Monday 24 December 2012

Amoah Call for Chapter Details

I am editing a book due for publication in 2014. For those interested in contributing chapters click the link below. Submitted chapters will go through a rigorous double blind peer review. You can please contact me for any further details.
IGI Global: Call for Chapter Details

Thursday 20 December 2012

DUBAI

The inimitable Malcolm X with Alex Harley(Credit-Facebook) 
This is certainly my last blog for the year 2012. What a year it has been. In my personal, family and professional life the year has been about learning, persisting and growing. The Ananse story about the palm nut and the hole in the ground  has held so much meaning for me. Ananse the great eternal anti-hero and thinker(I thank my very senior friend Nana Nketsia V of Essikado for teaching me the deeper meaning of Kwaku Ananse and the enduring tales span centuries ago about him) was as usual caught up in a drama where the entire village was threatened by famine. He chances upon this hole with strict rules about how many palm nuts to put in the ground to allow access to a bounty of food. Ananse defies the rules in the interest of greed and loses a great chance to cure his hunger and that of his family. The story is about temperance, patience and fortitude. One cannot always force things in life. Sometimes things fall at your feet without you trying. The Orientals call it Tao, the Way( Christianity in its earliest manifestation was also called the Way...well, well, well) . In a year in which  my thirties draw to an end I learnt the ying and yang of effort and effortlessness.

Cranes hug the Dubai skyline(03.09.2005)
I will blog about the elections when the dust finally settles. As a patriot and nationalist the elections is teaching me lessons about this Republic and her people in all their viciousness, cunning , hubris, forbearance, large heartedness and calculating coldness. This story is not about the Dubai you know which oozes with opulence,luxury and all the allure of the consumer's paradise. I have to thank Malcolm X and my compatriot Ayi Kwei Armah for drawing my mind as a youth to the East. These two made me understand that the East was not far after all. And appreciation is due also to my Dad Yaw Adjei who encouraged my then playful interest in heading Eastward. I remember what he said to me then: " Lloyd go East. The pulse of the changing world lies there. Go and see that world with your eyes." Of course he had been to India before I was born. So in my Eastward journeys I have come to know Dubai. The last time I passed through was last month. I watched closely to see if this Gulf state had lost any of its shine after the last global financial bubble left most of its multi-million dollar steel and concrete heaven bound edifices empty. As I snaked through the airport I espied that large advertorial on the wall announcing the Dubai of tomorrow to all who passed through this city. I collected several of the country's free newspapers(we in Ghana do not want anything free; its corrupting!). Reading some of their papers can be tedious; it feels like trying to get your arms round a Baobab tree. Dubai has not lost its glitter yet.The all white queues waiting to buy shimmering gold was there.The glum,sated, snotty sheiks with their flowing white gowns were still there. The wafting scent of perfumes that threatened to excavate all your olfactory members were still present. The markets were alive brimming with luxuries and the gaunt, listless workers from Pakistan, Philippines and   Indonesia were still there seeking their fortune or misfortune. Dubai has become a legend. Like Timbuktu and Djeni and Gao long before the philistines laid siege in our very wretched times. And that is how my Dubai has taken the sobriquet for himself.

I met him at the car wash. I wondered why he wore shorts at all if his prime agenda was to expose all of his boxers and his butts. His mimicked Beckham's hair cut(displayed at his ill fated last world cup). He was energetic and enterprising, full of zest and life. He gave my jalopy a nice shine. We got talking. I have always been interested in all sorts. His name was Dubai. He wanted to go to Dubai and bring stuff back to Ghana to sell. He obviously had heard the tales carried by those restless Ghanaian business men and women who hustled their way across the world to their self engineered prosperity. Dubai loved the Sarkodie blaring away in my car. He was a budding rapper he intoned. He was looking for a producer. He delivered some punchlines to me. Later on Dubai intimated that he was a factory hand too on the Spintex Road on that Lebanese Enclave Stretch. The next time I saw Dubai he was selling an assortment of shoes on the pavement in Sakumono. Dude had taken a portion of the street. I have given up trying to keep this neighbourhood a residential area. Soon it will be an ugly slum with all its open spaces taken over by citizens trying to make a living in a stiflingly unresponsive environment while the MPs and party general secretaries and presidential staffers move to and fro in their "toys". And they say we are lazy; a dubious narrative that even some serious scholars believe in.   Unless policy formation touches the little man and woman its a farce routinized in winding speeches, sod cutting ceremonies and reels of texts and figures.
What next for Dubai???????????  Happy hols to Dubai and to us all!!!                   

Saturday 20 October 2012

To a Great and Rare Teacher-Mr. Aidoo


I remember like it was just yesterday when he breezed into the classroom-Class 6S, Morning Star School, Cantonments, Accra. It was the Accra of the 1980s. That young flight-lieutenant who had taken state power by force of arms was in full flight and in control of the Republic of Ghana. Those were really hard times of curfews, excruciating shortage of what was labeled rather ominously and tastelessly ‘essential commodities’ and fabrics for our school uniform(white shirts over khaki shorts). What struck me was his almost Afro-style hair and his Fu-Manchu that snaked into a fairly shaggy but tended beard. Under his lower lip was this collection of hair as well that tended to jut out on an account of his almost impulsive habit( as we came to discover) of pulling at them in anger(he tended to display when rubbed wrongly a fiery temper) or happiness. Mr Aidoo had intelligent very aware eyes and framed by his facial hirsuteness he had the air of an intellectual about him.

Mr. Aidoo taught us for a while in Class 6S and then moved on to Class 7 H(my year held that distinct record). This implied that he prepared us for the crucial Common Entrance Examinations held countrywide to determine the future of youngsters. If you did well on that exam your chances( there was no guarantee given an admission process marked by favouritism and shady backroom dealings which even we as youngsters came to know as “backdoor connection!”) of getting to an elite secondary school were high. Otherwise you made do with the supposedly second and third league schools. The brutality of this pecking order produced a psychological dead weight with its attendant strains and stresses on our young minds.  It was an intense race to the best schools the Republic had on offer and we would discuss this under those Nim trees sitting on those rocks having lunch or snacks. On hindsight I think it was all unnecessary; probably over estimated and hyped. My father Yaw Adjei is probably right: every man or woman is the architect of his or her own destiny. A great secondary school might help but it provides no guarantee and might sometimes even provide a false sense of “everything stitched up without hardwork” with devastating future consequences. I have seen too many of such very sad examples thus far.

 Mr Aidoo recognized this struggle we faced and gave his all. My mathematical skills improved vastly under his feet. He made us think methodically and in an orderly fashion as he walked us through those quantitative puzzles and math problems. He had a sharp tongue when you slipped up unnecessarily and it helped(even though some of my mates balked at it all). Those mathematical skills and tricks he taught us have stayed with me to this day as I write an ode to a true Ghanaian hero. For me this speaks to the question of basic education and the quality and access for the masses of our Republic. For upon the way our very young minds are nurtured very early depends not just the development of this our Republic but crucially her SURVIVAL. That is why I find the debates or rather shouting matches on basic education and socializing and universalizing it desiccating. This is a matter we as society MUST find answers to or forget about our place in the sun on this globe. If we do not have the money we NEED to find it; it is that simple beyond the tardy esotericism, plain disingenuousness and pettily cheap ideological points scoring that has attended it all. On this matter we should not be PARALYSED by analysis but be INSPIRED by it: crossing the river by feeling the stones.

Where would I have been without this gentleman? He had such great facility for the English language and from his vast store of vocabulary some of us feasted to the point of satiation. But more importantly he shared with us what our future was going to look like. He will teach us simple equations and then indicate that as we went forward those same equations will take on a certain sophistication reflective of a higher stage of learning. He shared with us his experiences in his Teacher Training College. He seemed particularly enamored of the motto of Adisadel College: either the best or with the best. It became the unofficial motto as we stomped away to face the final exams. His social consciousness was deep. In a Morning Star School that was itself somewhat cloistered and sniffy he will lay it down as he deemed fit. Some of our school mates were spoilt arrogant pompous brats and he will take them on without batting an eye lid. I loved him for that. I think Mr. Aidoo could have expanded his professional horizons given his formidable mind. This brings me to  opportunities for teachers especially at the basic level. This can occur only through deliberately targeted policy that is alive to this matter. Ghana needs some of her best minds at this level not only in the banks and other corporate enclaves as seems to be the case.     

In a serious country Mr. Aidoo would have his place among the stars for the generations of pupils he moulded. It was under him that a dude like Ransford Brenya was formed. Ransford went to the University of Ghana Medical School and on graduation virtually won every prize on offer. Mr. Aidoo nurtured bankers, lawyers, economists, business people, artists, teachers and other professionals who are making a difference in Ghana and the wider world. Our nation never remembers such greats as it remains beholden to shysters and punks upon whom we shower and waste our resources and veneration. Some of us refuse to go down that wretched road and so I remember you and sincerely. And I am deeply grateful for all the hours you spent teaching in rain or blazing sunshine so I too could become at the very worst a useful thinking citizen. There will be no national flag draping your coffin nor a cortege drawing your remains nor a 22 gun salute nor screaming bill boards with syrupy infantile inscriptions. But the truth is that you were infinitely greater than so many of your country men and women including so many of our past presidents. Sleep well Sir!!!!!!           

Monday 24 September 2012

Two books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Two books I just bought. Chomsky is my prototype of a public intellectual: engaging, witty, tireless....I thank my professor Dr. Martin Odei-Ajei for exposing him to us in our undergrad years!!! And I love the ringside report of the key policies that constructed China's "miracle" from one of the key architects Li Lanqing!!!!

Thursday 13 September 2012

Of Dopamine and pudendum!!!!

Naomi Wolf's latest work on the female pudenda is as provocative as it is informative and downright bold and even intellectual. I am struck by the mysteries of dopamine and its inspiration for the Nirvana induced states(albeit momentary) for the fairer sex during coitus. The Economist of 8th-14th of September, 2012 has an interesting snap take on the book on p.68 and the Guardian weighs in as well with a rather longish piece   http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/07/vagina-new-biography-naomi-wolf-review

 Ghana's women's Manifesto is back in the news and Ghanaian men and male dominated political space needs all the info germane for more sensitivity and ACTION than has been expressed  :)!!!  

One for the weekend(hopefully of less blackouts :()

Friday 27 July 2012

The Commander-in-Chief passes in Harness: Reflections on the Mills Presidency



 Ring the alarum-bell!—Blow, wind! Come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back.
                                                                                   -   Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5, Page 3

The former  Commander-in-Chief at work 
In medieval Ghana history the imagery will be one in which the Ɔhene(loosely translated as king/chief) fully clad in his very potent  batakari kese(smock) festooned surfeitly with magical powers emitting and inducing sɛbɛ(amulets) leading the charge of the Adonten(the main fighting force of the Akan military infrastructure; Aboagye,2010,p.219) in an important frontline maneuver  is mortally wounded. The Ankobeahene(head of the king’s own special guard division), Gyasehene( head of the king’s administrative division) and the Kyidomhene(head of the rearguard divison) confer in the  heat of battle in a fortified lush green forest redoubt under the blazing African sun as the Ɔhene gasps, moans and then transitions. In the defense of his kingdom, the Ɔman, the Ɔhene has died in harness; in active combat. The next most important task will be committing the distinguished remains to Asaase Yaa(Mother Earth) all the while reflecting on his stewardship and preparing the ground for his successor. Odupon atutu(the mighty tree has fallen): the wail will rise from the battlefield and reach the most cloistered recesses of the kingdom on whose behalf the Ɔhene has fallen.

The modern state is pivoted on the tips of bayonets and certainly begat it. That is why the Commander- in- Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces is received every morning at the portals of the seat of government by a police contingent bearing bayoneted guns for a rite that reinforces this reality. In the event of war the president of the Republic of Ghana will be called upon to provide the central strategic directions for ensuring that not an inch of this territory(air, land and water) is ceded. Post 1948 the launching of projectiles as the foremost mark of state policy has receded. But another war-like contention has attended the policy function of the Commander- in-Chief: development.

In the daily motions of confronting this question the Republic of Ghana lost its foremost personality in this contest President John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills on the 24th of July, 2012. The occurrence is history making in the same way that Pres. Mills became part of the presidency in Ghana’s Fourth Republic. Veep Arkaah was jettisoned by Jerry Rawlings(the first time in the Fourth Republic) as he gunned for a second term in 1996 after a very public and ignominious spat: in came Mills the genial, overly self effacing academic who had morphed into a bureaucrat and then a politician. Twelve long years later Mills was to return as president(the first time a veep had achieved this in Ghana’s constitutional history) after a nail biting election which the New Patriotic Party(NPP) had worked hard to lose.

The National Democratic Congress(NDC) 2008 campaign(which Mills led aided by Rawlings) was pitched in moral terms pivoted tactically around the genteel, taciturn, almost lily white angelic character of  then candidate Mills. For an NPP administration which seemed out of sorts(in its second term), languid and inordinately focused on who was to replace Pres. Kufuor this strategy seemed to resonate with the Ghanaian electorate. The NPP had of course not helped its cause with seventeen candidates galloping at full throttle for its presidential candidate race, the building of a presidential mansion which seemed ill-timed and an ill advised display of pomposity, grandiosity(Kufuor’s self decoration was a classic example), good living and wealth. In that event Mills' broad policy orientation as a president came to be shaped by this moralizing, “I care for you”, caring father and his children tendency. Ghana’s economic universe was to become the foremost palette upon which this tendency was to be boldly sketched. For the sake of his “children” President Mills decided to reduce the price of petrol(which was a campaign promise). This decision was however rescinded in the light undoubtedly of the turbulence and uncertainty of the global petroleum industry. This turnaround however would seem to have dented or at least raised questions about the commitment of his administration to a pro-poor, pro-people economic agenda. To his credit other pro-poor, pro-people policies were pursued by his administration especially the youth employment, school feeding (which the NPP had started), free school uniform and school infrastructure( putting up buildings aimed at making schools under trees history) programmes. In the main however and in spite of Ghana’s oil sector emerging as a key part of the economy the Mills economy was marked tellingly by a management focus. The usual targets were macroeconomic indices: inflation, debt financing, interest rates and exchange rate stability among others. One of the key corollaries of all this was that the Mills economy struggled immensely with job creation(the figures are still a matter of deep contestation) and thus has sputtered over cost of living and standard of living questions. Matters have not been helped by a cedi inching precariously towards a free fall and an overall wretched global economy. In a sense then deeper questions regarding the restructuring of Ghana’s economy (away from its primary commodity focus) have been shunted to his successors (NDC or NPP).

In other crucial policy areas such as foreign affairs, urban planning (slums are mushrooming and festering) and architecture, transportation(especially commuter transport across the Republic), sanitation, housing(the STX deal and the heaven high promises attending it and the fiasco it has turned out to be is particularly sobering),  the welfare of children, women, the physically-,mentally- challenged and senior citizens one struggles to find a Mills master stroke. Probably it is all about the limitation of the presidential system for a developing polity expressed in the tenure underlying it: how much can a president achieve in four years or at the upper limit eight years? This reality should provide lessons for future presidents in the very crucial art and science of prioritizing without which drift can set in disguised by the daily routine of policy formation which creates a false sense of being on the ball.  

One enduring feature of the Mills presidency was its very open and forceful ecclesiastical bent. This was less so in the Kufuor presidency and the Rawlings one. The former Commander-in-Chief was reportedly a friend of T.B. Joshua, a popular Nigerian evangelist. President Mills regularly presided over what has become known as National Prayer Sessions which involved key personalities of the presidency and bureaucracy. His public discourses were also profusely peppered by allusions to the Judeo-Christain God and his unrequited benevolence. This bent was even to have policy consequences (albeit one off) where the pouring of libation was banned at national events in a Republic that has historically played up its African heritage. On a very personal and philosophical level one need not fault Pres. Mills. It is not difficult to contemplate however the effect of this very sacerdotal public display on the popular consciousness: this side of heaven prayer and the invocation of God is the answer to every problem. One would have wished he acted decisively on charlatan pastors and priests and championed the need to define the parameters of the setting up and operation of churches.

There also was this schizophrenia that marked the Mills presidency and tended to have a jarring, discomfiting effect. Some of his appointees of ministerial ranking became infamous for a pattern of indecorous remarks passing off as communication for government. Historians of the Ghanaian presidency in the Fourth Republic will be cerebrally hard-pressed matching the cultivated affability and gentle persona of the president and the free rein diatribes of some of his ministers. Probably lost on watchers of the Ghanaian presidency is this: it takes a man of steel and some notable cunning to cavort with Jerry Rawlings and bubble to the top of a party that has a very macho DNA. And on Jerry Rawlings one wonders why Pres. Mills’ penchant for peace did not allow him to patch up with his former boss in what has become a very public parting of ways. Now this parting has been stretched to eternity and may yet reflect the complexities, contradictions, strengths and weakness of a seemingly simple man from Otuam in the Central Region of Ghana who became president of our Republic.                                  



Saturday 14 July 2012

7 DAYS IN THE LIFE OF THE POWERFUL IN GHANA…..KILL-OUR-COUNTRY THEORY


                             Are we all  condemned to be street thugs?
                                                                                                   -Tupac Amaru Shakur

I have not written on my blog in a while. Sometimes it all seems pointless really when the old ugly order seems to simply find a confounding nourishment that keeps it alive especially in Ghana. But the writing itch has afflicted me again inspired by the class comedy act passing of as governance in our Republic in the last few weeks of encircling judgement debt in a headless country. I try to make some sense of it all below.


Sunday: T is getting ready for church. T wears the faith on his sleeve. The faith is like a billboard and church is simply part of the insidious network he thrives on. It is a battle to choose which car to ride in to church as these contraptions “smile” at him in the compound of his palace that sits in a treeless, dusty, stinking neighbourhood. The sticker on the car he settles on finally intones: “ MY YEAR OF BREAKTHROUGH-2012.” The gaunt, sickly houseboy whose cheekbones leap at you from  1000km away has made sure the cars sparkle(like Sarkodie’s champagne bottle in his famous track where he is referred to as an eagle) in its $200,000.00 majesty. And T likes his champagne which has triggered the cocktail of gout, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. The admixture of perfumes(Klein, D&G et al) make him cough as he prances into the car as his lily white garment sweeps the floor. T is loving the gaping craters; his car is made for them. In fact he thanks his God for them. He is getting late. He turns on the siren and goes into the incoming lane as of right endangering everyone including himself: smart dude!!!! T loves the prosperity sermon through which he slept three-quarters of the time and dreamt of the deals on the morrow. In fact he was waiting for collection time to afflict nostrils with his perfume and show off his agbada and his wealth. It is a show!!!!      

Monday: T pushes towards his office at top speed. He does not see the children who are waiting for tro-tros at 5:00 am nor the decaying city in which he exercises his power and displays his wealth. His Legon and Harvard certificates hit you when you enter his office. A crowd is waiting for him. He breezes in without even saying hi to these indigent poor who have come to waste his time. The man says he has not been paid for two years. T says they are working on it. The senior citizen says his pension is not regular. T says they are working on it. Idiots he says to himself. “ Secretary!!!!! I am done. Tell the rest to come in two weeks.” I am waiting for the World Bank and European Union guys!” He turns on the TV(100 inches plasma screen cavorting on the wall like a nubile lass) and sure enough the “idiots” are pleading for what is surely their God-given right. “ Nsuo nba. Kwan no nye. Yesre aban se…….(The water flows not. The road is impassable. We beg government…..). His partners in crime flow in and out of his office. They hatch and plot. They know how the system works and work it while we SLEEP. When the foreigners come to see him his smile is so wide and the obsequiousness so palpable it irritates them. At lunch T consumes as if he is ten men rolled into one. He scrapes the platter clean and washes it all down with some choice liquor that will make the ice-water seller faint if she knew the price. He belches. For a moment T thinks it is a fart. Night beckons: it was a good day. Several thousands of Ghana’s dollars(not cedis; the cedi is worse than trash for him) will pour into his account for work done: selling his country down the choppy river. Time to get some flesh: who cares about the wedding ring. Sure enough the trade in flesh is flourishing in Accra(even in the most leafy neighbourhoods) as the society T and his barons have created implodes on itself. In a dimly lit city he rides through town with his lights at full beam: we all idiots so far as he is concerned. At a rendezvous he meets with his political party friends to plot all the lies they will spin as truths. Late at night he returns home and not before the policeman has waved him on at the barrier and stamped his feet so hard in salute he can barely stand thereafter.

Tuesday: Another day. T is all over the airwaves. Party C(not his party) is responsible for the judgement debt he bellows. All of us Ghanaians are responsible for the judgement debts. “We must plug the loopholes in the system and move forward.” T is at pains to apportion collective guilt so no one will be punished. His tone is one of mockery and entitlement. He considers his fellow compatriots morons in the arguments he makes the logic of which is so pedestrian a toddler can demolish it. But T knows he can get away with it: the talkshow host is in his pocket. He had given him a cool $5000.00 yester night. He will not ask the tough questions. It is all a game in town: the team players know themselves. It is night again: more flesh. Today a threesome will do. Some flavor is in order for such a great easy life.

Wednesday:  Mission abroad calls. Kotoka VVIP lounge. T is as always lapping it. Who cares about the toilets out there in other parts of the airport that reek? Who cares about the general apology of an airport for a Republic that was the first to attain independence? T zips through Frankfurt, Milan, London, Zurich, Paris and Amsterdam. First class. “I deserve this…I am special..”; he quips to himself. His countrymen and women deserve the rickety, death dealing tro-tros on roads fit for camels(which he rides on as well). He sees these cities but T is in fact blind. His photochromic lenses housed in Rayban frames cannot help him. He cannot see. Period!!! He espies a bookshop. “Reading my foot” he muses to himself. T gets to the confab late. He snores away half of the time. In fact the red light district is uppermost on his mind. Some Caucasian flesh will do. Amma the wife is boring nowadays. The Kataphoton company know his weakness. They ply him with drink and more drink and food and more food. The agreement signing proper  takes place early in the morning. Deliberately positioned there by his hosts. T cannot wake up and when he does he is still in stupor as he signs for the Republic of Ghana. The contract is about supplying luxury four wheel drives to districts which do not even have roads!!!! The fine details do not matter for T. His Parker pen must be used anyway and he is assured of a few of these cars.

Thursday: Regional tour beckons. Fresh from abroad T heads to the villages. The people are happy to see him. He pretends to be happy too out of necessity. His speech is in English which he delivers to a people he has ensured cannot understand. You wonder who he is speaking to. Himself and his fellow barons and their paymasters abroad of course. He braves the wretched roads with four wheel drives. The people brave the God forsaken roads with their feet and hands. He cuts the sod for yet another road project in the maw of thirty more that have taken a century to get off the ground. It is a game. T knows it. The people do not it seems.

Friday : Thank God it is Friday. Time to blow to some dough. “ Secretary tell them to come next week. Don’t they know its Friday. Next week, next week….aaaaaaaaaaaaaa……these people are pests ooooooo….”  A trip is planned for Dubai with the new catch(her dropping jeans trousers which revealed the cheeks of her butts blew T away in their first encounter). The sheik who wants a stake in the Jubilee fields will pay for this. T needs a pretext. “ Amma the president has asked me to go to Dubai for some negotiations….” Done deal in the name of Ghana. Friday and Saturday is play time for a man who is still essentially a boy entrusted with the fate of a country.
  

Monday 30 April 2012

A “Planet” in Ghana



Kwame strikes a Ben 10 mania pose!
Children dabble in flights of fantasy which tend to change with the speed of light. For my son Kwame his newest craze is outer space triggered by Ben 10  and unmistakably The Adventures of Tintin in Destination Moon. I must add that these Tintin comics are a tad too expensive in Accra but I digress. Last weekend after this industrial existence got in the way so many uncomfortable times Kwame and I got to visit Ghana and I am told West Africa’s only “planet” on earth.

Visitors at the Ghana Planetarium ready to stargaze.
To be exact this “planet” is in reality what is properly called a planetarium. At its spatial locus in Cantonments this learning centre looks like an igloo from the outside given its very oval pate and lily white hue. You understand the nature of the roof once you get inside. The innards of this planetarium are essentially wired to trigger curiosity about this our universe. Posters of the various stars and planets stare down from the walls and the dome serves as a giant screen where simulations of the pitch dark night sky dotted with planetary bodies appear and educational movies on astronomy, the space industry and all things galactic are shown. As I expected Kwame was blown away; I could imagine his mental universe stretched a quadrizillion times; his imagination animated and fired up. For days the ears of abusuafo(the clan) have known no peace from this encounter. For myself as an adult it was both a learning and reflection experience. 

Long before Allotey and  Hawkings the Dogons of Mali knew that sigi tolo (Sirius in English) is the brightest star and had appropriated their advanced astronomical knowledge for social organization. Our own fisher folk at Chorkor, Apam and elsewhere utilize their esoteric knowledge of the movement of the stars to navigate the vast watery expanses of the oceans. I have pondered this infinite expanse beyond this earth where water glides away(you simply cannot fetch water in space) and where the human body is prone to muscular and bone atrophy. Today nations are staking territorial claims in this void with Chinese taikonauts making the latest bid. In the space race is locked the eternal power question: has Africa lost out(too many if not all of the stars have European/Western names; naming power huh!) ? This is my strategic mind wondering.

Dr. Ashong and his team at the Ghana Planetarium have shown great courage and determination in pushing this project forward to allow Ghana’s children to DREAM. How I wish more funding will pour in especially from government(and hopefully corporate Ghana without their buntings,logos and other advertising frills taking over)  to make this “planet” grander and reflective of its national and West African pretensions. I dream of lush greens; oriental ponds; exquisite landscaping; rolling trees; a larger planetarium that can seat at least 2000 children(from all over Ghana) and their parents and all that will trigger meditation and inspiration on the infinite powers of the human mind and the inventiveness and courage of the human spirit.   
             

Tuesday 24 April 2012

WHILE WE DISPENSED THE FROTH…….



The week gone by will go down as one of this our Fourth Republic’s most paroxysmic, comical,  farcical and emboldening too. In a near manic outburst a legislator had in essence raised worrying questions about the ongoing biometric registration in the Odododiodio constituency which was by his lights turning into some ethnic accounting system: if you fell into the appropriate column you could register. Unwisely our legislator urged retaliation. Irked the state initially invited the legislator and then proceeded to arrest this unarmed citizen with a blatant display of force and power as crass as the raw emotion with which the initial alarm was raised. Then the grand farce began in which our institutions of state displayed so publicly and tastelessly their putrid underbelly. Just laying the charge was dramatized and involved location theatrics marked by a sudden change in the choice of court. And then with blinding speed the charges swung crudely from treason to terrorism to genocide. In one fell swoop the legislator had taken on the lives of Jerry Rawlings, Osama Bin Laden and Slobodan Milosevic. And all this for an irate command that no intelligent citizen obeyed. An accidental hero is subsequently made in the full glare of national and international publicity in the facebook age. An ashen faced state recoils leaving its defense to febrile assigns whose perverted logic will shame Lucifer himself.

While we dispensed the froth freely the students of my Leadership Class in Ashesi University presented their end of semester projects. The students trawled through communities ranging from Nima, Osu, Mamprobi, Berekuso right up to Goi in the Volta Region trying to give back to their compatriots. Their remit was to identify some challenge in these communities and respond to them in a creative, sustained and engaged way. Our students among other things taught adult literacy classes; built a website for a budding theatre group in Nima; organized a book fair; built bookshelves for the primary school in Berekuso and acquired malaria testing kit for an ante-natal clinic which did not have one and raised millions of cedis in the process. The comments from the students were heartwarming. One struck me: their projects had taught them that Ghana’s problems were theirs and that in their actions they were in reality helping themselves. And this from nineteen year olds without the power to order tanks unto the streets or hot water cannons to spew their lethality. One would have thought that these are the dire social problems that our State will train its maximum efforts on and not the exercise of free speech that had crossed bounds of decency and reasonableness. 

Truth also is that after the legislator’s comments our peoples went about their normal lives. No one was asked about his or her hometown before seeing the doctor or entering my class. In order words Ghanaians can differentiate a bark from a bite. At this point however cool heads must prevail across divides and the opportunity has been offered for some serious policy work on arresting the coarsening of our public discourse and indeed the abuse of our media space. For me that is the deeper lesson after the dust has been cleaned from the armoured car that carried the legislator.        

Tuesday 10 April 2012

POLICY/ECONOMIC HITMEN AND WOMEN

File:Confessions of An Economic Hitman Cover.jpgI have been observing the public sphere and the sometimes very confounding analysis emanating from some quarters. I have been reading John Perkins Confessions of an Economic Hitman(2005, Random House) and I think our policymakers, academics and broadcasters need to read this book.Perkins was essentially a first degree holder who was transformed(recruited into a putative think tank called MAIN) into a fake economist and econometrician providing fake figures and reports for international organizations like the World Bank and "advising" a swathe of countries in the developing world on engineering, energy and construction projects.Perkins was part of a massive racket involving fake CVs, conjured track records and the publication of dubious "academic articles" . These individuals and entities are STILL HERE!!! My chapter in this work http://www.brill.nl/african-engagements looks at some of these issues.

A few quotes:

" The fact was that I had never thought of myself as a bona fide economist.I had graduated with a bachelor of science in business administration from Boston University with emphasis on marketing. I had always been lousy in mathematics and statistics(Perkins,2005:137)."

" My status as chief economist.....could not be attributed to my capabilities in either economics or planning(Perkins,2005:137).

Friday 30 March 2012

ARMAH +ZOLA=?

         I wrote this piece in 2009(and so it expressed the local and global events of the time) which was carried in my column “Asia 601” in the Graphic Business newspaper. It came to mind after I watched the biopic The Life of Emile Zola with my Leadership Seminar class in Ashesi last Thursday. I thought I should share this for against all odds an active and engaged citizenry CAN ALWAYS make a difference.   Kindly read on......


The truth is on the march and nothing shall stop it 
                                                                                                                           -Emile Zola(1898)

Okay this heading can be deciphered by anyone with the most primitive and basic mathematical competence. Join me as we go through the clarification of the terms. But in the interim you can answer the question to test your literary capacity. I will give my own answer. And you may accept it or reject it. We are in a democracy are we not?

Armah the brave and sublime Ghanaian thinker at work!!!
I remember trying to lay hands on Ayi Kwei Armah’s unputdownable, page-turner of a classic of contemporary Ghanaian letters The Beautyful Ones are not yet Born. The title misleads I must say and indeed has nothing to do with any amorous trysts. I was misled and considering it a non- serious book did not read it in high school. Matters were not helped by commentators especially in the Ghanaian press who dropped the title when matters of romance were their concern. I finally got this book from the Dubois Centre Library where I had courted the trust and friendship of the librarian. I was hooked. In graphic, searing, detailed terms Armah lays into the post-independence Ghanaian society where the dream of independence had become a nightmare of corruption, self doubt, political patronage, nepotism and all the ills some of us have grown up to write about. Unsatisfied I went for what was then in the 1990s his latest work Osiris Rising. Here Armah had entered upon the business of proffering solutions to what he considered the recurrent crisis in Africa. This book provided further reinforcement for my decision to study in Asia if I had the opportunity. I was lucky to see him when he passed through Dubois around that time. One statement he made carried by the Daily Graphic is worth quoting: “Ghanaians have become used to celebrating than cerebrating!” Anguished by his country’s failure he has virtually abandoned her(spatially and locatively at least) and now lives by the sea in Popenguine(a village two hours from Dakar) in Senegal where he runs the independent and quite successful publishing house PER ANKH. Ghana has forgotten him too it seems. No national award for this rare genius; this fertile chronicler of our seeming stagnation. No role for him anywhere. He reminds me of Russia’s Alexander Solzhenitsyn who passed recently.

Paul CézannePaul Alexis reading to Emile Zola,   
And then there is Zola. Emile Zola. Frenchman. I watched recently a grainy, white and black film on his remarkable life. He used to live in poverty in an attic with broken windows with his friend Cezanne (one of Europe’s great artists) when he started to write. His focus like Armah after him was French society’s self destruction and pervasive injustice. The authorities derided, hounded and sought to silence him. He persisted and then found fame and fortune. He is best remembered for the Dreyfus Affair (a matter in which an army officer was wrongly jailed for treason he did not commit). His relentless campaign for which he had to flee for his life and to evade unjust imprisonment got Dreyfus released and reinstated in the army. I still remember when I stood solemnly at the French Panthéon. in Paris at the crypt he shares with one of my favourites Victor Hugo. Social justice and its pursuit. That is what Armah and Zola stand for. Armah +Zola= SOCIAL JUSTICE.

That is the issue, indeed the foremost one, for this and subsequent Ghanaian governments. This is what lies at the heart of the general public outcry against the Chinery Hesse Report. Social justice makes completely silly and incredulous the defense that because other African leaders live in palatial mansions and drive Benz 500s we also have to splash money on same (former chief of staff Kwadwo Mpiani so intimated on the FrontPage talk show hosted by the inimitable Kwaku Sakyi-Addo on Joy FM). Singapore recently issued its budget. It has been called the “Rainy Day Budget.” The Singapore government is drawing down on its savings carefully kept over the years to support her citizens against the pitiless battering of the encircling global economic recession. Families are being offered CASH! Those who are losing jobs are being retrained with GOVERNMENT DOUGH!!!!  In Taiwan the government offered everyone money to spend on Christmas and the Chinese New Year to stimulate growth.

 When the budget is read in Ghana soon I bet my last pesewa you reader will not find tro(or teku fa as the Fantis put it) in your account. All the savings we could have made have been fed into four wheeled “toys,” a presidential palace that stands empty, secret accounts in Caymen Islands and Switzerland among other senseless things!!! Who for Christ’s sake cares for us?

Compatriots as it seems nobody cares for us at least this we can say in a democracy: GIVE US SOCIAL JUSTICE OR GIVE US DEATH!!!!!   

Sunday 11 March 2012

The Ashesian Question: Education or Fabrication?


From r to l: Dr. Awuah, Mrs. Hutchful and Dr. Sarfo and myself
As a teaching assistant in 2003 at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ghana, Legon(my very beloved alma mata) I was asked by Dr. Martin Odei-Ajei( a very original thinker and mentor) to go act as a judge for a debate in his stead at Ashesi University College. The physical surroundings were obviously modest compared to say the sweeping, majestic, almost intimidating sprawl of Legon. But I noticed the very well manicured lawns, the almost poetic symmetry of the order in the classroom that served as the venue for the debate and the overall ship-shape feel of the surroundings. And I felt palpably the intensity and determination of the students to literally conquer the world: there was an obvious hunger. The opposing debate team was incinerated. I still remember it all like it was yesterday. I reflected as I left what this project was all about. And as it turned out Ashesi was then just a year old: very new and dogged beginning. I think I applied to teach there subsequently inspired by the dream. I got a response: Ashesi was not ready for me. I took it on the chin; I was not ready for Ashesi. I still have the letter in my collection of papers.

Dr. Awuah(right) making a point at the seminar
In 2005 my public service sent me back to Ashesi. I had set up with my friends Kojo Asante(now a leading light at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development aka CDD) and Cofie Tawiah Cofie a business man what we called the Renaissance Network. Anguished by Africa’s great unactualized potential we sought to do something with our limited resources. We wanted to inspire thought amongst our generation about the pressing issues of the time. The redoubtable Thabo Mbeki was then helming South Africa; his renascent Africa theme provided energizing inspiration. We decided to have our first public event in Ashesi. We thought this new university embodied institutionally the African Renaissance project. Our theme was on education. The Kufuor Administration was then attempting some fundamental restructuring of the sector; we wanted to interrogate the process. We booked an appointment with Dr.Patrick Awuah the central architect of the Ashesi Dream. It was the first time I had met him up close. He exuded this quiet brooding intensity which balanced an almost disarming informality. He offered us Ashesi’s facilities free for the two day event and participated himself on both days. I noticed he walked to and from his office to the venue; a not too challenging distance which some of our big men and women will ride in cars to cover. Certainly this dude has a certain philosophy of life. Ashesi’s students participated with verve and in gratifying numbers.

In 2009 I finally joined the faculty of Ashesi on my return from further studies offshore. Ashesi is now a decade old this year and I have participated at close quarters in the unfolding of this dream that is now flowering as it weathers challenges and chalks every hard earned triumph. One of our triumphs is the rise of our gleaming campus atop the hills of Berekuso. One of our enduring challenges is the spine dislodging road which has tested us every day in our bid to transform first our Republic, Africa and then the very world. I think that Ashesi poses a deep question to Ghana and Africa. And the question is whether our institutions of higher learning going forward simply intend to fabricate our young people like the cars coming off the assembly plants or seek to educate them. Fabrication here is construed as an inordinate focus on equipping students with skills for the job market in contradistinction to education which touches deeply the mind, hands, soul and heart. 

Ashesi’s liberal arts framework attempts to focus on a many sided education that allows our young people to see the link between Akhenaten, Cheik Anta Diop, Langston Hughes,Plato, Ayi Kwei Armah, Bill Gates,Deepak Lal, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ato Quayson, Herman Chinery-Hesse, Allotey, Carlos Slim, Frantz Fanon, Adu-Boahen, Emmanuel Acheampong, Justin Lin Yifu, Bach, Amakye Dede, Reggie Rockstone, Ephraim Amu, Nii AyiKwei Parkes, Ha-Joon Chang and Michael Porter and to take on the world with a heart and a conscience. This focus I believe is what keeps me, my jazzy colleagues and all the heroic staff at Ashesi. To be sure the greatest genius without a heart and conscience will only gift to the world evil schemes and scams; the last thing a resurgent Africa and an unsteady world needs. May the Ashesi dream live on eternally for the benefit of our Republic, our continent and humanity everywhere. Happy 10 years Ashesi!!!!!
                 

Friday 9 March 2012

INVITE- Ashesi @10Symposium

Dear All, 


Invitation to Ashesi University’s 10thAnniversary Academic Symposium

The faculty, staff and students of Ashesi are delighted to invite you to an Academic Symposium on Friday, March 16th 2012, in honor of the 10th Anniversary of Ashesi University College.

The schedule for the overall Academic Symposium is as follows:

All day:                   Poster session
09:30 – 10:30:         Arts and Sciences Lecture and Discussion
                                Theme: “Musings on two contemporary Ghanaian Questions”
11:00– 12:00:          Business Administration Lecture and Discussion
                                Theme:  “Branding Ghana”
12:30 – 13:30:         Computer Science Lecture and Discussion
Theme: “Computer Science in Everyday Life”
14:00 – 15:30:         Economics Lecture and Discussion
                                Theme: “The Oil and Gas Industry
15:30 – 17:00:         Q&A with authors of posters

We look forward to welcoming you to our campus.

Yours Sincerely,
Signed
G. Ayorkor Korsah, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Computer Science
(On behalf of the Ashesi University 10thAnniversary Committee)




Thursday 8 March 2012

FOR THOSE WHO LIVE BY THE WORD.....

Great initiative. Send in your  thoughts in full flowery flow and SPEAK some truth to POWER!!!

Saturday 25 February 2012

“Bowed heads,” ten down and……………..


George W Bush Motorway in Accra
The N1: hard as industrial diamonds!!!
They stand almost forlorn in their very shiny vestments. As if reluctant to populate their quite lonely spatial settings. To be sure there is something angelic about them if you agree with the account of biblical scholars. It is that almost bird- about- to- land posture and that topping of white on the “head” and that wing-like whatever jutting away from both sides of the “head.” And they spread out in a long tedious row one after the other. At points in the distance it is as if the horizon has become their scribbling pad as they etch out  strings of  the English letter “m.” They took a long time coming and here they are. But they seem embarrassed as they pour forth their luminescence night after night on a highway that seems to have long lost its youth.

The Accra-Tema Motorway(ATM) had been dark for eons it seems. And then I am sure some politicos after a bout of gluttonous feeding and wining decided to give us some attention. “Hehehe let us light the ATM so Ghanaians would see we are the best government they ever had.” So like the God of the Bible they decide to rain some light on the ATM. Not for us but for them. Never mind the very mortal danger that a Hades dark ATM poses to our lives and limbs. As if they cared. At best we are underfed dogs on a leash for them. Otherwise why would it take SO LONG FOR LIGHTS TO APPEAR ON THE ATM?  The claim was that the project will be completed by the end of last December. As I write I do not know whether the lighting project is over. The irony: light pouring over a highway patched in so many parts and still very much fit for the hoofs of mountain goats not tires!!!!! The bestiality of the logic is as scary as it is befuddling. And still 50pesewas is fleeced off us whenever we use that totally scarred highway. The politicos believe in their heart of hearts that this is what we deserve. I would not be surprised at all when the lights begin to go off one after the other and return us to pre-Mosaic darkness; to the way things were. And yes Accra is so very dark. So every sane driver chugs along with a full beam. It is a pristine jungle on the roads at night as every motorist tries to blind the other. The wise ones use halogen lamps: they do not take chances.  

Ayekoo!!! as H.E. Donald Teitelbaum, congratulates Prez Mills
Thanks for a good job!!!!
Not far off from the ATM (indeed they form a wretched continuum of new and very old) pedestrians are taking chances on the N1. 10 have lost their lives in less than a month since the N1 was commissioned? inaugurated? whatever. It is a bedlam of utter madness on that highway. As usual the authorities are bleating, puffing and huffing after the fact. After 10 lives of the citizens of this Republic were lost because of stupidity. How can any sane human being expect people to cross such a highway unscathed without strategically positioned crossing points?  And I must admit the N1 looks pretty hard; unrepentantly industrial or even pre-industrial. No green belts; just steel and concrete and the childish competition of party flags. And how so happy and grateful we are!!!!!! That very humongous bill-board announces the benevolence of our benefactors for this. Amen!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Sunday 19 February 2012

“MALT KƐKƐ”



Elusive ?????
I have made it a habit of buying petrol from some particular petrol stations and completely ignoring others. I noticed that the stations I have ignored probably tamper with their calibrations and cheat customers out of their hard earned money. Some robust and consistent action is required on this front beyond the occasional brim stone and fire swoops by the National Petroleum Authority folks which lose steam in 24hrs!  And this brings me to our efforts to universalize a weights and measures system especially in our markets. The olonka system is highly intuitive and has served as well for centuries but is it not time to have a verifiable, measurable   system anchored on ubiquitous scales everywhere? They say we are middle income and our taxi drivers still charge depending on necromancy and their mood swings. It is a cruel joke all this I submit very humbly which reveals too much heat and light about how we  are going about our attempts to respond to our existential challenges; we are constructing a brittle superstructure on a very fragile substructure.

So I go to this petrol station I have come to trust. I pull up and get the petrol tank flap open. Suffocating from the entrapment of this steel box quadruped I step out to get a little fresh air. The pump attendant gets to work and then his colleague pops out. The African sun is blazing above and in the heat of it all he exclaims in Twi: “How I wish I had a very chilled bottle of malt. Malt kɛkɛ( to wit just a bottle of malt).”  This was his greatest wish at the moment and it showed in the deep longing in his intelligent eyes. I could not resist it all and played Father Christmas by parting with some spare change. I pondered as I left why a working young man will yearn for something as basic as a bottle of malt and even consider it a luxury.

 I was reminded then of a conversation my dad had with an IMF/World Bank type he met at Ghana’s Ministry of Finance when pops was still in the civil service. Dude wanted to know what my dad thought of the economy then ( in the late eighties). Dad felt the cost of living was high and the standards of living low for the masses of Ghanaians. The IMF/World Bank dude disagreed pointing to the impressive macroeconomic indicators. Dad asked his interlocutor whether the fact that school kids in Ghana could not buy a bottle of coke as a matter of course with their pocket money did not tell a worrying story. Our IMF/World Bank dude subsequently kept his peace. Are the eighties being replayed all over again today in the Ghanaian economy? There exists an enduring numbers-reality divide that requires urgent bridging if economic policymaking in Ghana is not be written off as shamanic.         

Monday 13 February 2012

Fresh Air Matters: February 6th, 2012


This is a piece with piercing insight!!! It raises some of the scholarly questions I have had with our current approach to "development" in Ghana.... I like this flourish of perspicacity and wish I could meet and WORK with more people with such thinking: "I look at the way so many people are fixedly focused on ‘middle-income-status’ or ‘low-inflation figures’ or some other policy related mantra, without adjusting their gaze and scanning the risks to that goal that are quickly ‘Troxler-ed’ out of view! Even within a particular practice we can become blind within a specialist area. Take health for instance. We are so focused on the sexy diseases, we are missing out the massive micro-collision courses that will simply prevent achievement of the goal, because we are not looking at the little bits of the image we have become accustomed to and are no longer even aware of."

Fresh Air Matters: February 6th, 2012: Fresh Air Matters... with Capt. Yaw How much blindness do you suffer from? By keeping your gaze constant, even when there is a moving fiel...

Saturday 11 February 2012

WHAT’S GOING ON?????????

     
January 2012 will go down in Ghana’s political history as one heck of a boisterous and particularly sobering month. The shameful revelations in the public sphere have a peculiarly wrenching way of doling out tones of pain to the heart and copious waves of utter confusion to the cerebrum of any true patriot of this our Republic. The dry, dust dispensing, mist laden, humid harmattan days provide an eerie backdrop to this melodrama of a soap opera that we citizens have become a captive audience of. The numbing cold reality in spite of the spin, accusations, counter-accusations and clear outright fudging from all corners of the realm is this: the hard-earned, scarce, bona fide, collectively owned financial resources of the citizens of this Republic have essentially been stolen through a well oiled, orchestrated, devilish yet rather infantile scam of a scheme that touches worryingly the presidency, bureaucracy and party apparatchiks.

 It seems as if something deep in the national consciousness has died. The narratives that have gone abroad especially from those who wield influence in the Republic skirts around what is clearly mind boggling amounts of national financial resources that have simply left the Treasury so easily and tragically at the behest of the technocratic power of our key national institutions. Alas white collar crime and deliberate dereliction of duty under the umbrella of a constitutional order has become the new game in town.

The great Ghanaian philosopher-musicologist Ephraim Amu had counseled us decades ago to be wary of nhoma nimdeɛ huhu(to wit the mortal danger of knowledge derived from books which acquire a worthless airy character on account of serving nefarious ends). Amu correctly diagnosed the moral vapidity of the character of some of our compatriots that could trigger acts directed at national retrogression: nimdeɛ ntraso nkotokrane ne apɛsɛmenkomenya(to wit a vain sense of haughty superiority and crass selfishness). For Amu such traits and rightly so reflect deep invidious character deformation and undermine the love of nation (Adi yɛn bra mu dɛm ama yen Asaase hɔ do atɔmu sɛ). The fall-out ultimately for all this drama of close to 600million euros seeping from the national treasury into the capacious hands of individuals and companies is the bastardization of our national institutions whose credibility in normal times has always raised searching questions. With such credibility questions how can Ghana’s elites (in the  bureaucracy, presidency, government and the political parties) be reasonably expected to lead the onerous task of urgent national reconstruction? Democratic government hinges on dollops of trust in pursuit of the commonweal because all of us cannot be in these key institutions en masse. But the danger also is that such trust can be sorely abused under the veil and indeed imprimatur of democratic governance which sorry juncture our Republic seems to have come to. 

The grave question to ask is: how long would tax-paying, God fearing, hardworking, law abiding, nation loving citizens of this our Republic(who are in the majority) continue to accept the “no money” lie in the face of plane loads of wasted money and decrepit, pathetic, moribund, lethargic socio-economic amenities?