Stop this Ghanaian cancer spreading

Ghana’s march through democracy from history like a cancer or virus has been setting a bad political record for all. Circa 1957, West Africa was savouring milk from the awesome tits of its colonial mothers when a killjoy by the name of Kwame Nkrumah snatched the Gold Coast from its mother. At the risk of infanticide his daring caused the stillbirth of several premature babies across the continent, most of them weaned on the Lactogen of grandiose speeches and the Cerelac of empty promises. Nkrumah’s feat became a regional fad, later spreading like wildfire across the continent.

Six years later, armed undertakers shoved Nkrumah into his political grave and the embers of another continental fire engulfed the west coast of Africa spreading its flame through the entire continent. A struggling Ghana would not be put out of its misery until 1979 when a saviour called Jerry Jesus aka JJ happened on the scene. Since then Ghana has been marching non-stop, a shinning example of democracy. Although we are all watching, nobody wants to copy, not at least Naija its neighbour. Imagine a Rawlings handing over to the opposition and a Kuffour reversing the trend, no guns fired, no riots, no horse-trading, simple votes that count?

Marooned Ghanaians have been returning and rebuilding abandoned castles from Afflao to Elmina. Its vast markets, overrun by Naija traders are now being exorcised.

How come nobody heard about President John Atta Mills suffering from cancer of the throat, Kuffour did not insist on a medical certificate before handing over. Did that man learn anything from the Wizard of Ota? No tabloid reporter made it a headline. No talk of it on social media. Atta Mills shocked me and you. What happened to flying to Israel on medical pilgrimage? What happened to parking the Presidential aircraft while receiving treatment from a German hospital when Ghana has newly struck black gold and is stupendously rich? Instead, Atta Mills apprenticed his frail body to the miraculous hands of TB Joshua, without catching the Naija bug.

It is painful being a lonely political mess and Ghana could at least share our shame. But see what they did – the man fell ill in the morning; joined triumphant saints by evening and his spokesman issued a few paragraph statement without dressing his boss in borrowed robes as the greatest in Africa. Four hours later both cabinet and  parliament had met and failed to borrow the doctrine of necessity. They even failed to fly the dead man’s body to South Africa like the Malawians. No Cabal was instituted to help themselves with the national wealth while his body congeals in a freezer. This is an evil virus that must not spread.

I am still wondering – did Atta Mills not have a grown up son to take over his father’s mandate? Are there no men left in Tarkwa that the National Democratic Congress should pick Mahama, a northerner? These questions’ answers are puzzling because they make the prototype home-grown democracy that the Party of Desperate People, the great PDP is foisting on Naija. Suddenly everything from Ghana is making a ‘good party’ and a great nation of great people look bad.

PDP’s prototype of home grown democracy has fueled Boko Haram; incensed kidnappers and elevated corruption into a principle of state policy. It removed the immorality from cross-carpeting after winning epic electoral battles on different party platforms. It provides inspiration for prospective cartographers to carve out new nations out of a failed one. It is the holy water that resurrects the dead bones of Biafra and canonizes the dreams of Gideon Orkar. It is dangerous.

President Jones should summon a meeting of ECOWAS and the AU to debate this new Ghanaian threat to home grown democracy before his  country transforms from being a joke to a byword. This virus of ‘we have come of age, we can do it like the Americans’ is capable of giving wrong ideas and destroying the one-party seed which; truth be told was pioneered by Kwame Nkrumah. Ghanaians have jettisoned the idea, but the sleeping giant and grand corruptor of Africa, Naija has resurrected it. We have the power to do it with ECOMOG force if necessary. Except of course, who will snatch the president away from the more captivating scene of swaying bakasi of obese African first ladies? Not even the noise of Turai laying claim to what she no longer has.