The first two lines of the song titled ‘Homeless,’ by Ladysmith Black Mambazo of ‘way down south’ reads ‘Homeless, homeless; Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake.’ Way down south is quoted because it used to be the title of a radio programme of South African music broadcast by Radio Ghana in times past.
I heard the Lion King song on that programme in those days. When I sat in an auditorium way up north in Canada watching the performance of that musical live, it was all nostalgia for ‘way down south.’
But truly, one does not have to sleep in a ‘midnight lake’ when there is North Legon, Adjiriganor, Accra (not Lagos) Apapa and other befitting abodes yet to be discovered.
Kin at Gold House next must have enough space there or somewhere else for his homeless kin at whose back he has acquired that much of homes.
Dubai, Dubai-Dubai, I learn from my daughter is such a relaxing place on earth. No one who has so much Dubai access to the extent of installing a piece of it in the motherland capital can be homeless.
My beef is not with choices at the expense of the taxpayer who has been robbed to construct personal mansions and who greedily want more taxpayer money to pay rent.
My beef is with the unconscionable spite for symbols of state. To me, it is beyond even the most unconscionable to claim what has been designated as a state symbol as an appropriation for person.
The quest for selfish satisfaction which generates needless controversy to stress their already overstressed compatriots is beyond belief.
When Osono Kufuor found the Castle presidential dwelling unbefitting, he built Jubilee House, currently ranked the 10th most beautiful presidential palace in the whole wide world. Kwame Nkrumah who built Peduase (was constructed as personal gift but gave it to the state) and Akosombo chose not to live in the Castle.
All civilian leaders, but Mills, abandoned the Castle as home. Nkrumah (Flagstaff House), Busia (personal Odorkor home), Limann
Among them, only Kufour found courage (and probably had enough time) to construct a befitting home for the motherland first citizen.
For someone who has touted Kwame Nkrumah and sought in so many ways to exploit his name to hang on to power, he should, at least for once, take a bit of Nkrumah’s selflessness and simplicity in life and living and give up permanently acquiring a state symbol.
I have always thought choosing to serve is choosing to serve and that at all times, it is motherland first and the leader self last.
My compatriots, please, please, please, please, if any of you get it tell me. We designated the Castle as residence for the first family. We designated Jubilee House as residence for the first family. Peduase Lodge and Akosombo Chalet are other official homes. We should not denigrate the only one place designated as the official residence for the second family. That is only one, just one.
It’s not about a homeless ex-head of state. It’s not about compensating a compatriot for worthy public service. It’s not about not caring
or respecting a previous first citizen and family. It’s about what provoked me to write this column. Roll back to Daily Guide, Monday, November 16, 2009, p. 20. You will read the headline: ‘Protecting Presidential Property: Who Cares?’ It was the beginning of this column.
There is too much lack of sense of history and love of motherland within the motherland polity. We need enough of that to build a motherland economy and a developed motherland. Nations that do not manage to inculcate these noble ideals in their citizens risk underdevelopment.
Let us without reservation love the motherland by protecting what is officially designated as its symbols of state. Let us unflinchingly subscribe to the 1992 Constitution, ‘Article 41(f) to protect and preserve public property and expose and combat misuse and waste of public funds and property.’ No one should dream of appropriating public property to self and family.
And seriously, no one who has subscribed to the presidential oath to ‘… preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the republic of Ghana’ must turn round to trash Article 41f. Number 3 Prestige Link, Cantonments may have been built as a Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board facility. It has since the tenure of Nneyi Ekow Nkensen Arkaa, been designated as the official residence of the number two citizen of the motherland Republic and family.
No retiring president has ever claimed and been handed a designated official residence. I understand, even for those who preach law without ethics, that is the way things must and should be. There is no reason to alter that simple practice now.