By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
March 21, 2016
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
The problem that the Mahama government has in selling its so-called Postal Packet and Telecommunications Messages Bill to the Ghanaian people is that this proposed law has absolutely no merit whatsoever (See “Don’t Fear ‘Spy’ Bill – Speaker Tells Nation” Kasapafmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 3/21/16). Plus, the National Democratic Congress government has a long track-record of political vindictiveness dating back from the days of the Rawlings-led Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) junta and the so-called Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) dictatorship. But what is even more significant to bear in mind is that already there exist laws on the books, as it were, dealing with the right of national security agencies to intercept suspicious postal packets and security-threatening messages. On any given day, Ghanaians can rest assured that their telephone conversations and text messages are closely being monitored by hired and handsomely paid agents of the state.
I have even had politically powerful relatives and friends resident in Ghana refuse to talk about certain issues with me on the phone in the recent past, because they were morbidly concerned that our conversations were being closely monitored by personnel of the National Security Agency (NSA) or the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI). What we need to be talking about right now is not whether the State needs to make up more laws for the enhanced security of Ghanaians, but rather whether the laws that are already on the books, as it were, are being satisfactorily enforced as they ought to. In other words, when you have legislators and highly connected people in government on both sides of the ideological divide being routinely arrested and jailed at airports outside the country, it ought to become crystal clear to all that about the only people who are not playing by the rules are the very people who are making the laws for the rest of us to live and be guided by in this country.
If Speaker Edward Doe Adjaho and his men and women in our august legislature want to make themselves and the institution of which they are proud to be members to be deemed relevant to the political culture of this country, then they need to focus more on the crafting and enactment of laws that are primarily aimed at remarkably improving the quality of life of Ghanaians in such critical areas as food production, storage and marketing, easy access to affordable housing and healthcare for all and sundry, the upgrade and expansion of academic and professional training facilities and the creation of livable jobs and other employment opportunities.
The Gitmo experience clearly indicates that the only people that pose the greatest danger to our national security are our leaders, irrespective of partisan colors or insignia and ideological suasion. And so, even as I have already noted elsewhere in another column, if the Spy Bill, so-called, aims to primarily prevent leaders like President John Dramani Mahama and his henchmen and women from letting our beloved country go to the dogs, as it were, then it is all the more to be unreservedly supported. The grim reality, however, eerily appears to point in the exactly opposite direction, which is why Speaker Adjaho and his associates have been desperately screaming and tearing at their hairs to get this decidedly redundant piece of legislation afforded a public nod.
We also know that the Spy Bill has very little or absolutely nothing to do with money laundering, which it purports to rigidly police, because about the only Ghanaians widely known to stash their pelf – or ill-gotten wealth – abroad are highly positioned government operatives and their self-serving sponsors in the corporate world. We know quite a remarkable number of these criminal crooks and scam-artists but, unfortunately, legal complications prevent us from publicly exposing the same at this time.
*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs.