A LETTER TO LT. GEN. KOTOKA

Dear Sir,

It is Christmas season yet again and as usual, fowls and goats would feel sharp blades across their throats, as boiled cassava and plantain suffer the thud of heavy poundings. Love would be shown to everybody (or most people) and by the start of the New Year, we would file for bankruptcy. Last year around this time, I launched the must-get-jollof-to-eat-or-else-i-jump-into the-Ada-river (to meet
Castro and co) policy. Natasha’s mum, one of my dearest aunties, came to my rescue when on the 25th of December, I presented my hungry face at her doorstep. This season is a season of love and merriment and two things for sure are that:

1.Although it is Jesus’ birthday, people (regardless of religious affiliation) are going to celebrate the season like it was their birthdays.

And...

2. People would stop pouring acid on each other until the festive season is over.

As my coequals are doing everything (ranging from buying hampers to breaking their virginities), I write to keep you updated on the kind of things that have been going on in this country since Nkrumah was
overthrown. Well, the legacies of governments that came after yours (and even before yours) are beginning to fade away as day in and day out, our government and people of 2015 keep doing incredible stuff that would make you want to take an exeat from heaven to come and overthrow the government and instill some discipline in the people.

Gone are the years when truthfulness in leadership was a key requirement of every government. If I had to get a kiss each time our leaders promised to bring load-shedding to an end & failed, I wouldn’t be a virgin at my age. Leaders must tell lies (all kinds) to be able to keep their jobs. Kotoka, please ask God to reveal to me in a dream the difference between loadshedding and dumsor, and also which of the Januaries, Februaries, Marches, Aprils, Mays… and Decembers that our president said the ‘dum-shedding’ would end. One of the main reasons why you overthrew Nkrumah, Busia was overthrown, General Akuffo, Kutu Acheampong and co were killed by Junior Jesus, was because of the high level of corruption that was supervised by their governments. In 2015, judges were exposed in a corruption scandal. Yes, judges. As if that was not enough, I saw with my naked and popped-out eyes, a National Service person (the ones who are supposed to be directing traffic), collecting a bribe from a trotro driver.

Isn’t it unbelievable? I didn’t know bribe-taking was part of their training. That’s how prevalent indiscipline has become in our days. But, I don’t blame them. We've run out of ideas to the extent that university and polytechnic graduates must now control traffic for about a year after school. If traffic control is so much a priority, why won't the MTTD (of the police service), be expanded? At least, graduates wouldn’t have the chance of openly tarnishing the reputation of their tertiary alma mater by taking bribes. After a year of controlling traffic, they won't have the chance of being retained. Whereas, if they had served in a company or other institutions, they would put in their best to stand a chance of being retained when the service period is over. Even if they're not retained, they get to add something of value to their CV's that will enhance their prospects of getting jobs in a country where graduates are expected to have job experience just after graduation, before applying for jobs. Maybe, taking bribes is the incentive and skill that, that kind of national service experience adds to their lives.

Well, it is not just Ghana that needs a cleanup. The world at large has also lost it. Terrorism haunts both the black and the white world. The difference though is that, the white world easily gets the support of the whole world to fight back, while the black world doesn’t get that much attention to garner a support against terrorism. Well, I am not surprised because we’ve undermined our own issues of safety just because the white world hasn’t initiated a mass support program like #prayforJune3rdVictims or #prayforKenya or #prayforEssien’sChelsea etc. The efforts of our own ‘yanoom’ who changed their profile pictures to the French national colors are as disappointing as the ECOWAS president’s contribution to solving the Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria (a very minimal impact; no wonder a certain democratic tyrant said he’s incompetent). One other interesting aspect about these attacks on humanity is that, when it is a muslim shooter, the entire religion of Islam is blamed. When the shooter is black, the black race is blamed. When the shooter is American, well, it is just a mental problem. The world is so confused that, a man can wake up one morning and decide to be a woman. You know what’s absurd, Kotoka? The fact that a man has to win the award of Woman of the Year. Yes! It takes a man to win Woman of the Year. Implication: men are now more real at being women than women themselves. Congrats to Bruce Jenner… or whatever his/her name is. And to those nitwits who were high enough to rob Antoa, hope you give your lives to Christ (after you are dead).

 
Signed
Tony Afuti Eyram
-A son of the 4th Republic (and a likely NSS traffic warden; unless a miracle happens)