Features and Opinions

During July 1960 an historic gathering of African women from throughout the continent and Diaspora took place in Accra, Ghana. This West African state had been liberated from British

University of Wisconsin-trained economist Ann Seidman working alongside Reginald H. Green at the University of Ghana-Legon from 1962-66 sought to provide an academic framework for the Nkrumaist vision of African Unification and Socialism.

Socialism, Women’s Liberation and the Struggle for World Peace

Revolutionary socialists throughout the period from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th, viewed gender oppression and discrimination as integral to the class struggle against capitalism and imperialism.

The CPP and the Ghana government were committed to the realization of a United States of Africa under socialism. The party viewed the struggle for national liberation as an initial step towards continental unity and non-capitalist development.

When murder is committed, investigators and the court seek to establish motive and who stands to gain from the crime.

I did not attend the 21st Awards Night of the Ghana Journalists Association on Saturday. It was a personal protest against the invitation of Mrs. Charlotte Osei as Guest Speaker at the greatest night for media practitioners in this country.

The moment the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission was announced as the Guest of Honour, I called the Ghana Journalists Association President, Mr. Affail Money, and informed him that I would not be at the awards night on the basis that the association had sought to confer legitimacy on Mrs. Osei, whose eligibility as a fully-fledged Ghanaian is dodgy.

According to an entry in Wikipedia, the world-wide web, Mrs. Osei, (nee Kesson-Smith) was born on February 1, 1969 in Nigeria. Her mother is of Nigerian nationality, precisely, from Anambra State. The problem with this kind of information is that the 1992 Constitution emphatically states that for a person to be one of the commissioners of the Electoral Commission, that person ought to be a fully-fledged Ghanaian.  That is not the only proof of Ghanaian identity required. He or she must satisfy the nationality requirement necessary to become a Member of Parliament.

One intriguing aspect of the long lecture she delivered at the GJA Awards Night is that the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission failed to take advantage of the platform offered by the GJA to put her nationality conundrum to rest.

I was not going to listen to a lecture from someone who, to all intents and purposes, ought not to be leading the group conducting elections in my native Ghana. Mrs. Osei was fondly referred to as ‘Ama Alata’ while a student of the Faculty of Law, at the University of Ghana, Legon, I am told.

I understand that when she attended Queens University in Canada, together with a number of Ghanaians, she chose to join the National Association of Nigerian Students. It is interesting to note that at the time she joined the Nigerian student body, there was a similar association for Ghanaian students.

Mrs. Osei’s long lecture, asking Ghanaian journalists not to pander to political patronage, is interesting. But one would like to know why the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission has failed, so far, to put her nationality conundrum to rest. I am told that Mrs. Osei bored guests at the GJA Awards Night with a very long speech that could rival Kil-il-Sung at his best, when the deceased North Korean leader spoke on the imperialistic aggression of South Korea, at a time when the Great Leader presided over the political direction of North Korea.  Why she failed to enlighten us on her nationality tells everything about the confusion which is directing this nation-state.

It is beginning to look like in this election year, confusion is being deliberately manufactured to mislead the people as a political strategy. I was going through the internet yesterday, when my attention was drawn to a very interesting news item sourced to the Minister of Communications, Dr. Edward Omane-Boamah, who is fast emerging as the heir apparent who has the ear of President Mahama

With Mr. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, 2012 Campaign Manager of President John Dramani Mahama, virtually sitting aloof in this campaign, the sighs are there for all to see that the man driving Ghana’s migration to the digital age is lacing his boots to replace his immediate boss in the next elections. Of course, the next vote after December 7 is quite a while away. In this game, anything and everything can happen. For now, the medical doctor, who speaks for the Head of State, appears to be the main ally of the occupant of Government House.

It is difficult to put the assertion of the heir apparent into its proper context, given the cloud of suspicion surrounding the main occupant of Government House. The Minister of Communications is quoted as saying that his boss does not need the endorsement of former junta head Jerry John Rawlings to win the next vote. The statement is pregnant with meaning, I would like to believe.

For some of us though, it tells a lot about how the party is shaping itself up, that the founder of the party, who signed the National Democratic Congress into being with his blood, is becoming irrelevant in the scheme of things, as the sitting President goes wild on the campaign trail with statements that might be classified as devoid of statesmanship.

Does it mean that Mr. Rawlings is no more the founder of the party which is driving the presidential campaign of the Head of State? Once upon a time, there were hints from very reliable sources indicating a challenge to the assertion that Mr. Rawlings is, indeed, the Founder of the NDC.

In official documents though, the junta head, who ordered state-sponsored murder of three former heads of state and five top officials of the Ghana Armed Forces in June 1979 under a dubious house-cleaning exercise, is still listed as Founder of the NDC.

Mr. Rawlings must have his hands soiled with the blood of many innocent Ghanaians, especially when it was established by the Special Investigative Board, which tried to unravel the mystery of the abduction and murder of the judges in June 1982, found that that four of the five-man assassination squad lived at the boys’ quarters of Flt. Lt. Rawlings and Mrs. Konadu Agyeman Rawlings at their Ridge residence in Accra, at that point in time.

It is being hushed in silence, but there are those who are openly making their submissions in public, that the open confession by the man who was once worshipped as Junior Jesus that he took US$2 million bribe from Sani Abacha, the butcher of Nigeria, to fight his cause at the time the Nigerian leader was an international pariah, has dented the image of the former military strongman. That is one reason emerging why the Presidency is distancing itself from the founder of the party.

If it were so, it is a very interesting development. Apparently, bribery scandals involving the Presidency are not limited to the former junta head. On Thursday, September, 1, the Parliament of the Republic of Ghana will be recalled from recess to deal with a matter that will go down in the political history of this nation as a novelty in our democratic evolution.

The 275-member House will assemble to discuss a motion brought by the Minority, inviting the House to consider impeaching President Mahama for accepting a car gift from a Burkinabe contractor. Mr. Djibril Kanazoe, who constructed a wall around state property in Ouagadougou at an outrageous cost of US$650,000, and later presented a Ford Expedition four x four vehicle to the President of the Republic of Ghana . The news in the presentation is not only that the President accepted the gift on the blind side of Ghanaians. Following the presentation, the contractor was given two more juicy contracts – a 35 million Euro and 85 million Euro job – to contract part of the Eastern corridor road network.

It is interesting to note that since the exposé, the contractor has voluntarily given up on those two juicy contracts.

As expected, the impeachment process has already divided the House. Deputy Majority Chief Whip Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak told an Accra radio station that the impeachment process would not see the light of day, stressing that the majority side would not condone what he called the treacherous act of removing the President by the back door.

Minority leader Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, who is pushing through the impeachment procedure, is not worried by the threat by the majority side in the House to kick the motion on the Presidential bribe allegation to touch. “Mubarak can say what he likes. But, as a nation, we need to expand the frontiers of our democratic experiment.  We intend to push through the motion,” the Minority Leader told The Chronicle.

Whatever happens to the motion, Ghanaians would be waiting with bathed breaths. One thing is certain, the bribery allegation is one more dent on the image of the occupant of Government House.

I shall return!

One of the big questions from the Rio Olympics is whether it matters what flag or nationality an athlete performs under.

An experienced person is someone who knows the difference between the ideal and the real. The “ideal” is like the stars of the sky. It tells us where we want to go. The “real” is what is “on the ground”. It tells us where we really are. Theoretical knowledge will tell you the ideal but experience will tell you what is real.

We have been struggling with the situation where we see our Presidents as being too powerful and domineering but we seem not to know what to do to contain them when they decide to use the powers conferred on them by the Constitution.

The poor 2016 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results are mere embers of the larger problems associated with the traditional academic type of education.

Surely he couldn’t fluff his lines again, could he? Diego Forlán’s career at Manchester United was on the verge of frittering out as he stepped up to take a penalty against Maccabi Haifa in September 2002. He simply could not afford to add another miss to his already substantial collection.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) prides itself as the party from which persons from varied ethnic influence could rise to become presidential candidate. In making the claim party functionaries point out that rival New Patriotic Party (NPP) is myopic in that regard given that a non-Akan or should I say a non Ashanti or Akyem might never be given the chance to lead the party.

This country and its leadership do not cease to amaze!  On Sunday, in the midst of platform rhetoric of a one-touch victory for Mr. John Dramani Mahana and his National Democratic Congress at the campaign launch in Cape Coast, I was intrigued by the admission by Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, founder of the party, that he was prevailed upon to avoid a boom speech in the Central Regional capital.

Polytechnic education in Ghana has evolved since the establishment of the ten (10) Polytechnics. The

Polytechnics were established to provide middle level management personnel to support the economic

development of the country. The Polytechnics have performed creditably over the years and have

produced qualified graduates who are working in various sectors of the economy.

Results for the 2016 WASSCE candidates have been released by WAEC and the record is awfully poor. This has sparked yet another controversy about senior high school duration with some highly placed academics like Professor Kwesi Yankah wading in. His is not surprising as it has been his position that the 4-years calendar is better than the current 3-years, since the beginning of this debate.

About a week or some few days ago, South Africa held its once in every 5 years municipal elections, and the results left the ruling African National Congress (A.N.C.) party badly bruised in electoral losses. The unexpected local elections losses the A.N.C. sustained, sent a wake-up call to the party of the anti-Apartheid legend Nelson Mandela that many South Africans, especially the blacks, are fast getting tired of voting on racial or tribal lines as opposed to using their brains to vote on their pocketbooks or on economic considerations. For the first time since the post-apartheid era about twenty-two years ago, the governing A.N.C. has witnessed its worst electoral performance in any category ever.

Not too long ago, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broadcasted a documentary on poverty in Africa. The news carried in this documentary highlighted the progress some African countries, including Ghana, have made in the fight against poverty.

The bible says we are created in the image of God and we are God's wonderful handiwork. As a child of God, you are also a man or woman of God.

Preamble

This is the season of Hajj. It comes up in the month of Dhul Hijjah every year. Hajj means aspiration towards a higher pedestal in spirituality. It is, divinely, a pillar of Islam made obligatory by Allah for Muslims who can afford it once in a lifetime. Hajj is an ordained pilgrimage and not a mere tourism. Thus, the visa issued to Muslims who perform Hajj annually is that of pilgrimage and not one of tourism. Whilst pilgrimage is a spiritual exercise, tourism is a pleasurable journey.

August 4th passed quietly a few days ago for most Ghanaians.That is a shame. Besides independence, it should be the most celebrated day in our history.

When a father promises to do something for a child, the child relies hugely on that promise and expects that the adult will deliver on the promise made to him or her. When the time frame for that promise approaches, the child’s expectation will be that the father will fulfil his promise and as such, the child goes to his or her father in anticipation of the fulfilment of that promise.

As a young professional and aspiring academic, I have been following Prof. Stephen Adei for years now, often taking inspiration from his exploits at GIMPA. Indeed, I was unhappy when people questioned his credentials as a professor some time ago. However, the good Professor has been disappointing me in recent times.

The dust is slowly settling on the now infamous Montie three and arising matters. The emotions are on a downhill trip and with it thankfully, the accompanying noise.

It has been ten years since mother earth received the body of Mr. Justice Daniel Francis Annan, the first Speaker of Parliament under the Fourth Republican experiment of the Republic of Ghana. A decade is long enough for the memory of most departed people to fade. But the gentle disposition of the man, as he controlled the House, and the firmness with which he dispensed justice at a time when the Appeals Court was the highest court of jurisdiction in this country, still stands the deceased out as one of this country’s most influential personalities.

Dr. Kwadwo Safo is, according to his own legend, many things. He is a Pentecostal pastor. He is an inventor. Now he claims to be Ghana’s first carmaker as well. Over the past year, his Kantanka Automobile Company has made international news with its vehicles, mature industrial products emerging fully realized from a not-particularly industrial nation. As recently as last week, CNN was telling the story of its “‘made in Ghana’ cars... modeled for tough local conditions.”

Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Vancouver are all cities in Europe but that is not all they have in common. These cities are all rated amongst the top ten greenest cities in the world. This accolade was not easily acquired, neither was it acquired by having perfect plans which existed only on paper. At a point, these cities made decisions by putting measures in place to make them greener, healthier and more beautiful.

Recorded in 1999 and featuring the ferocious Lord Kenya, Daasebre Gyamena’s Kokooko is unanimously deemed a standard in modern highlife, a true classic. It is perhaps his most important contribution to the genre till his death Friday July 29.

When the news was relayed via newspaper review on television yesterday that a group of chiefs from the Ga Traditional Council had backed calls on President John Dramani Mahama to invoke Article 72 of the 1992 Constitution and grant pardon to the Montie 3, I was shocked.

The petition by members and supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), asking President Mahama to free the so-called Montie That is a most unfortunate development. Surely, they have not forgotten the role that radio stations played, in creating the madness and hatred that led to the genocide in Rwanda?

I have in the past resisted writing to respond to issues in the media due to time constraints.