Adieu, 2014 and its hangovers
For Ghana, 2014 started with a severe hangover from a muddled up general election in 2012. Compared to 2009, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the ruling party, entered 2013 with a clear mandate declared at the polls.
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Nonetheless, that outcome was unacceptable to the New Patriotic Party (NPP), a situation that caused the nation to hurtle towards the type of mayhem that would have rendered her ungovernable. But the Ghanaian’s innate love for peace directed the actors to seek the face of justice at the Supreme Court where things are not done in a hurry. Thus, the case dragged on for eight months, a situation that rendered the nation comatose.
One day before judgement, Mr Frazier, summoning enough spring in his ageing heels, trudged up the steep flight of steps to the Speaker’s Wing of Parliament House. As he stood before the long-dormant clock with both hands locked at 12, the fate of Ghana was brought more poignantly to his mind. This was a nation locked in dispute with its half.
The significance of this clock was complemented by the vacant look on the face of everyone he met in that enclave of power.
Since the judgement, the nation has remained punch-drunk from one blow of bad news to another: polarised discourse, a free-falling cedi, cocaine smuggling, leviathan (another word for gargantuan) National Service ghost name and GYEEDA scams; ear-pulling by EU by withholding budgetary support; series of wild-cat industrial strikes and low productivity; a disgraceful performance of the Black Stars at the World Cup; free-falling commodity prices including crude oil.
Worse, the nation has been subjected to stiflingly dehumanising darkness and heat called ‘dumsor’.
Ghanaians must enter 2015 with clean breath. They need to be in bracing health to face a year that requires a terrific finishing spurt for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, most of whose targets are nowhere in sight.
Who cares if this clock moves or not, Mr President? In other words, how does one clear one’s head of hangover after conspicuous consumption of alcohol on New Year Day and ensure that work goes on? Suggested cures for hangovers are many and some are really weird.
Of all the funny remedies known to humankind for headache and nausea after a good night’s piss-up, the one called “the hair of the dog,” is the most laughable. It is borrowed from some alien cultures. Expressed in Latin as similiasimilibuscurantur (like cures like), it says that hangover victims cure themselves by ingesting more alcohol. They call it One More for the Road.
But native common sense says one should avoid what has caused the hangover. As is well known, remedies that go against common sense only aggravate a condition. Here is a great lesson for addressing Ghana’s economic woes.
A sick person has to seek an effective cure. Lying on a mat under the shed, trying to coax some more sleep is no cure; it is a mark of indolence.
In Mr Frazier’s village, a hangover is cured by thrusting the tall middle fingers deeply into the throat to bring out the devil. This is followed by a liberal bowl of okro soup done in ‘dzomi’. Interestingly, some snobs who claim to be more enlightened would not take okro. They prefer the Bloody Mary, a very expensive cocktail of imported tomato puree in a glass of ice cubes, spices and celery. This is one of the brands sold to us from the super markets. It cures nothing but they have to pretend it is the remedy for every diseased condition.
Everyone, from the Professor of Economics to anyone who runs the China and the Korean shuttle, is quick to point out a bogey term, the “structure of the economy”, as the cause of the nation’s woes including a sick cedi.
At this point in history, the glitzy shopping malls where everything on the shelves including toothpick, apple and pork are airfreighted from overseas are not the investment sorely needed. Farms and factories are required, not the tempting houses of foreign tastes for consumerism.
It is the wish of Mr Frazier that Mr President assembles a cadre of crack task masters to drive the policies of economic structural change. Their actions will certainly cause some pain and inconvenience to Mr President’s mentors, peers and protégées. But does one prepare an omelet without breaking eggs? Mr President must be quick to discard dead wood and square pegs. They are only extra baggage for the Presidency. Mr President should remember that Similiasimilibuscurantur is no cure.
In spite of everything, the Lord has been good to this errant nation. If Ghana has been spared the scourge of the ebola plague, it is not because the citizens are such wonderful practitioners of environmental hygiene. Can one imagine ebola mixed with perennial cholera outbursts!
The year 2015 is one of grim determination to avoid all the hangovers of the previous years.
(Author: Blame not the Darkness; Akora)