Scapegoats In Head Teachers

Government has found scapegoats for the gruelling ‘Won gbo’ demonstration it suffered at the hands of incensed and disillusioned Ghanaians in the streets of Accra last week Wednesday.

The find came after a painstaking search by those seeking to please the president in a useless bout of eye-servicing. We doubt whether the Number One Citizen who said the protest would encourage him to end the power outages will be amused.

Innocent head teachers of four schools whose pupils joined the “dumsor and Mahama is a……” chorus are appropriate scapegoats for a demoralised and almost befuddled government, following the mammoth demonstration which reverberated even on international networks.

The reprimanding of the head teachers whose pupils were on break at the time of the demonstration and who joined in the chorus spontaneously, as a so-called investigation is under way, according to deputy education minister             in-charge of tertiary education Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, is nothing but a show of megalomania and desperation by a government pushed to the corner.

In an age where some JHS pupils are conversant with ICT, own smart phones and even listen to radio, thinking that they are oblivious of most topical issues of the day – as government is doing by this weird action – is to exhibit ignorance of the highest order.

These are kids who study and do their homework at the façade of financial institutions and other companies which can afford generators when the lights go off – something they were not doing before now.

In any case, did not the ruling party organise kids to chant unprintable words against the then presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2008 at the time it was in opposition?

Indeed, there is a marked difference between what was meted out to Nana Akufo-Addo and what President John Mahama suffered at the hands of the kids during the ‘Won gbo’ demonstration.

While Nana Akufo-Addo’s was orchestrated by the then opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), the one which took place during the recent demonstration was not. The kids, in this case, were within the confines of their schools enjoying their break when the protesters came marching on.

Deciding on the unfortunate head teachers came of course, as a result of the lost love relationship already existing between government and teachers. What an opportunity to spawn vengeance on those who went on strike against it and added to its woes.

There appears to be no end to the fallouts from the recent ‘Won gbo’ demonstration, others having preceded the subject under review.

In any case, punishing the head teachers will only worsen the plight of the government and the earlier those behind the smelly manoeuvres retracted their decision the better it will be.

If there is anything like political risk, as Okudzeto claims the kids were exposed to as though they were coached to join in the refrain, we remind him about the choreography of school children answering the campaign chorus of “Are your parents able to pay your school fees?” during the 2008 campaign of the NDC? What a demonstration!

Source: editorial/daily guide