Afi oh, afi. The battle cry for the beginning of another year resonated through the Ga State as the new year started in Ga Mashie and the people of Accra celebrated the “hooting of hunger” and prayed the Gods that the poverty and hunger that drove them from the hill to the now present location will never be repeated ever in the history of Ga.
This year Kpakpo was not at the family gathering and I particularly missed the interpretation of the festival and the meaning of cultural symbols and the deep translation of Ga words that his specialty brings to the table.
The celebration seemed somewhat mute this year, low Club beer intake, missing Guinness bottles, replaced by Club Shandy and even the young lads didn’t seem impressed with the raised skirts of the young ladies, still strutting around, waiting patiently till the night curtains unfolded that they might add to the already teeming population of little “pikinns” running all over the place with precious spoons in hand, poaching the remains of the kpoikpoi and rich palm soup.
I wonder whether the subdued celebration had anything to do with the NDC government not trying yet again to interfere with the elected chief of Ga. You know every year there is some noise regarding the appointment of the Ga King, an attempt by political groupies to influence the traditional leadership in order to find a cushion of votes in the impending election when it gets here.
This year we have a difference. Ga State has finally resolved most disputes and we didn’t hear the threats to destool any chief or sub-chief. I think this annual drama, kind of affected the awareness that we are in the Homowo festival and many probably did not attend. But it could also be because we are all more sick from diabetes and hypertension and the normal beer excesses and high-cholesterol foods are no longer an option for the older generation.
Or could it be that we have finally caught up with the fact that, when the chief comes around and offers the traditional kpoikpoi with his fingers, transferring one dose of saliva from one community to the other, we now see the danger of a simultaneous transfer of some communicable disease to each other?
As a kid, I used to resist this finger-fed disease propagation, but maybe it was intended to fuse us together as Ga people. I could be responsible for most of the turmoil in the Ga hierarchy. Am I that important? There may be many more of me half-Gas.
But we do the usual and place a community bowl on the floor of the compound and together gather around the bowl of soup and sour dough, men only, as this is the time when the women of the house who have toiled all year looking after the children on behalf of run-away fathers, still reassure their husbands and household heads that they are still king of the folds of fat that they carry, out of some distorted sense of physical beauty brought about through child birth and lots of domedo.
My role in this annual ritual has now found a rhythm as I attend the party every year, to drink my ration of alcoholic froth and reassure cousins and aunties that I will endeavour to see more of them in the coming months.
And such is the festival reduced, no special program to commemorate the growth of the Ga State, which again did not happen this year, so Shatta Wale becomes the star attraction at Bukom Square and the tourism minister, too busy signing a petition to free a confessed criminal, does not see the eroding of our cultural values as her responsibility.
Instead, she, together with other ministers busy themselves, undermining their boss, going behind his back and pursuing citizen power to instruct him to sign the petition to free the “Montie 3”.
This point was made by Nana Ofori, Director of Operations and parliamentary candidate for the Effutu constituency, on “The Big Issue”, Citifm’s Saturday morning discussion program. And it makes a lot of sense. He advised JDM to look carefully through the list of signatures on the bankrupt idea of a petition to pardon self-confessed criminals, and sack every one of them who is his appointed staff.
Logic? Do you go behind your boss and issue a statement for him to do something which you have not before brought to his attention? And do you do this on his blind side in the media to embarrass him? My call was for the resignation of all these ministers. On hindsight I agree with Nana Ofori. They deserve to be sacked for betraying their boss.
But enough said about this mess. So far JDM has not reacted either way and that tells you he is sitting on his usual hedgerow fence, no intention of doing, no desire not to do. Better he allows it to pass so he can later come and lie about the event and what he did not say.
And the last man standing in all this is the “Blessed Oti John”. After sitting on the same panel as the Montie 3 and spewing just as much vitriol as they did, he somehow was overlooked by the Supreme Justices and wriggled away to go and solicit an even loftier place in Parliament, to be elevated into ministership.
And this is what is wrong with the system. The complete dearth of ethical standards has catapulted our civil liberties into a state where anyone with a piece of paper thinks they have a right to enter Parliament and do as they please, say as they want, under the guise of Parliamentary privilege and be called “honorable”.
We need to examine why anybody, knowing what was said by these three and “The Blessed One” would go ahead and still recommend him/her for deputy minister. The only logical reason I can think of is that they know with a certain measure of certainty that they will be passed by the vetting committee and will show their gratitude along the line to the “cabal”.
This cabal of Parliamentarians who have concluded that it is better for their future if they support each other, because one day they also will be on the other side of the opposition fence and any sensible attempt to correct the wrongs they did will be swiped aside, hopefully because their new office doors will be marked “untouchable”, authenticated by the symbol either of an elephant or an umbrella.
So John Oti Bless has been tucked aside for now, confidently assured that he will be made a minister. He has been advised by the sages of Parliament on what to say and do in order that he survives the turbulent waters; and the visit by his Christ, who he forgot when he was slandering important persons in our courts, now came to him in the form of a “Bagbin” and other wise elders, who no doubt told him that as for Ghanaians, just mention the Lord Jesus Christ in your statement and ask for forgiveness and all shall be as ordained.
He is lucky to be out in public, a symbol of our failed system, allowed to say what he thinks and now wishes to say it from the comfort of a ministerial seat. God Bless the “Blessed” Oti Bless.
Ghana, Aha a yε din papa. Alius atrox week advenio. Another terrible week to come!