The third voices; your silence is too loud

Country make hot! At a time like this, one does not need Armstrong to go up the space and come back to tell us there are severe hardships in Ghana. All are axiomatic when after a hectic day you buy a sachet of water at 30p to quench your thirst. You feel the pinch of the economic torture in Ghana when you buy a bag of maize for 240GHS from Nakpanduri.

At a period as this, when harvest season’s just ended the price of grains would have tumbled as they come in abundance, but no. Food prices are hyper-galloping as fuel, while the cedi is fast breaking the 8. Utilities have increased to transport fares.

Inflation is in di-digits as the disposable incomes of citizens have not seen any significant increment to correspond to the price hikes. Public sector workers had to embrace(nemesis) an unprecedented paltry 4% and 7% upward tweak in their salaries for 2021 and 2022 respectively. Hence the legitimate agitations in the labor front over the past few weeks. We have witnessed CETAG, UTAG, etc on strike.

Only recently that the Ghana Statistical Service, in its Annual Household and Income Expenditure Survey, through government's own statistician, reveals that household incomes have incessantly eroded tremendously, post Covid-19. The ripple effect is borne by the already downtrodden who barely affords three square meals a day.

Whereas the president admonished all citizens to tighten their belts due to the ravaging impact of covid-19, he is not modest. Rather, he is globetrotting and bathing in “jets up the sky”.

Corruption remains a canker that has eaten deep into an irreparable state, the Ghanaian economy. Cite all the corruption scandals; Australia Visa scandal, BOST contaminated fuel saga, Agyapa scandal, Ameri Novation, Contract For Sale: Donkomi, (PPA), flying excavators, the evaporated NDA tricycles.

I’m tired of listing them. The Auditor-General in his 2020 audit report says colossal sums of 12.85b GHS were lost in 2020 alone in financial malfeasance (in plain, thievery). It is so worrying that Ghana has recorded an abysmal 41% in the CPI. The only attempt to fight corruption follows clearance from H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akkufo-Addo, the “incorruptible.”

On the eve of the 2020 general elections, the Electoral Commission of Ghana came out with an administrative fiat barring the people of SALL from participating in the parliamentary elections thereby denying them representation(which is a cardinal sin of the 8th parliament, as put by Prof. Kweku Azar). Till now there has not been any attempt to rectify it.

The education front has never been all this turbulent since I began watching that space. Reforms are made without their attendant resources to see to its logical implementation.

With the plethora of all these self-inflicted difficulties by the government, the president and his appointees, and of course, their surrogates are tone-deaf to the cry of Ghanaians.

Tune to any media, the morning shows, or surf the internet, you would be inundated with monotonous, logorrheic banters between the twin-brothers, NPP and NDC whose only difference is party colors. They indulge in who has stolen more than the other, who borrowed more than the other, so on and so forth.

In these challenging moments amidst the noises, there is one voice absent. I call them the “third voices”.

Those that stand on the side of the suffering masses, those who have no interest in winning political power. The critical voices, the moral society, the discerning voices, the people with conscience, where are they, at this most difficult moment when Ken Ofori-Atta is strangulating our necks with an evil levy, on top of an already biting economic molestation?

It is reminiscing that yesteryears, precisely 2012 to 2016, there were critical voices that challenged and shook the rank and file of government when we had power crises. Everybody that abhorred corruption spoke up against the system then when they heard about GYEEDA, Bus branding saga, SADA scandal, Ford saga, etc. Rather, strangely these voices are not forthcoming today.

What’s changed? The only change now is that John Mahama was in government, but now it is Nana Addo. The conditions that called for the condemnation and criticism of the order then are rife, and more pervasive than one could fancy.

As Nana Addo-Bawumia led government is bent on imposing the evil levy on Ghanaians despite stiff opposition, we only lean on the NDC side of the aisle to oppose further in parliament.

The government will not even listen to their own Kwame Mpianin when he tells them that imposing a new tax in the present times will worsen the economic conditions of most Ghanaians. They will not listen to the minority. The shout of the ordinary Ghanaian dies on the streets, it gets nowhere. At this point, where are the critical voices in all these matters, when we need them most? Where there is leadership, a president will address the nation in response to the groans of the people. All we have seen so far is arrogant posturing by the government and its appointees.

So far, I miss Prof. Martey who when he spoke, “shook the very foundation of the government.” I miss the voice of Ace Annan Ankomah on Newsfile on Saturdays. Corruption still lingers on, where is he, or he does not hear about them? I cannot wait to listen to the prolific Dr. Mensa Otabil of IGCC mount the pulpit to preach the wise sermons on socioeconomic problems that bedevil this nation. I hear he likes to watch animal kingdom movies as lessons for tactical maneuvers. I had whet my appetite to read Manasseh Azure alumni's folder, I’m yet to find some on matters of the nation.

Where is IMANI and it's outspoken Franklin Kudjo who gave us a reason to hope that things can get better? The last time I read on his Facebook wall on their silence, he says we do not sponsor them to talk, so cannot dictate to them when and or what to talk about on national issues. He’s right. Where did they sponsor to talk yesterday? I doubt.

Where is Occupyghana, the other CSOs, where are you? Where is Dr. Steve Manteaw, that I fell in love with? Where is Prof Stephen Addai who had all the answers to Ghana’s economic and educational problems?

We never paid any sum to these few mentioned people, CSOs, and many others that I did not mention but I was convinced anytime I listened to them that when they criticized, the government listened. I believe when they speak now the government will listen.

Where is the once vibrant NUGS, a student body that had a major say in the way things are run in this country? The other day, I saw them organizing a press conference to endorse the evil levy but have not been able to pressure the government to have their lecturers back in the theatre hall, is that one too a student body! An appendage of a sort.

Where is the Peace Council of Ghana? Do you think peace is when there is no war? The people are not happy.

The stool and the skin are loudly silent. We know how some of them declare their support to political parties. We know their palaces are party Headquarters annex, but they must be concerned. Anyways, how can they talk about the evils they endorsed to happen to us?

I cannot wait to hear Malik Dabu in the newspaper review segment of Joynews’ morning show. I will gladly jump to Winstin Amoah and co who composed a melodic song on dumsor if they should do one for the evil levy, at Kokomelemele studio. Where is Bernard Avle of Citi FM, I miss you and the crew at Adabraka. Let the exuberance from 2016 come back.

The silence of the third voice is too loud. The Bimoba folks say that Nikperi Bə sianinba, kpanyuon ki buo saaki, to wit, where there is elderly person(discernible) people do not go astray.

It is in this I am asking our third voices where they are, as the mess is aggravating on a grand scale. When those that matter seat on the fence as the strong tramples down the weak, they are partakers of the sin. Though we did not pay you to speak up yesterday, never, but when you did, we saw results. I am certain if you replicate the same energy today, in opposition to the draconian economic policies of the government, they will listen.

I’m just a young man who fell in love with the discerning, critical voices of the past. The same hardships whip us on daily basis, can you add your voices. Maybe the pharaonic Nana Addo will listen.

May God not harden the heart of “Pharoah” further.

I come in peace, shalom!