A Chronicler's Diary
Since the end of April, 1985
The weather station at Accra airport has once in May recorded nearly 1.140mm of rainfall in a single day, the heaviest downpour in recent times, and rainfall has continued in increasing intensity to the stage that hitherto arid zones of the north and Upper regions are experiencing an avalanche of dis- appearing bridges as streams and rivers swell by the hour. The Sahelian drought is being attacked on all fronts.
Still rain or sun, life must go on and the game of politics must continue for those who hold the right cards.
Captain Kojo Tsikata emerged from his self-imposed hibernation into the glaring limelight to stand in for his protege at the May Day Workers parade in Accra where he castigated the leaders of the trade unions for allowing themselves to be manipulated by politicians of previous regimes. He censured them with total contempt for daring to call for more pay, more benefits and better working conditions adding that: "We cannot eat the cake until it is baked."
On the political front, he had nothing to say except to repeat the worn-out vague cliché: "The National Commission for Democracy was not instituted in order to preside over a return to old systems but it will not cure their essential defects which cannot provide a means of participation by the people."
Of course the professional information managers refused to allow reporters near the workers and some of their leaders who were fighting over the distribution of May Day T-shirts and caps and those groups of workers who dared to attempt to display anti-government placards: "Why the excessive overtime tax?"; "No more belt tightening"; Consult us - it's advantageous" etc. etc.
But there he was, his self-made Majesty standing to attention acknowledging the salute of marching men and women, ultimate proof of an unfettered authority. Jerry Rawlings was far away in the manganese-mining village of Nsuta, apparently fed up with the pressures of Castle-life and too much bureaucracy in Accra.
Around this time, news was floating around of a new line of credit from the World Bank of $250 million and the possibility that another round of 'financial adjustment" of the cedi was imminent. Actually Ghanaians have become so used to devaluations and the flood of foreign loans that such news and rumours carry no surprise any- more. Said one irate civil servant: "How is the future generation going to re-pay all these loans they are chopping today?"
What took the nation by storm and a quiet resignation was the sudden explosion of bank frauds and embezzlement of huge sums of money from the financial institutions. Before the public could digest this fresh wave of national news, specially convened tribunals quickly dispatched the cases and passed their sentences with alarming rapidity. Bank officials were turning hysterical and frantic and many, including innocent ones, started fleeing the country.
The press were deliberately getting the public to sympathise with the government and angry towards the so- called "bank frauders". For some spate of two weeks in May, banking ground to a halt. Then the executions followed in quick succession before public anger evaporated and up to seventeen were shot dead at dawn firing squad sessions.
The beginning of June was time for fun and political gimmicks. June 4, the anniversary of the 1979 uprising, was celebrated amidst much pomp, fanfare and pageantry. Of course, June 4 is a day that stands as a historical memoir of an individual and the sectional interests of his followers.
On this day, that has little bearing on national prerogatives, the whole nation stopped work and the government leaders and workers rushed into public parks and stadiums to crack jokes and play games. "All work and no play will About this time, news was floating make Jerry a dull boy and Joyce a dummy damsel,' the two-page newspapers displayed with fervour. "The fun and games will widen the smile that has gradually returned to the face of Ghana," said another newspaper. It is so pathetic that even the media should support and applaud these galleries of tom-foolery exhibited on such a gigantic scale... but that is the way things are going on down here, if you ask me.
The early weeks of June were taken up by the immortalisation of our dear departed, i.e. the surge of interest of those who died and fought for Africa's emancipation. To coincide with African Liberation Day (May 25), an elaborate symposium on the "Life and Works of Kwame Nkrumah" opened at Legon on May 27 and brought together the cream of Ghana's political and academic world.
The symposium was followed two weeks later by a national dedication of Nkrumah's political ally, Dr W.E.B. du Bois, the West Indian naturalised Ghanaian champion of Pan- Africanism, writer and poet, who died 22 years ago. PNDC Chairman, Jerry Rawlings, on June 22 commemorated the house in which Du Bois lived in Accra as a new centre for public literary and cultural activities and as the head offices of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW) and a site for a future Du Bois library. At the ceremony, the President of GAW, Atukwei Okai, was quoted as saying: "The GAW has now got both a geo- graphical point of reference and a spiritual point of departure." What- ever that means, the celebrated poet of "Logoligi Logarithms" fame was at his most poetic best.
And so half the year 1985 has passed on and the nation and her peoples still line on, plodding undeterred into the unknown future before us. The refugees keep coming, the war of words between Ghana and Nigeria over the expulsion and wanton killing of Ghanaians is abating and the rains keep pouring in. Somewhere the banner of women's liberation is fluttering high and ... oh, lest I forget, the PNDC has passed irreversibly four new laws on marriages, succession and inheritance and the welfare of women. A mammoth delegation of women - the intellectual spectacle-wearing types - rooped to the Castle to thank Jerry for giving them those laws. It was J.J.'s gift, they said. But I just don't understand how the law came to be formulated. And to think that 14 million people should succumb to the imposition of laws that affect family life, without a chance to even debate the terms of that law beats my imagination. I shall pause for details and communicate in this column in the future.
