THE IMPUDENCE OF PROPAGANDA.

I am a ghanaian and though i may have sympathies towards some political parties, what you are about to read is not an attack on a party but the conduct of some officials within it. i say this because of the current trend that has emerged in the country, where every comment is branded as belonging to one party or the other and innocent citizens are vilified or rewarded by the powers that be. As far as I am concerned, both the two major political parties in our mother are both guilty of so many crimes.

However, believers in the rule of law (constitutionalism) like myself find some conduct unacceptable. When the National Security, which is supposed to uphold and defend the constitution of the republic, blatanly suppresses the human rights of a perceived or alledged criminal, I find that to be unacceptable. The law is expressly clear that you cannot hold a person for more that 48 hours in custody without charging him or her, so the security agencies have no right holding a person beyond that. If ghana were some other domain, they would have received a lot of flak for that. But it is even more unacceptable when a politician of national repute, who speaks for the party in government, comes on air and attempts to rationalise it.

What business did Mr. Quarshigah, the propaganda secretary of the ruling NDC have attempting to address the issue of the arrest of a supposed NPP activist? Is he the new Interior minister? Or perhaps he is the PR of the ministry? That aside, why was he trying to say that the NPP was making the administration of National Security difficult because they were asking or the release of a man who had been kept beyond the constitutionally mandated limits? I mean was he being serious? Really? And then what did he hope to achieve by raising the National Security flag? His conduct raises serious questions which must be addressed.

Firstly, is the government embarking on a series of politically motivated arrests or not? I say this against the background of recent arrests made in the Ya-Na murder case, where only one family has had their kinsmen getting arrested whilst the other family treads in peace. If the Government has no such agenda, then why is it that officials of the ruling party who have no positions in government are the ones defending actions of state security? Or there is no longer a division between the national governance and the ruling party? Mr. Quarshigah's action of attempting to defend this irrationality leaves serious questions about the agenda of his party.

Secondly, it also raises questions of the ruling party's respect for the law. We are still dealing with the fallout of the President's last trip to South africa and whether he obeyed th law in addressing parliament before he left the country. And then right on the heel of that experience, we have this: another blatant disregard of the law. Do our politicians respect the law?

In my opinion, he should apologise immediately. and if he does not, he should know we are watching.

BREEDING THE PHENENOMENA OF ANTI-POLITICS IN GHANA.

You can fool some people all the time. You can also fool all the people some of the time but you definitely cannot fool all the people all of the time.

I believe this is the message that the political parties and politicians must keep in mind when they are dealing with the people of Ghana. I say this because it is so appalling and disrespectful the way our current breed of politicians seem to think that they can fool all the people all the time. When they are in opposition, they criticize almost anything and everything and try to make us (ghanaians) realise the sense in what it is that they are saying. But let them arrive in the corridors of power and then suddenly, the very same things that were wrong become right. Power has been known to corrupt and absolute power may corrupt absolutely but do we the noble citizens of our motherland, who are striving to better ourselves deserve to be treated thus?

My major concern in this article is that through their actions and inactions, politicians are breeding the phenomena of anti-politics in this country. Anti-politics may be seem as that phenomena where the people in a state or political society loose faith in the ability of the prevailing order to secure and promote their general interests.When such a phenomena occurs, people may react in so many ways including supporting revolutions, anarchy and the likes. In my opinion, Ghana is slowly getting there and I continue to prove this.

When was the last time you heard an individual say "whether it is NDC or NPP in power, they are all cut from the same cloth"? One more such saying is "all politicians are corrupt, they only care about themselves and their families"? Yet another is the assertion is that" i would never again vote in an election because they really dont make any difference." the next question is how frequently do you hear these statements being made? For a person like me, I hear them almost on a daily basis and it is so frightening. It seems that we (as a nation) are turning and turning in an ever widening gyre. And soon, maybe, we may not hear our falconers (politicians). My fear is that when it get to that stage, nothing but mere anarchcy would be loosed upon our peaceful motherland.

Honestly, I hope I am a false prophet on this issue but sadly only time will tell. as a lonesome bard that watches but speaks not, moves but is not seen and yet speaks but it is not heard, my time to depart once again is now.