NDOUM'S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS????????

I have been pondering Dr. Nduom's fall out with the CPP and his rather confounding belief that he can be president of this our Republic by forming, heading and leading a movement to electoral victory in one year!!!! I have no qualms with his ambitions. But listening to him for years I am not sure what his PROGRAM IS beyond the over flocked pro-business outlook which is just talk in the face of the MASSIVE GEO-STRATEGIC,  GEO-POLITICAL AND GEO-ECONOMIC RE-CONFIGURATIONS of our times.

 From a distance I do not see his connection with the MASSES; it is at best strained and put on(I have been to Elmina and heard what some ordinary folks think of him politically!!!). The logic is that if he understood the centrality of the MASSES to our politics today he would have pushed for building the CPP into a POWER WINNING AND RETAINING ORGANIZATION. All our major parties have become essentially ELECTORAL MACHINES seeking POWER without a membership exposed conscientiously to the WHYS and WHEREFORES of the party(beyond its own sentimental, weepy, origination narratives and imported ideologies) and the NATIONAL AGENDA. This gap is therefore filled by a brutal cost-benefit calculus which powers the search for POWER and when POWER is attained is FREELY vented and lays the basis for its quick lose. The NPP between 2000-2008 was a classical example and the NDC at this juncture(and also from 1992-2000). This is the Ndoum pathology which he will come to terms with rather too late!!!!  

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

In the confounding cycles of Time and Seasons here we are again! I wish you all a restful, fun-filled and contemplative holidays! And for Ghana may the flow of time lead us to WHERE WE SEEK TO BE!!!!!

Urban Wail II: Water Spaces

Revelers at denuded beach

This piece is a sequel to the one I penned last week. I just finished the Per Ankh edition of Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragments which was originally published in 1969. For me Ayi Kwei Armah is one of contemporary Ghana’s sharpest minds; one of those rare breed of geniuses who Nature’s God deigns once in a long while to throw at us earthlings. And it is his life-long commitment to the cause of Ghana and Africa in his work unlike some other thinkers in this our Republic that I most admire. Armah NEVER traded his genius for drossy silver offered by salivating politicos in order to promote their too often nefarious game of mass exploitation. Currently ensconced in Popenguine, Senegal in a serene location by the sea Armah has almost abandoned Ghana (at least spatially) like the Russian great mind Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did Russia; though in the former case there is a voluntary twist. I recommend Solzhenitysn’s(1995; Farrar, Straus and Giroux) moving expository prose: The Russian Question at the End of the Twentieth Century.

Man and Woman cannot live by water alone!!

To return to Fragments  Armah describes in fine detail the Tema Beach Road(TBR) which represents one of the two main approaches(the other is the Kwame Nkrumah Motorway) to Ghana’s industrial heartland, Tema from downtown Accra. Why only two till this day I cannot fathom. It shows how intelligent our leaders have been thus far. Eerily the TBR has scarcely changed since Armah was inspired by it. The sea still surges forward violently yet beautifully as it wears away by the minute its land barrier (how long will the TBR last?).Armah reported then that nobody was paying mind to a looming catastrophe; same same story. In one important departure though this beach now hosts throngs of our compatriots on especially national holidays and literally bursts at the seams on such occasions. In all truth it was not meant for such a purpose. But there is a plaintive subtext which hums to my mind whenever I drive past and see all those shiny 4 wheelers, motorbikes and families and lovers. Accra is facing a severe dearth of outlets for recreation. Our city has become moribund. Our city has become a necropolis dedicated fittingly to desiccating, soul sapping, imagination clogging, routines of bauble hawking and the in-out tray. We do not have places to play. How can we THINK? One searches in vain for a place to just sit with greenery and birds and insects to just watch the world go by in slow-mo. But you cannot search in vain for those ugly concrete structures with their fake shimmer popping out here and there in this our city. CONCRETE JUNGLE.

Toying with Poseidon's Fury?????

This brings me to another beach. In Elmina. Where Azambuja berthed and changed our history in the 15^th century. After Henry the Navigator had mastered the art of navigation from our hands and changed the world. MASTERY(NOT DOMINATION) OF THE SEA.  If only we UNDERSTOOD. Now we are mining gold on the beaches. Could it be all about a collective fevered mind so bent on overnight riches (like all those raffles and churches promise) that in a hallucinatory state sees gold everywhere? And the authorities seemed to have looked on while the beach excavation flowered. Now the denuding of our lands inland has been brought to the shore front. Aquatic galamsey. Soon enough we will be digging gold on the Motorway inspired by the Elmina Gold Rush.  It is all very confusing and more so because those who lead are the most confused it seems!!!!!       

Urban Wail: Waterless places!!!

The water has been out for close to a week where I live. The taps literally pass vapidly and yet with a certain relish gales of wind when in a fit of amnesia you turn them on(just like hitting the switch when it is pitch dark and your candles, osɔno, rechargeable lamps etc are in full glow!). It is clear that the Kpong Water Works (which serves the eastern part of Accra including Ghana’s industrial heartland Tema) has made a profession of going comatose on us every few days. Of course it will after close to five decades since its installation without any major rehab or augmentation (any plans to do so lie in policymakers's cranium and decades of hoary speeches of teasing reassurances; in 2009 the Ghanaian Times newspaper reported that $273m loan http://www.newtimes.com.gh/story/803 had been contracted for major works at Kpong!). At such distressing moments one needs a catharsis. Here it is in a free verse I titled :

How many patches can Kpong take?(pix courtesy:http://www.newtimes.com.gh)

Waterless Places

So what will happen to the newborn?

Diapers soaked; her attire vomit sodden; a refreshing bath required

And what happens to Momma too?

Perspiration enveloped; bra mammary milk laden; apparel and flesh saliva pock marked because baby finds nipples everywhere and sucks!

Water is gone; Kpong is tired after too many patches; obre womu; obra ben ni?

You live in an apartment; reservoir tank on the roof has run out; you are ten in the house(clan)hold; Monday cometh; school and work beckons; no water in sight!

The loo reeks of urine and more; the kitchen sink sags with unwashed dishes; everyone has become a magician; performing magical tricks with sachets of water for all of life’s daily ablutions!

The yellow gallons are out in force; the search for water in waterless places

No wonder water is now commoditized and sold like kenkey!

So if Kpong is fixed well who will buy such water?

Where are those with power in these times (who we vote for ALWAYS!)?

Do they remember the lactating woman?

Do they spare a long thought for the newborn who just joined us?

Do they remember the sick who need cleaning and the elderly and pauper who must alas quench that thirst?

Greatest irony: when it rains water kills us in Accra!!!!!!!