On Sunday evening, October 30, 2017, as of 7:36pm, I was roaming with a friend, Maxwell-Obiri Yeboah, and a room agent somewhere in the Greater Accra region in search of a room to rent.
When I called this agent, I told him what exactly I was looking for. I needed a single room self-contained at a neat, flood-free environment. Cunning as he was, he took us to a place exactly opposite my expectations.
“This is the landlord and this is the room,” he said.
All along, I thought he was only fetching something from the house he took us to… as he had said to us he was meeting a friend there. Noticing that was where he had supposedly searched for us, I told him right away without mincing words that that was not what I asked for. I don’t like the place!
Immediately, I had a notification on WhatsApp. It was my friend, Maxwell. It read: “Solo, you’re too plain oo. I can’t say that to him [the agent] directly.”
I told him I was not an angel but I disliked others who were clothed in pretense. Here was an agent who had told me of a room of my choice at Trade Fair only to attempt swindling me. He, at all cost, wanted to ‘chop’ my GHC50 as an agent fee. Was I not right to have told him the hard truth? Truth remains but one.
This is the reason I find it surprising and ridiculous in the midst of a pool of Facebook posts and radio and television commentaries by some people calling for Ghana’s Commissioner to South Africa, George Ayisi Boateng, to be sacked.
His crime? He had met a group of the New Patriotic Party’s student wing, the Tertiary Students’ Confederacy Network (TESCON), in Kumasi in the Ashanti region, and had told them he prioritizes members of his party ahead of any other Ghanaian.
“This government is doing its best to create job opportunities and me, for instance, I told my people over there [that], it is because of NPP that I’m here so the NPP man is my priority. I told them when NDC was in power it was Kwesi Ahwoi who was there. Now we are in power so Ayisi-Boateng is here with you. My topmost priority is the problems of an NPP person before any other Ghanaian. Take it or leave it,” Mr. George Ayisi Boateng said.
Indeed, sounding convincing like Qatar Airways which boasts of going places together with its customers, Mr. Ayisi Boateng added that, “I’m not boasting [but] I’ve started meeting the NPP groups. Every weekend, I meet some group members and I tell you if I had my way, every job opportunity that will come will go to a TESCON member before any other person. And I know my colleague appointees also have the same feeling except that because of IMF, we cannot do anything now.”
I must say that I totally condemn these comments by the Commissioner to South Africa. It is obvious that these comments, indeed, do not match his age and the position he holds.
However, I vehemently disagree with persons condemning him and calling for his dismissal. What at all did Mr. Ayisi Boateng say differently that we do not know about yet— the issues of favouritism and nepotism that exist in our NDC-NPP politics?
I will not equalize the Commissioner’s comments to what the National Democratic Congress has done in the past. However, if you follow politics in this country called Ghana, you do not need to be told that if you are “any other Ghanaian” as Mr. Ayisi puts it, your source of help comes from your object of worship. Ordinary persons must only depend on God as our hope. The political manna always falls at the feet of foot soldiers and cronies whose party is in power.
I have confidentially been told by both members of the NDC and NPP who secured government scholarships to study abroad at the expense of ‘any other Ghanaian’ who also qualified for the same scholarship. We are not the same Ghanaians!
What in this country is not given to members of NDC or NPP depending on whose political party is in power? From the toilets to the white collar jobs in the government sector, we see people pulling guns and knives for their political members to take over.
So, what is the crime of Mr. Ayisi Boateng? For saying the obvious? The critics of the Commissioner say such comments ought not to have come out of the mouth of a person considered a diplomat. As I have already admitted, I agree with such. However, being given a responsible political position does not necessarily make one responsible. For most of these appointees and some Ghanaian politicians, their input and output are predetermined by the corrupt system of ‘M’aban na ɛwͻ so’ [My party is in power] syndrome.
Instead of calling for the head of Mr. Ayisi Boateng, I would rather suggest we, as a people, call for a holistic national debate on how we can completely end this culture of party in power favouring its own. If we are bent on dismissing the Commissioner, however, it would be reasonable dismissing the government in power as well since they have supervised brutality of its members taking over jobs from the ordinary Ghanaian.
As it stands now, I totally agree with the Commissioner to South Africa that there are others who are more Ghanaian than others. The sad truth.
By Solomon Mensah|3FM|3news|Ghana
The writer is a broadcast journalist with Media General (3FM & TV3). Views expressed here solely remain his and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of his organisation.
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