Suddenly

The greatest and perhaps longest to explain anomaly would have oc­curred if the dam’s spillage had not been politicised. My sense shelves on hold the political onslaughts behind issues which are relatively germane. Reportedly, the flow out of the excess was not yet complet­ed couple of weeks ago. That adds better reasoning to put the political games in abeyance. Informatively either refresher or conversant, the flushing out was structured into a river on Ada land. The Ada had a favourable court ruling to stop the routine. The river is a designated shrine, it was and it is contended. It is not a “Toy’’ palaver concern­ing native belief.

Questions about years since ear­ly 60s are closest to attempting to ‘open the eyes of corpse.’ There were immediate national policy faux pas post-judgment. It should be possible for fair balancing to extract the fangs of political venom by categorising the lapses as unintended officially from VRA and government reacting to call parleys to quietly settle the block­age, protracted or not, even after court. I shall have to drag in GBC III on the Ring Way after its move from GBC II near the Flagstaff House just before independence 1957. (BH I was Station ZOY near the Ridge Hospital towards Osu). And in so doing, I confess I have to pack on face mops and apologise for raking the agonies of families of former unsung col­leagues [succession at one death a month, during the period 1956/7.

In briefest, GBC had to shut down earliest that evening for the necessary mid-night pacification rituals. All the bosses were Brits. And the government of the day bore the costs ahead. Having disposed of the sad nostalgia, I can state that in a resume that there are three elements in the story: politics, a norm unfortu­nately. It is not that the dam’s construction was surrounded by home and international political foul scrummage, but a look like an admin information dispatch and failure governmental monitoring to advise pre-emptively. If that speculation is wrong, it leaves dif­ficulties for how we explain away that belated visit and subsequent Presidential remarks which have hurt in a terrain where negatives run relays which correspond with who is what at one time and the same has supreme credence, progressing intensely to acquire different dynamics.

These then reflect un-uniquely involved challenges for political points-scoring and rather omit the challenges issued by its immediate problem (s), how to sort out the spillage and human tragedies from the out-of-control excess water, not anticipate for its volume and strength for destruction as happened, according to trending politics here. For example, in them, it nourishes influences such as the interpretation of “deliber­ate’’ to decimate a political party’s vote, on the eve of election year less than nine months away. [An election year suffers six months deduction for campaigning. Any country people navigate them­selves during that vacuum]. The other two are mistakes which could have been pre-empted with dispatch.

There are two failures: policy and intervention. This spillage trumpets lounder than the biblical around Jericho for redirections leading elsewhere to assist farm­ing et al. Then the reporting hot line shall be re-activated at Government House. Beside ev­erything, there comes a time when somethings have got to change. This is what the errors and nature have potentially opened. Its poi­gnancy should encourage growing positivity, under currently enough to untie our false umbilical cord to political sycophancy and en­deavour for bon mot by posterity to replace no longer sustainable opium-drunkard’s partisanship—whether it made us rich or poor, once we can testify that we have impoverished the future.

Relative to that I heard vid­eo-lecture recently on ethics etc. The young man wide ranging and brimmed with bristled research. Great. I share his opinions as current excuses that “we have’’ undone ourselves to get to where we are today. He rejects it totally except that I thought with inference he stumped like a cricket batter he was overran. The chances are that he appar­ently left out some inner depths on prisms he used. It was either for time or that he had decided to leave any referential extension to the audience individually. It’s a done technique. However, like and unlike in the Book of Revelations the “against’’ was driving to pick up the latest national political profile—a sudden flurry of every­body speaking out. It is unchar­acteristic of us. Ghanaians don’t talk until the bubble has burst. It is a switch which is either weird or represent can’t take anymore.

Together it is a turn-around which may be shot-lived or displace the “I don’t like myself trouble’’ [me nnpe moho asem]. The rhetoric is not altogether refined—not as if the predeces­sor was or had been any better. I agree with him that the neo-liberal democracy has dismissed intel­lectualism . But I differ because given our ever-revolving never had it so good perfidy in instant political spillage, restricts any tan­gible sense of certainty about the new phenomenon. It is testable during and after the upcoming national ballot 2024 for now, And, it is nascent which at best makes a safer bet to feel that the trending outspokenness, is more probable than definitive yet. Also observably, the distinct difference is this growing no-holds-barred is surprisingly confessionary, dissoci­ating—‘et Tu Brute’, repudiatory of intimidation, spontaneous and tends to overcrowd speaking to or about authority and may suggest the bottom will drop, resonate-stated with ‘’trepidation’’, loaned.

In any case, I should add that I believe that this era is going to be written about with such ease as never before, especially with regard to connectivity in research. Let me illustrate: K.A. Gbedemah who met to persuade US Presi­dent Kennedy scored very high marks in populist rating. But Nkrumah reshuffled him from Finance. The Opposition shouted insinuations jeers. Gbedemah fled the country. Later in 1962 Gbedemah and Busia signed an accord at Geneva to co-found a political party after they had both returned home from exile ‘when the time was ripe., it was said. But Busia went solo with PP {Prog­ress Party] to rule 1969-72, trun­cated-ousted. I hope that slightly lifts only a small side of the lid demonstrably enough. Above all, let’s be careful for being both smug and gullible about a new national character replacing the old to halt the blaming each other for undoing ourselves to almost ‘ground-zero’ The hitherto politi­cal maths had been ‘’two negatives equal entitlement.’’

I had stated that the “Ako­sombo Project’’ was controver­sial. The Opposition led by Dr J.B.Danquah said it would be waste of money—we kind of didn’t need it. Prof J.C. de Graft Johnson (Jokey) wrote their case in bbolet titled “VRA’’. The Brits were lukewarm, except the influ­ence of Barbara Ward, Nkrumah’s Secretary and connections with the Kaiser family in the US, at the reign of “COMELOT’’, the John F. Kennedy’s presidency which finally chipped in only 15 per cent of full support. [“A few chips on a Dark Horse’’ the sub-head of Chap 15 in a book ‘’My African Ordeal’, written by J.P. Mahoney]. But I believe Jokey’s was not outright demurring, despite ste­reotype African opposition tag. I think behind the broad dissent he innately, was of the wait and see mind-set; then his concerns about rising costs [it and the engineer­ing about tidal overflows from Uppers and weather or climate distortions today, the cause of the flood out tragedies and human discomforts.

I have gone for this to demon­strate the ill of divisive poli­tics—”Four legs good’’ and “ two legs bad’’[ +Animal Farm+ George Orwell]. If the Opposi­tion had hammered those foresee­able and Nkrumah had dialogued, we might have relieved a gigantic spillage which we have not re­solved technically by engineering outside of our daily ‘give us this day’ our daily political filth-mon­gering running during decidedly futile decades drowning in a mere spillage like in Tennyson’s epic poem +The River.+ This close to disaster has opened a window on polarisation, raised a broader debate about its limits, give us peeps into a new chapter but to be watched as unfolds, embeds a warning on stitch in time though our access to credit is stymied and the future hangs in the balance. All of these make for an unprec­edented anomaly in our groggy history 66 years of “backward ever.’’?

The brighter answer is, it looks like “STOP-GO’’ and it should be well, once have become so agile about our prior errors and there is a collective momentum. A last but enduring thought is that there had never been a real unbridge­able differences between us. And if you ask me, I shall point to our inheritance—the cultural matrix that defines ‘who we are’. Or, in doubt, cast a mind back to how we have rallied to the support of the victims of the spillage, howev­er belatedly. Uniquely remarkable.

By Prof nana essilfie-conduah.