He is blindly sticking to what has been done before without much success by the NDC: a stale, traditional and business-as-usual approach to national governance in spite of the dramatically changing environment we find ourselves in at the moment.

No boldness, no creativity, no freshness, no out-of-the-box attempt to go beyond the feeble lines drawn long ago in the sand by unimaginative and mediocre neanderthal politicians of our painful past.
For his total lack of imagination and visionary foresight, I clearly see an ominous silhouette of another wasted opportunity looming large in the horizon.
Ghanaians may as well prepare for a repeat wallow in the quagmire.

Sartorial Re-invention

I have decided to re-invent my wardrobe after an astonishing observation on my part, no on the part of my wife. I have realised that my favourite colour is not blue as I had earlier assumed, but yellow. A yellow shirt or tie somehow does wonders for me: I become much more relaxed, more engaging and outgoing, more resourceful, more productive. In one word the yellow colour brings out the best in me instead of the mostly white and blue shirts I am used to wearing to work.
I guess it has to do with how people react to me in the colour as supposed to how I relate to them. I don't know for sure, perhaps yellow is the colour that attracts people to me the most.
To function optimally and enhance my personal brand I will be donning something with a yellow streak in it more and more to see where it takes me.
This all begun last year when my better half commented on the fact that I was 'glowing' in the yellow shirt I wore to a Church service. Since then I have noticed how positive the responses have been form colleagues and friends whenever I don a good yellow fabric.
Having grown up in Ghana, I am used to the diverse manner we clothe ourselves, however the type of corporate culture in South Africa being formal as it is, has not really allowed me much space to incorporate my idea of sartorial excellence in the way I 'adorn' myself for work here.
There are however certain colours I will never be found dead in:
1. no red shirts for formal occasions. To me it does show a lack of a serous disposition. Nincompoopish is what I prefer to call it.
2. no pink colours. Many men are embracing this colour, but call me conservative or what you like, the colour does not do it for me, period.
3. no green socks or suits, please. It is so otherworldly on me, make me look like an alien.
4. no white suits.They are too showy for my liking! I am not an entertainer nor am I a magician.
I don't want to take myself so seriously though, so I am ready to listen to your good suggestions on what is in vogue for a dark-skinned chap like myself in this season.
My eyes are wide opened to read your personal experiences.