The Myth of Akufo-Addo’s Legacies & The Coming Hurricane – ‘Ebobↄ ba’

POMPEII, the preserved ancient Roman city in Campania, Italy, 14 miles (23 km) southeast of Naples, at the southeastern base of Mount Vesuvius. Around noon on August 24, 79 CE, a huge eruption from Mount Vesuvius showered volcanic debris over the city of Pompeii, followed the next day by clouds of blisteringly hot gases. Buildings were destroyed, the population was crushed or asphyxiated, and the city was buried beneath a blanket of ash and pumice. For many centuries Pompeii slept beneath its pall of ash, which perfectly preserved the remains. When these were finally unearthed, in the 1700s, the world was astonished at the discovery of a sophisticated Greco-Roman city frozen in time.

According to legend, the citizens of Pompeii were met with a loud burst of smoke on top of the nearby mountaintop. Little did they know that this mountain top was, in fact, a volcano which was set to erupt and destroy the entire city.

Pompeii, called ‘Sin City’, was a city enlivened by violent passions and endowed with a flair that was in a class of its own with brothels everywhere. The power games, sexual appetites, unrestrained ambition and creative genius could be felt in the streets, breathed in the temples and admired in the frescoes that survived the tragic eruption of 79 AD. (en.wikipedia.org)

Of the 2,000 bodies excavated, one of the saddest casts called ‘The Two Maidens’ consists of two people embracing as the ash swept over them, and Milo and Cassia’s love story in Pompeii, while a work of fiction, was created out of the level of immortalized devotion. (library.biblicalarchaeology.org)

Ghana’s coming 2024 general elections with all the matters arising, including what is happening at the Parliament House against its shadow-boxing with the Lady Chief Justice and her Supreme Court; the obscene spates of corruption and abuses of offices; the worse deluge of Galamsey menace – worse than during the Old Ghana Empire; and acute greed within the government and her numerous apparatchiks; against the last seven years of the administration of the current NPP government, are akin to the last days of the ‘Sin City’, Pompeii.

Indeed, all current threats of ‘we won’t hand over to Mahama’, ‘handover to who…’, Lord Commey’s cacophonous ‘we won’t hand over’, and ‘NPP will handover to NPP’, are reminiscence of the diverse occurrences of the last days of Pompeii, as the citizens were most pervasive to all the looming threats, such as possible rigging of the 2024 Elections, premised on ‘there are million ways of winning elections.’

Too many interpretations have been accorded to the rationale underlying the compulsion for the President to secure a seeming ‘third term of office’, by calling on Ghanaians to vote for his Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the NPP’s candidate for President in the coming 2024 elections. To this end, NADAA’s aberrations include ‘NADAA, the greatest ‘TILATI’ manipulator of all time’, ‘Ghana’s Only True Despot, who doesn’t take ‘NO’ for any answer’, and ‘NADAA, Ghana’s great puppeteer’, who delights in treating any Ghanaian worth his salt in his path as a puppet, only fit to be used to achieve an end.

I am surprised that not many Ghanaians within the current political dispensation, like the then citizens of ‘POMPEII’, are not hearing the present opprobrious language, which has gradually creeped into our body politics with profane opprobrium, infusing the coming national elections with political dust storms, reminiscent of the eruptions from Mount Vesuvius.

We should be mindful that these tempests occur when strong winds meet bare or dry soil, lifting large amounts of sand and dust into the atmosphere. Once airborne, the sand and dust does not stay in one location but gets transported hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away. As climate changes, and sand storms wreak havoc on desert communities as the current political sand storms at our Parliament House, with political characters, who believe more in spiritual consequences and or occultism than observing the acts of Ghana’s Constitution; with both overt and covert connivances within our judiciary system to create a possible Pompeii-like volcano, which might erupt and destroy the entire nation and our people – causing tribes to rise up against their neighbours, people against their friends, professionals against their colleagues, Members of Parliament (MPs) against the voters who elected them, and Christians against Moslems; like in the last days of Pompeii.

What we will all succeed in doing, is to allow ourselves to be played by insensitive, corrupt politicians, who are only interested in protecting their loots after reaching the end of their tenures of offices; determined to orchestrate a legacy, including legal structures, that will ‘protect’ them through shadow-boxing and or puppetry.

Puppetry, as a form of theatre and or in real life, is probably as old as the theatre itself. Puppet is a person whose entire actions are controlled by another, and therefore, a puppet state or nation is a country that is nominally independent but actually under the control of another power or persons or political cabal or cartel of ‘family and friends’.

Indeed, the last seven to eight years have witnessed a parody or semblances of comedy, where all manner of people have been compromised one way or another to play specific roles, with benefits therefrom inuring to the ruling classes of ‘family and friends’ with their cronies; whilst their ‘protection’ of the movies-type are manifested in broad daylight skirmishes, sometimes.

The administration of ‘King Promises’ sounds like the inverse exploits of the Lone Ranger – the great masked hero, an American Western television series that aired on the ABC Television network from 1949 to 1957, with Clayton Moore in the starring role. Jay Silverheels, a member of the Mohawk Aboriginal people in Canada, played the Lone Ranger’s Indian companion, Tonto. Together, the two set out to defend people from evil forces in all forms.

Within the context of the ‘Last Days of Pompeii’, Ghana has assumed the status of a giant mixed crime scene of several modes, colours, and shades.

Do you remember: ‘I have said in the Cabinet that I am prepared to put my Presidency on the line for this matter?’, and ‘You can go to court!’, knowing what every Ghanaian is saying silently in their homes and at workplaces beyond the hearing of our own ‘Gestapo’.

We also learning how to come to terms with the matter of the quantum of the Tax Exemptions for the selected number of the ‘One District, One Factory’ projects, which is before the Hung Parliament under Speaker, Right Honourable Alban S. K. Bagbin. This is one of the key reasons underlying the fight for which side is the Majority in the 8^th Parliament.

No Presidential term, under the 4^th Republic, has been most cantankerous as that of NADAA, considering all the controversies, including the ‘prophesy’ of his National Security Minister, Hon. Albert Kan-Dapaah, when he admonished the Judiciary to be extra careful not to sound and look like the appendages of the Executive.

Observing the recent skirmishes between the Judiciary and the Legislature, the ‘prophet’ Kan-Dapaah could not have been far from right with his warning, especially as every state or public appointee seem to be out-performing himself or herself by lying prostrate before the Presidency to be counted.

I always thought the Ghanaian, no matter the level or position of trust, would perform to the best of his or her abilities and wisdom than to be seen to be lying prostrate on the ground in a worshipping mode for the presidency; reflective of the last days of Pompeii. Indeed, these actions of most public and civil servants seem to demystify the legacies of the NADAA Presidency; and then question the justification for voting his Vice as the next President to succeed him.

Need I say more….?

Written by Magnus Naabe RexDanquah, the Ghanaian