Stigmatization: a diversionary political strategy

By Prosper Yao Tsikata

The recent revolting development in Ghanaian politics, whereby stigmatization of certain individuals for perceived or real “abnormalities” is fast becoming a diversionary scheme to distract from the gigantic developmental issues that confront our country.

When news broke out in the run-up to the 2008 general elections that then National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate, John Evans Atta-Mills, was sick and hallucinating, party aficionados saw it as a propagandist scheme by the ruling government to stigmatize him in order to declare him unfit for the highest office of the land. While there are constitutional provisions that prohibit the sick from holding office, especially if the sickness potentially impedes his/her ability to discharge the duties of the presidential office, the accusation could be regarded as speculative in the absence of any tangible evidence.

Critical News, 25th October, 2010

By Sydney Casely-Hayford, Sydney@bizghana.com

Jerry “Oedipus” John “Rex”.  Now here is a conundrum.  I seem to be caught in a whirl, writing about these puzzles all the time these days.  Either that, or I do “riddle-riddle”?  RIDDLE!  “What name do you give to a founder of a political party who is so pissed off he won’t even talk to his hand picked successor?”  Answer, “His Jerryship”! And he is very upset with the people he owns.  They dare to go about making false statements about him and peddling untruths.  Not enough that their leader Prof. Mills has abandoned the path of NDC probity and accountability and is out there disrespecting his Jerryship.  I published His Jerryship’s full statement last week, please read it in full for history’s sake.  So JJ is upset with Mills as he was with Kuffuor and all others who have preceded him in Government and he will be upset with Nana Akufo Addo, should he win in 2012.  But TV Africa with Fred Chidi on “Matters Arising”, put on a very interesting panel.  Alhaji and Alhaji – Rawlings critic, Ras Mubarak – confused militant and Kobby Fiagbe, editor of The Lens.  With Ras attempting an interpretation of JJ, which these days means accusing everybody of something without saying clearly who or what, this time tried voice and body mimicry as well.  I am afraid I didn’t really grasp the essence of his analysis and I gave up listening to him after a while.  Alhaji however, was very emphatic that all this was just gassed up for public benefit and concluded that JJ and Konadu cannot afford to carry on without the NDC.  Come 2012, he predicts a convergence of views and a single team candidate, who will NOT be Nana Konadu.  She denies she is vying for president.  But what do you call a woman president these days?  Presidentess?  Well, Nana wants to be one of those, I think.  Her 15,000 posters are all over parts of Ghana.  Can her husband handle that?  We might never live to see.  So we left the TV current affairs program with no time left, as usual, after all the radio stations had aired versions of public commentary and noise.  I am not sure if the Rawlings’ have done themselves any good this week.  We seem to have a seasonal event every month from them. We just got over the fire event, the in-law home event, the Herbert Mensah event, the AU event (Mills congratulated JJ on the front page of the Daily Graphic, probably secretly hoping he would go and pitch camp in Somalia, alas it did not happen!) and now we have this NDC event.  Two more months to the end of the year and we could yet have another one.

The postponement of the signing ceremony of the STX agreement – Matters Arising

By Daniel Danquah Damptey, danieldanquah_damptey@yahoo.com

Ghanaians have not had it as bad as they are experiencing under this cruel, insensitive, divisive, vindictive and clueless regime of Baba Go Slow, alias Professor Do Little. The NDC has at the core of its leadership a cabal made up of sharks, vultures and snakes whose main task is to torpedo all laudable projects/programmes which will be beneficial to Ghanaians by feeding the vulnerable ones amongst us with misinformation, deception and utter lies. Yes, this is the stock in trade of the NDC.

Critical News, 29th August 2010

Hmm, Christians are very upset this week, when they heard that a group of armed robbers had raided a church after hours and tried to steal cars from the pastors.  Now we hear they are going to make a special petition to the President that Pastors be allowed to bear arms to protect themselves from armed robbers.  Not to protect the Congregation, they are protected by the Holy Spirit and the Pastors have to stay alive to protect them.  Hmmm!

A Guide To Corruption (4). President Mills Cannot and Will Not Do This!

You can read all about the Mabey and Johnson judgment from the leading websites on Ghana. Each carries the story and details what I said in an earlier breaking news alert of August 7th. At the time, I wrote about the impending implosion and chronicled the history of the Mabey and Johnson bribery of NDC executives in another Guide to Corruption. Since then we have waited patiently for September 25th and this is just the beginning. I will dare to suggest that President Mills will make a show of investigating the issues involved and former President JJ Rawlings will pretend that all this happened under his nose and he knew nothing of it, even though his senior cabinet ministers were in the thick of it, and so was his wife.

President Mills has allegedly asked the Attorney General Betty Mould Iddrissu to investigate the Mabey and Johnson case in Ghana and spare no one found guilty of the offences established by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office.

Sydney Casely-Hayford

Results of our opinion poll, July 1, 2009

These results are the opinions of Readers of Ghana News Monthly newspaper and its related website, www.ghananewsmonthly.com They DO NOT represent the views of Ghanaians in general. Reader’s views were solicited between July 1 and July 12, 2009. We received 247 responses.

Sydney Casely-Hayford

President Mills Approved Of Kufuor’s Use Of New Office

Head of Government’s transition team, Mr. Paul Victor Obeng, has expressed surprise at the raging debate over the propriety of ex-President J.A. Kufuor’s acquisition of a state property for his private office. PV told Asempa FM in Accra that the former president officially informed President J.E.A. Mills of his desire to use the office and received the president’s due blessing for its use.

By Isaac Yeboah

NDC Manifesto in Scam

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is alleged to be have surreptitiously withdrawn the manifesto signed by the then candidate John Evans Atta Mills, with which the party ran its 2008 political campaign for last year’s elections, replacing it with a new one they refer to as ‘The New King James Version.’  Just a few weeks into the ceremonious first 100 days of the government, the ruling NDC has substituted the endorsed manifesto and put in circulation a brand new one with different content and devoid of the signature of President Mills.  As it appears now, the belief of Ghanaians that they voted for the NDC based on a manifesto that would serve their interests has apparently been short-changed with the withdrawal of the original one.