Ghana Political Chaos – A Hilarious Look at Our Nation’s Endless Drama
The chaos never stops; it only takes short breaks. Our country has become a circus, full of laughable characters and events. Anyone suffering from depression or hypertension is either seeking attention from family and friends or not paying enough attention to the tales of my motherland. A glance at a newspaper, a tune into a radio station, or a look at the TV will relieve you of stress—unless you take everything too seriously.
Think back to the events leading to the 2012 General Elections—the one Atta the mortuary man feared so much he “gave up the ghost” to join the Big Six. The list of contestants alone could make you laugh harder than watching Chorkor Trotro or Bukom Banku interviewing Langabel. Globally, presidential candidates sometimes include musicians, actors, footballers, and military men. But in 2012, Ghana’s political scene was so full of comedians that Osagyefo probably turned in his grave 36 times a day. Imagine Late Akua Donkor, Hassan Ayariga, or Odike as president. Anka Ghana bɛyɛ dɛ rough.
As I write this piece, I’m imagining Her Excellency Akua Donkor delivering a speech at the UN General Assembly. Since Her Excellency will be speaking in her native dialect, all the heads of state will have their headphones on and will be laughing their hearts out. KSM will be jealous that he now has a new rival since he has been claiming all these years that he is the King of whatever he says he does. The country will become a huge comedy hub with the Chinese-built hen coop as its headquarters. I just thank God she didn’t make it onto the ballot paper.
As if that wasn’t enough, they took the comedy into the Supreme Court for the shooting of a new season. We spent six months of taxpayers’ time and resources encouraging Philip, Tsatsu, Tony, and Atubiga (guba) to shoot a new sitcom titled “You and I Were Not There.” Why would you give evidence when you know very well that you and I were not there? Maybe Lawyer Amicus Curiae Amekudzi can give us an answer. Most Ghanaians didn’t like the movie because of the usual excuse—we don’t like made-in-Ghana goods.
The movie was shot in Ghana with an entirely Ghanaian cast, so we decided to invite the South Americans to do a Ghana–Brazil movie. We flew $3,000,000.00 (people say it was more than that) in physical cash from Ghana to Brazil. The whole world watched as the police escorted the vehicle carrying the cash from the Brazilian airport to the team hotel. I must admit that it was a wonderful sight to behold. Ghanaians were angry but waited for John Boye to score an own goal after kissing his cool $100,000.00, and we started blaming Sule Muntari for slapping Mospaker as the cause of our earlier-than-expected exit. The Black Stars came back home, and Baby Jet took Castro to Ada and never returned with him. Then Ghanaians went mad again. They started blaming Jordan Ayew for not passing the ball to Asamoah Gyan as the cause of Castro’s disappearance. The argument was that Baby Jet wouldn’t have gone to Ada if we had prolonged our stay in Brazil.
As is the custom, a tea-drinking committee was formed to investigate why supporters were airlifted to Brazil by the government to watch the match on TV. Has GTV gone bankrupt? The committee, after months of wasting our time, recommended that they would be selfish to drink the tea alone, so another committee (tea-drinking, of course) should be set up to determine whether to prosecute the crying minister using the coefficient formula. Don’t be surprised—we are in Ghana.
So we were all crying because of the lack of goods to export until we discovered a new word right here in Ghana. As we were crying, we exported “dumsor” into Wikipedia. It has now become official, and it looks like dumsor has come to stay. We thought the president was listening to our cries, only for his doctors to declare that he was suffering from the “dead goat syndrome.” Yehowa! The president himself came out to say he was a dead goat. Isn’t it crazy?
June 3rd, like Friday the 13th in the USA, is a day most Ghanaians would wish to forget very quickly. My condolences to the families of the deceased, and I also wish all the injured persons speedy recoveries. Those who have lost properties and goods, don’t worry—Nyame wↃhↃ. The tragedy itself was one of a kind, as many lives were lost, and as usual, we went mad again.
Oko Rick Ross, the champion mayor, started pulling down buildings and destroying communities he believed caused the flooding. The government blamed the people for accepting building permits from its agencies when they knew they were building on waterways. The technocrats believed it was caused by the filth that won Oko his Best Mayor Award. The Ga chiefs disagreed with all of them. According to the root-cause analysis they carried out, the Ga gods were angry due to excessive noise-making in the city during their siesta.
The gods said that Yvonne Nelson and her Dumsor 11 squad organized a vigil aimed at forcing ECG to provide uninterrupted power supply during the Homowo festivities. They also argued that the fight between Bukom Banku and Ayitey Powers took place during their quiet time. They, however, advised the public to blame the people who organized these events for the deaths, not them. Their spokesperson quoted the title of Ola Rotimi’s famous play, “The Gods Are Not to Blame.”
The other day, a madman went to church with a gun intending to assassinate the dead goat. Hehehehe, he wanted to make sure the goat was really dead. How a madman procured a gun, how he knew where the goat went to church, or how he decided he didn’t need a defense attorney during trial—only the mad nurses will know. But they can’t tell us because they are on a sit-down strike.
Did anyone notice that it only took 48 hours for the man to be sentenced to 10 years in prison? Countless people have cases pending in court and are waiting in jail while praying that either Manasseh, Anas, or one of the Joy FM documentaries will prompt the Chief Justice to embark on another “Justice for All” project.
In order to show us that he is still around, the crying minister has spoken. He says JM should be inducted into the Hall of Fame of the greatest presidents in the world because he survived an assassination attempt. I will communicate that to Yahyah Jammeh. But assuming Charles Antwi had succeeded in his quest, His Excellency Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur would have assumed office as president, with Mrs. Matilda Amissah-Arthur as the First Lady.
Anyone who doesn’t believe in God should rethink—because if this had happened, among other things that would have gone wrong, teachers would be using charcoal to write on blackboards. Only the usual intentional apor WAEC “leaks” would save our pupils from failing the BECE.
Talking about strikes—everyone is striking something. Nurses, junior and senior doctors, pharmacists, state attorneys—the list goes on. The government says the strikes are illegal and that the doctors especially are making absurd demands. But unlike the US, we negotiate with terrorists. The government negotiators wear $10k suits, $5k shoes, Rolex watches, drive black SUVs, and go to tell hungry workers who haven’t been paid for 13 months that there is no money.
As you read this, education workers have threatened to embark on a strike of their own. If that isn’t madness, then I have no idea what the definition of madness is.