A Chronicler's Diary
Dynasty & Hegemony?
And why not, for after all, all talk of opposition within and outside the country are dead and the feeling of all is well is thick in the atmosphere. The field of political play is devoid of opposing teams and victory in perpetuity is not in doubt. And what a good time for the dynasty to expand and grow and develop roots. The main stem of Rawlings-Tsikata-Kwashiga- Kofi Awoonor-Klutse is already built waiting for the thousand and more revolutionaries being bred in far-away Cuba to mature before the axis of hegemony begin to assert itself.
The tug of war, and of espionage between our nation and the Americans has been played to the full and Michael. Soussoudis is home and free. He was met at the Kotoka International Airport in the early weeks of December by an organised welcoming party and whipped off to a carefully orchestrated and stage-managed press conference where his nationality (was it ever in doubt) was displayed and confirmed to the hilt.
He spoke in heavily accented Twi and was embraced by an ageing woman, said by the Peoples Daily Graphic to be 95 years old, who we are told is Soussoudis's grandmother, and was dragged from her bedside from somewhere in Accra to blink at the television cameras. "One patriot for ten renegades" was the placard which welcomed the Agbotui prodigal son back home to roost. A few days earlier, four Americans had been ordered out of the country to be followed by a swift retaliation from the Americans deporting four Ghanaian diplomats from the USA. Before then, four Ghanaians who were forcibly pronounced guilty for CIA activities in what looked like the most ridiculous trials in legal history were bundled and thrown out of the country at the Togo border and stripped of their nationalities and their birthright. Four non-Ewes exchanged for one Ewe seems a noble deed in the eyes of the perpetrators and if it's not tribal hegemony and dynasty building, what is it? Talk of Ewe hegemony and you are branded a non- realist and a non-conformist. What else is there to say?
Kofi Awoonor, poet and diplomat, member of the National Commission for Democracy is said to be the person that the government would like to hold the post of secretary for Information over and above the head of Kofi Quakyi, Cape Coast University trained teacher who has held the remnants of that position as Junior Secretary since uncle G. Adali- Mortty's ignominious sacking from there after a brief reign over a year ago. Kofi Quakyi, it's being rumoured, is a worried man indeed.
The PNDC government appears to be suffering from a fear of its shadow and the emphasis on tightening of security cordons in- side the country is phenomenal. The firing ranges have been busy especially the one on the Achimota-Nsawam road where dawn firings at human targets have become frequent in recent times
The PNDC government appears to be suffering from a fear of its shadow and the emphasis on tightening of security cor- dons inside the country is phenomenal. The firing ranges have been busy especially the one on the Achimota-Nsawam road where dawn firings at human targets have become frequent in recent times. The targets are named only in whispers and one of the targets may be a young man who may have disappeared recently.
Twenty-eight-year old Kyereme Djan, younger brother of Major (rtd) Boakye Djan of AFRC era was arrested in the latter part of October for hoarding a cache of arms, grenades and rifles at his Tema flat. The commandos more are being trained in the Winneba Plains - tortured him overnight and deposited him at the Police CID headquarters in Accra in the early hours of the morning. He was picked up again from there around midnight, hand and leg-cuffed to be sent to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI, formerly Police Special Branch) cells.
A week later, the administrative officer of the BNI called at the CID charge officer to demand to see his prisoner, Mr Kyereme Djan. "Why, he was supposed to have been transferred to your outfit over a week ago", said the duty officer after checking his records. The facts were clear there and then. Where is Mr Kyereme Djan, is he alive or dead?
This, and other cases, have not made the headlines but the received wisdom is that it has happened to thousands of individuals who, in the Argentinian style, constitute Ghana's missing thousands except that in Ghana, families will keep quiet, brood over their missing kith and kin rather than bond together to protest. The word 'protest' is fast fading out of Ghanaian vocabulary. Everyone for himself, perhaps, and God for us all.
The economy of our dear beloved coun- try has seen no spectacular improvement over the year just that more foreign loans are being piled upon the plate month after month. There is a generally enforced propaganda about that we are now self-sufficient in all food crops and in other sectors such as palm oil and shea butter and the Secretary for Agriculture appears to be riding high on a popularity crest- wave but in reality, fundamental changes required in agricultural practices have seen no change at all. Perhaps more ove seas loans have facilitated the importation of more fertilisers to meeting natural rainfall and their luck has held on stubbornly this year. What of the year after? Diversification of agriculture production has made no impact. Bananas for instance still grow wild and the export sector has stalled. Meat production has remained stagnant and withering thanks to the rinderpest disease.
In education, the universities are still paralysed and more children are quitting the classroom than ever before. Hunger at school is breaking the educational system into hopeless fragments. The hospitals, despite massive increases in hospital bills are worse than before and all in all, the ordinary worker is being squeezed to the bone as incomes fall far below the prices of goods which are overflowing the streets. The transport sector, though faces no petroleum product shortages now, the number of Tata buses imported from India and which appeared to be easing public transport problems earlier this year, are gradually dwindling from sight as the rate of breakdowns exceed the rate of rehabilitation of immobile vehicles. The Neoplan bus Assembly Company was the target of criticisms of the govern- ment-owned press recently for turning out 'dangerous products' and the Assembly line has apparently ground to a halt.
In the midst of all these, it has been reported that this year's 31st December anniversary is going to be one with a difference - the most elaborate, sophisticated and expensive, whose money? Who cares? Who indeed cares!!!!
