Thursday, March 4, 2010

Atta Mills: Face Of A Thug

The recent brouhaha and out-and-out war that has broken out over the school feeding program must cause the scales to slip from the eyes of the majority of Ghanaians. For many of our people, the simple and brutal fact is becoming clear. Our President may be a Professor of Laws, but the simple and brutal truth is also that at heart he is just a thug!

For a large number of Ghanaians, there is a growing feeling of dismay at the sheer and barefaced employment of brute force and thuggery in official matters. They have witnessed a long list of such rampant abuses orchestrated by the Mills Administration, but the latest abuse in the school feeding program is causing many people to catch their breathe.

They are in shock, and they are asking themselves; is this what we really voted for? For many people, it would be more palatable to blame the underlings of President Professor for the numerous stories of abuses that we are hearing, but I would not be so charitable. I think that I would like to live by the mantra which Professor Atta Mills repeated often times when he was in opposition and running for the presidency that the buck should and would stop with him.

For whatever is happening, the President has the ultimate responsibility. He is responsible, and he can no more remove himself from blame, when things go wrong, than the people directly implicated.

For what is happening in the school feeding program, one may blame the MMDCEs. One may blame vicious characters like Elvis Afriyie Ankrah and the rest who are out there defending this crappy behaviour, but the fact is that the man who makes it all possible is John Evans Atta Mills.

Even as we are debating the issues with regard to the school feeding program, it is now also emerging that people working in the Office of the President, at the level of the Deputy Chief of Staff, has constituted themselves into a syndicate to deal with suspected stolen cars.

I was very amazed when I heard this piece of news. I had a feeling of déjà vu. It reminded me of something I had heard before. And I wondered, whenever did the job of reviewing stolen cars become the preserve of the office of the Chief of Staff? What happened to Interpol, the Customs, Excise & Preventive Service? What happened to the National Security set-up at Blue Gate, which normally has been responsible for some of these things?

Busybodies like Alex Segbefia, Deputy Chief of Staff, are suddenly in this daylight robbery and thuggery because Professor Atta Mills makes it possible. It is the same way he made it possible for Akufo Addo’s car to be seized and never returned. It is the same way that the vehicles of a number of Ghanaians to be seized.


It is the same way he allowed members of his party across the length and breathe of this country to seize public toilets and car terminals.

It is the same way he allowed the numerous beatings, intimidations and outright murders to take place and the perpetrators to walk scot-free. It is the same way he allowed Akwasi Osei Agyei’s passport to be seized and detained in spite of two court judgments. And it is the same way that he is turning a blind eye even as his party illegally kicks people out of their contracts in order to award them on silver platters to his party functionaries.

It is so, because Atta Mills is a thug.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What are talking about? People like you always abuse privileges, e.g. the privilege of democracy and/or freedom of speech. People like you make me cry for an autocratic nationalistic despot. If you don’t have nay useful thing to do with your time, don’t cause disunity and mayhem in the country. Learn to respect your president. Get some sleeping pills or go and drink your self into a stupor, instead wasting bytes on the internet.

Anonymous said...

It is just a shame that a Journalist of the kind that Mr. Prah was believed to be, enlightened, could describe the President of Ghana as a thug, just because certain Officials at the periphery of his Administration might be resorting to some unorthodox, but not necessarily illegal, way of seeking Justice.

I hope Mr. Prah doesn't fully understand what "Thuggery" and "Thug" mean, in which case he could be forgiven for such despicable display of impudence. If, on the other hand, I am wrong and Mr. Prah drums on his chest to have ascribed such evil attribute to our President with total comprehension of those words, then Mr. Prah surely belongs to a clique of savage Journalists who have no respect for truth and due process of law themselves.

With that characterization of the President without any concrete evidence that he authorized any of the acts Mr. Prah alleges, Mr. Prah has shown he belongs to the same pack of rogues who relish hooliganism. Just as I denounce folks that insult the former President Kufuor with certain allegations that are unproven and have no probable radix in truth, I think Mr. Prah is way off his line with such insults on the current President.

If Mr. Prah believes that the President has no business seeking out culprits who have stolen cars, why would the intelligent sounding Journalist claim without any proof that the President "turned a blind eye" at what some of his Party members might be doing wrong?

You, see, there seems to be a strong indication that Mr. Prah just wants to pounce on any opportunity to insult our President because of Mr. Prah's own Political bias in favor of the President's Political foes.

Mr. Prah's arguments are at best most puerile. Would he begin admitting that Akuffo-Addo is a criminal, because he did nothing to stop his so-called body guards viciously manhandle harmless Journalists? If the President only knows of an incident after the fact, he can only expect that the law takes its course and not step off his busy desk to direct the daily activities of all the members of his Party. If specific complaints were brought to his attention and he refused to help resolve them, then it is a different matter. Even in that case, it is the gravity of the issue that counts.

Journalists like Mr. Prah only hide behind the people's cherished aspirations to uphold freedom of speech in bolstering our democracy to spew unwarranted invectives at others. We should demand better Journalistic performance than that from these folks that want to become a permanent fixtures on our walls of Journalism.

Long Live Ghana!!

Anonymous said...

It's very sad any fool and imbecile with a pen can exercise his democratic right. Insulting President Atta Mills means insulting the office of the presidency, which is the highest office in the land and only a buffoon will cast aspersions on the office of the presidency.

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