Monkey Can't Cook

A Children’s TV programme, very educative of course, that my grandson was watching this morning, Wednesday 1 October 2014, had the title, “Monkey can’t cook”. Straightaway, it reminded me of how monkeys, intelligent primates as they are, capable of doing some of the things human beings do, rather choose not to farm but to steal from human beings’ farm.

These monkeys once made my life a complete hell. I am going to relate the title to the behaviour of our current Ghanaian leaders so please keep on reading. In 1971 and 1972, I spent part of my school summer holidays (Long Vac) with my brothers and cousins on my father’s cocoa farm at Wassa-Ahyireso in the Western region.


After the day’s tedious work, clearing the weeds from various parts of the farm, we had to proceed to the other side of the farm where acres upon acres of land was teeming with corn bearing grains, to make noises to frighten off monkeys descended on the farm to feast on the corn. They came in their multitude, plucked the corn cobs and fed themselves fat at the expense of our toil and sweat.


Instead of relaxing in the evenings, we first had to chase out these thieves who came every evening to steal from the farm even though they had hands as human beings do, they chose to steal instead of cultivating their own crops to feed themselves. They made our lives a misery. Their actions cost us sleep at night. They ruined the farm by destroying the crops. What an economic burden they brought to bear upon us. I often lost sleep over their nightmarish thievery behaviour. Clapping your hands, hitting two metals or machetes together to make frightening noises that would send the monkeys hurtling away, swinging from tree to tree as if they had lost their heads, was not an easy task at all.


Lending my father a hand on his farm, instead of spending my long vacation from Tweneboah Koduah Secondary School, a student as I was then, in towns and cities, attending vacation course as did some of my schoolmates, look how these monkeys were ruining my efforts, defeating my objective in the end.


Hang on a sec (second)! Are monkeys by nature endowed with the ability to cultivate their own farms? No! Even though they have hands with the same number of fingers to hold machete/cutlass as do human beings, they are devoid of the intelligence and capability to cultivate their own farms from where they can obtain their daily food. They are left with no choice but to feed from the wild plants in the forest and also, to steal from well tendered farms.


This analogically true story goes to portray the detestable behaviour of President John Dramani Mahama and his brigade of NDC plunderers. They are at the helm of the nation’s affairs, provided with everything needed to manage the country to the admiration of the Ghanaian masses. They have a country endowed with rich natural resources; gold, manganese, bauxite, aluminium (mineral resources), cocoa, timber (virgin forest), deciduous forest, petroleum etc. In spite of all these, President Mahama, is making a total mess of the economy through mismanagement bordering on corruption and pure thievery.

Like the monkey that has hands but cannot cook or farm because it was not granted that capability by God, so is President Mahama not bestowed with the intelligence to rule a nation? This is the reason for the mess he keeps making of the nation’s economy. For the lack of knowledge and ability to govern sensibly to the benefit of all Ghanaians, he has found temporary comfort in embezzling money, thereby destroying the country, similarly as the monkeys were doing to my father’s farm as narrated above.


If you are not naturally granted the ability to do something, you cannot do it even though your outward appearance may suggest otherwise. On seeing a monkey with two hands, five fingers on each hand, puffing on cigarettes, peeling off the skin of banana before eating, same as humans do, one may think they can cook or farm but they can’t. Similarly, one thought President Mahama, being a Ghanaian, highly educated, young (born after Gold Coast obtaining her independence from the British Colonial masters to be renamed Ghana), vivacious, full of himself and probably an orator but stubborn, he could easily enviously manage the affairs of Ghana. He is a total flop. He is far worse embedded in stealing and corrupt practices than the monkeys I had to deal with in the early 1970s at Wassa-Ahyireso near Bogoso in the Western region.


It is not gold all that glitters. It is not all primates with hands that can cook. It is not all those who contest elections for the presidency that can govern to the admiration of the masses and finally, it is not all youth that can have the intelligence, knowhow and honesty to rule a nation. ASEM SEBE!


The successful governing of a nation does not revolve on the tilted pivots of “Ede bii keke” slogans. Arise oh Ghanaians, to liberate yourselves and your country from the hands of the callously corrupt politicians who are groping in governance, but are experts in stealing to ruin the economy and the lives of the citizens of an entire nation.


I dedicate this article to my grandson Dylan. Without him, I could not have had the opportunity to come across the programme that gave me the cause to put this write-up out. I hope it becomes to some people a learning curve to reshape their thinking about Ghanaian politicians. They are to re-examine their blind affiliations towards them when the politicians are found or are perceived to be corrupt as typified by President Mahama. As educative as the TV programme was to my grandson, so shall this publication be to the readers and the public.


Rockson Adofo