Tsikata - emerging from the shadows?
By Elizabeth Ohene
"At this time when the nation is engaged in a revolutionary process, a new quality of TUC leadership is expected-one which will erase the memories of past shortcomings by a new commitment to service and social justice, and one which does not regard the unions as mere stepping stones to influence and personal gains... The government shares workers' concern on the question of taxation on overtime allowances and has directed the Secretaries of Finance and Labour to take immediate action to place the TUC's proposal before the appropriate committee..." Capt. (rtd.) Kodjo Tsikata.One is at a loss about how to react to the May Day speech made by ex- Captain Kodjo Tsikata. Amidst all the conflicting emotions aroused by the speech, the predominant one in me is sadness.
People do change, of course, and power is also supposed to do strange things to people, but one did not imagine that one would live to see the day when Capt. Tsikata would be reduced to making such a pathetic speech.
There he was, the Special Adviser to the PNDC, taking the salute at the Black Star Square (or Independence Square if you prefer the re-christened name ordered by Gen. Acheampong) at this year's May Day Parade. Which was a strange choice, I thought, how does a Special Adviser come to take the salute at the parade? What does the designation of 'Special Adviser' entail, one wonders, or could it be really that he is the official representative of the Chairman of the PNDC? One would have thought that the Head of State himself Flt-Lt. Rawlings or his deputy Mr Justice D.F. Annan would face the workers, or the Secretary for Labour, at the very least.
So, was there any significance there? Is the Special Adviser indeed the all-powerful personality in the government that he is reputed to be and is that why he was wheeled out for the event? Could it be true that the PNDC regarded the problem posed by the workers as so serious that their heaviest piece of armoury was put on display?
It should be recalled that for some time now, there have been persistent rumblings from organised labour and there had been fears that the workers were going to use the May Day cele- brations to make their anger known. The economic situation had become quite intolerable and the PNDC knew it even if they were not about to admit as much.
There was no telling, therefore, what was going to happen at the Black Star Square that day. To some observers therefore, the fact that it was Capt. Tsikata who appeared to take the salute is evidence that he is the one person in the regime that is the most fearful when he is around, the most determined agitator will recoil. In other words, the PNDC was saying "we are aware of the rumblings and the plans you have of protesting against us, if there is a brave person among you, let that person come and meet Capt. Tsikata face to face, eyeball to eyeball."
To some other observers, the emergence of Capt. Tsikata at the May Day Parade, is evidence not only of his "strongman" image, but proof that he has decided to shed his image as the "power behind the throne" and come out into the open.
It should be recalled that for some time now, there have been persistent rumblings from organised labour and there had been fears that the workers were going to use the May Day celebrations to make their anger known.
For the greater part of his life, Capt. Tsikata has been the "mystery man", the person that never shows his face, but who somehow has acquired the reputation of being the manipulator and mover of events.
Within the past 20 years, very few political upheavals have occurred in Ghana without the involvement (real or imagined) of Capt. Tsikata. In Ghanaian folklore, his exploits have become legendary. Every renegade idea in Ghana has been attributed to Capt. Tsikata and people who have never met or heard of him before testify very eloquently to the man's brilliance, wickedness and political sagacity.
He has been credited with or blamed for being the brain behind more coups than anybody else in Ghana and he has had more brushes with the security forces than most people. Some people have even sworn that he is endowed. with supernatural powers. Seeing that he is himself, by design, a man of very few words, it has been difficult to separate the truth from the embellishments and outright falsehoods, because it seems to aid the image of the elusive, faceless, renegade that he has tried to cultivate of himself.
Reading his May Day Speech therefore, one cannot help but have this sense of extreme disappointment. If you were not told that the maker of the speech was the legendary, radical, all- knowing and powerful Capt. Tsikata, one would be forgiven in thinking that this was a speech made by any junior Minister or even by President Hilla Limann during the Second Republic.
There he was telling workers about how the government have done their bit and it was up to them to work hard to make Ghana a success. There he was moaning about enemies and critics trying to instigate workers against the PNDC on points that the PNDC are willing to discuss openly with the TUC.
Suddenly, all his radical credentials appear to have deserted him and he was reduced to the same boring cliches that all the leaders of Ghana - including those that the good Captain reserves his greatest scorn for have employed.
It is quite possible that Capt. Tsikata has decided it is time he projected a new image to the public, that of the moderate and level headed "states- man". It is likely that as part of his "coming out" strategy, Capt. Tsikata wants to be sweet reason itself. Unfortunately, what has come across is somebody who sounds very much like an opportunist who preached revolu- tion and radicalism only to gain power and once having attained it adopts the same words that he had spent a lifetime condemning other people for. And to think that he couldn't even be original and had to resort to the same over-used phrases.
Not even his long discourse on the type of government he envisages for Ghana could escape from the tedium. Apart from a few chosen words, it could have been a speech made by Gen. Acheampong advocating 'UNIGOV' and blaming all Ghana's woes on the evils of "party politics and so-called Western democracy".
This new Capt. Tsikata does not have any redeeming features. It does not become somebody who has spent a lifetime supposedly fighting authority and has used every known and unknown rule to discomfit authority to begrudge other peopleYou might not have agreed with the old Tsikata and many did not, and you might not have liked him, you might even have been one of those who were ready to believe the worst scare stories about Capt. Tsikata, but you never could be ambivalent towards him.
At least one could admire him for his steadfastness of purpose; one could respect his positions even if they were not popular, one could admire this lone fighter against the system and his ideas appeared to stem from conviction and could excite the intellect on occasion. This new Capt. Tsikata does not have any redeeming features. It does not become somebody who has spent a lifetime supposedly fighting authority and has used every known and unknown ruse to discomfit authority to begrudge other people employing the same tactics to harass him.
Nor does it sound at all like the fearless and straightforward Capt. Tsikata to be casting insinuations on a public occasion. Surely he cannot be afraid of "people who banned the TUC" nor of people who "oppressed and harassed workers", he used to be known as a man of straight talk on the few occasions that he opened his mouth in public.
As for people who banned the TUC when they were in power, now trying to enlist support from the TUC, Capt. Tsikata should be the one to know all about it. Did he not use the workers to get into power and once there is he not the same person who is telling the workers that they should live on wages when a day's wages cannot buy a loaf of bread?
The old Tsikata might not have been a crowd puller, but at least he sounded honest.
