Dear Mr. President,
I heard that the “flying coffin” almost became your real coffin the other time. I don’t know why anyone would fly in an airplane that has been tagged as such but you still do. I guess you can say for the love of the country. I remember that when your government came into power (I love that phrase- came into power), you adamantly refused to fly in this coffin. I don’t know who finally convinced you that it’s not only Dracula who travels in a coffin, but whoever advised you is “playing chacha” aka gambling with your life. But like Dracula, you always escape death. I understand that this is not the first time that the pilots had to do gymnastics in the air to save your life… and theirs too. I hope the u-turn they did in the air was legal and that you did not have to bribe any policemen if it wasn’t. Did you give the pilots medals too the other time? I would really be miffed if I was asked to do such a dangerous job and not get a medal. Ei! What would Auntie Theresa do without you?
Please take care, otherwise you’ll become former president… sorry ex-president. Or you don’t like that title too? Those NDC people seem to want to always refer to J. J as former president Rawlings or ex-president Rawlings. Why they always insist on adding a title I cannot understand. Since you are not a fan of Rawlings and he’s already taken those two titles, I hope you can find a suitable title after your presidency.
Were you going for another “fund-raising” event for motherland Ghana? Back when I was in Legon struggling for a degree, we called it “intellectual begging”. I don’t know what is intellectual about the begging, but if the beggars at almost every traffic light knew that formula, I think that maybe they can increase their daily returns dramatically.
Come to think of it- every time you and other African leaders go for all those meetings called by China, India and others, (they call them donor meetings right?) it always reminds me of the hordes of beggars who seem to crawl at every junction where there are traffic lights. But since you guys go and beg on our behalf (really??? {smiles}), I guess I better shut up. But what happens to all that money? Is someone taking too much kickback for linking you with the right leaders?
Aah, kickbacks. I remember when the issue came up some years ago that some big men in your party were allegedly taking kickbacks. That was the first time I came across the word. During the NDC time I was only made aware of the nice phrase “bribery and corruption” and they are the ones who said probity and accountability right? And you said zero tolerance for corruption? Hahaha!! Anyway thank you all for enriching my vocabulary.
This reminds me of the police service. Their motto says “Service with integrity” but I don’t know about the integrity part. The service part we can pretend exists, but policemen in Ghana don’t have integrity on bit. Not when you can bribe them and get away with virtually any crime. Or you don’t believe that they take bribes? Perhaps like allegations against other government officials, I should substantiate what I just said with evidence? How about if I take a photograph of a police man taking a bribe from a taxi driver who’s just jumped the red light? Would that be enough evidence or do I have to also add documentary evidence like papers or receipts given by the policeman to the taxi driver. I hope if the policeman is smiling in the picture, it won’t be taken as a fake.
Even if I manage this photographic evidence, I doubt it would hold in court. You see Ghanaian policemen have developed Houdini-like methods of extracting the money from the taxi drivers and slipping it into their pockets. Or we should call it Copperfield ticks after the famous David Copperfield who could make things magically vanish into thin air? Integrity indeed!
My kid brother jus t turned 18 and registered to vote for the up-coming elections. But like him and my sister, I’m also confused about who to vote for as your successor. As for the way the Electoral Commission went about the registration process, I won’t say much about it in this letter. You may get angry and beg the Commissioner to fire some people. Oh, I forgot. Sorry, over here in Ghana, we don’t fire for incompetence, especially in public service.
Back to our confusion regarding the elections. The person standing for parliamentary elections for your party in my constituency may not get our vote because the last time we saw her was 4 years ago. How can she claim to represent our views in parliament if the only time we see her is every four years? We don’t even know her house and even if we did, I don’t think we could visit. Anyway if she does win, I hope she gives me a ride in the brand air-conditioned new car parliament gives her. Or won’t she get the “car loan” parliament gives every four years?
For your party’s presidential candidate too, we are also confused. He’s jumping around doing a dance I understand is called the kangaroo dance when the majority of Ghanaians don’t even know what a kangaroo is. But we like the way he can speak English. Wow! But he really doesn’t seem to say much. He just talks. Apart from that we are afraid that since he was the Foreign minister, he may start missing his friends at the UN and start travelling plenty to visit and beg for money like you’ve been doing.
As for the man in the big opposition party (opposition??), he’s also not saying much. All he does is to go around reminding everyone one that we are hungry (dammit!, we already know that) and don’t have money in our pockets (as if we don’t know that too) while not telling us how he’s going to solve those problems. That tells us that he also has no solutions to offer, so we are just there.
Mr. President, we don’t know exactly how much the presidency pays as salary, but from the way your party and the other parties are campaigning, and throwing cash around with glitzy campaigns, surely, there must be a lot of people to pay back when it’s all done and over.
I hope this letter wasn’t too long as you probably may have a letter from the queen to come to tea so that she can convince her prime minister to lend you some of the tax money of the British people.
Sincerely yours.
PS: Do you notice that all the campaign paraphernalia is all stamped as Made in China? How patriotic!
Tags: dear mr president, ghana elections
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