“Gomer Pyle Syndrome?” - Brig Gen Dan Frimpong (Rtd) writes
To say the last week of July 2023 was eventful both home and abroad might probably be an understatement.
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ECOWAS leaders issued an ultimatum to the coup leaders in Niger to reinstate former President Bazoum in seven days or be attacked by ECOWAS.
Burkina Faso and Mali countered this threat saying an attack on Niger would be seen as an attack on them. Meanwhile President Macky Sall of Senegal abolished the Opposition party PASTEF of Ousmanne Sonko.
In Ghana, the reported theft by two house-helps of one-million dollars and three-hundred-thousand Euros and millions of cedis from a minister’s house continues to generate discussion.
The Bank of Ghana attributed the loss of 60 billion cedis in 2022 to the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme. Finally, in the mid-year budget review we were told the economy has “turned the corner!”
Gomer Pyle
As young officers in the early 1970s whose home was the Arakan Officers Mess, we spent Saturday evenings watching a comedy programme we named after the lead actor “Gomer Pyle” (real name Jim Nabors)!” This was in an era where colour TV had not arrived in Ghana. Indeed, most of us did not own TVs.
The only TV was a black-and-white one at the Officers Mess, just as the only telephone was! On nights when Ghana Television showed Gomer Pyle therefore, we all assembled in the Mess in our long-sleeve-shirts and tie, with the option to wear a coat/jacket.
Gomer played the role of an innocent, naïve, funny, dull-witted/stupid Marine private soldier (in the US Marine Corps) who bore the brunt of jokes from his colleagues. His brain appeared to be differently wired from everyone else’s, and often responded and operated in the reverse gear.
For example, during a Map Reading exercise starting at the beach, they were required to take compass bearings to their next locations. After taking his bearing, Gomer turned around and started walking into the sea. Asked why that, he simply told his Platoon Sergeant, Sgt Carter, that was where his compass indicated he must go!
“Turned the corner?”
As I listened to the news on radio/TV that, we had turned the corner in our economic woes, I felt like Gomer Pyle, absolutely incredulous. My investment as an individual bondholder was due to mature in 2023. It has been rescheduled five years hence to 2028!
If the English phrase “turning the corner” remains what I was taught at school to mean “to pass the critical point and start to improve,” (Wikipedia) then unlike Gomer Pyle, hopefully my compass bearing will head towards land and not to the sea! Unfortunately, no payment has been made into my account either as principal or coupon.
While one may not operate in the realm of finance, one is guided by the writer Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote that, “What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say!” The saying “a leopard does not change its spots” also rings in my ears.
From the assurance “there will be no haircut,” we were given a “Full-Head-cut,” which in modern day parlance, has totally dislocated my “financial ecosystem.” Indeed, when former Chief Justice Madame Sophia Akuffo joined individual bondholders to picket, she was disrespectfully addressed for her action. In a counter-offensive, she taught Ghanaians the word “pin-head.”
So, are we to understand that, what is due in 2023 will be given, and not wait to 2028, as we have turned the corner?
Summary
Discussions on the ultimatum by ECOWAS to the Niger coup leaders to reinstate former President Bazoum or be attacked, seem to suggest that, the decision was taken without considering Chapter 8 of the United Nations Charter on enforcement action by regional organisations. It is particularly so when ECOWAS has been silent on developments in Senegal, and President Macky Sall’s abolition of the Opposition Party. ECOWAS leadership has been accused of double standards where the preservation of their own is their priority, and not democracy!
For us at home who have been told we have turned the corner, we look forward to the reflection in our pockets and improved purchasing power! Of particular interest is the payment to us individual bondholders, particularly pensioners, of both principal and coupons on maturity.
In an earlier article, I quoted what a senior colleague told us young officers about Truth, in the Sinai Desert in 1975 when we served with the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) 2. He stated that “if someone takes you for a fool, make him aware that, you are not as foolish as he thinks. You have only chosen to look so for the sake of peace! But it will not last forever!” He emphasized the need to be truthful at all times, as any apparent gain from lies is only temporary. The truth will ultimately come out! Any semblance of a “Gomer Pyle Syndrome” is temporary!
Democracy
The founding fathers of Democracy in Political Philosophy in 17th-18th like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Paul Sartre conceived Democracy as a truthful enterprise which would lift man from life being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” like pertains in the animal kingdom, into one of decent human existence!
At home, while no law prevents individuals from keeping money at home, the huge quantities of both foreign money and cedis in the house of top officials raises serious commonsensical questions.
Is democracy what we saw displayed all over at the end of July 2023? Gomer Pyle will certainly not understand it, and not only him!
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Leadership, LEAD! Fellow Ghanaians, WAKE UP!
The writer is a former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya and Council Chairman, Family Health University College, Accra