“He who thinks he is leading and has no one following him is only taking a walk.”– Malawian proverb
Ever heard of the game pilolo? It is a hide and seek game. In the case of pilolo it is not the human being who hides. An object is rather hidden and the participants made to look for it. The person who finds the object wins the round. The dose is repeated for an agreed number of rounds and the one with the highest score becomes the winner.
Sometimes the one who hides the object mischievously colludes with one of the participants so as to make him the winner. When that happens, and the other participants become suspicious, the resultant effect is a total boycott. Otherwise, an undeserving participant is crowned winner.
Being an ardent reader of this column, you would have noticed that I’ve on many occasions referred to the Alfred Agbesi Woyome trial as a ‘pilolo’ trial. This is because it is more than obvious that the prosecution, which is representing the state, has colluded with the accused. And have I not been vindicated?
Without a doubt, the acquittal and discharge of the bespectacled bald-headed Woyome by an Accra High Court last Thursday is currently the hottest topic in town. I was writing an examination when the presiding judge delivered his verdict. When I checked my mobile phone soon after the examination, I had received numerous whatsapp messages and missed calls.
Wondering why the many calls and messages? They sent them to congratulate me for correctly predicting the outcome of the Woyome trial years ago. Even as I write, some continue to wonder what I saw that convinced me so much that the trial was a charade.
But the truth is that one did not need any extra brilliance or prowess to predict the outcome of the trial. From the Rambo-style arrest, through the sacking of the Citizen Vigilante, to the pilolo trial, one could clearly tell that the Zu-za government had no intention of convicting the man, who is one of them.
The collusion of officials in the Attorney-General’s (A-G’s) office, the Finance Ministry and the Presidency in creating, looting and sharing the 51 million cowries is too glaring for even the blind to see. Is it any wonder that the prosecution deliberately avoided using the key players in the saga during the trial in order to cover the pure act of thievery through an acquittal?
It has now emerged that the famous Exhibit 32 in the trial, used by Woyome, was a document leaked to him from the A-G’s office. Is it not baffling that a confidential memo exchanged by the hierarchy of the A-G’s office would end up in the hands of an accused person, and be used in creating loopholes in the prosecution’s case? Tell me this is a genuine trial and I would tell you Atta Ayi, the infamous armed robber, is the pope.
Am I surprised such pure thievery is allowed to go unpunished? No, I’m not. When you have a man who is infected with ‘ogwanfunu’ (dead-goat) syndrome at the helm of affairs, the result is looting galore. With such a leader, your groaning and complains are referred to as ‘‘useless lamentations’’.
Now that Woyome has been acquitted and discharged, my compatriots try to console themselves with the Supreme Court ruling which had ordered him to pay the 51 million cowries. If I may ask; how many years now since the Citizen Vigilante secured that verdict at the Supreme Court? Massa, let’s forget it! With the man in-charge still infected with ogwanfunu syndrome, it is as good as kissing the cowries good-bye.
Abusuapanin, even if we are able to retrieve the cowries, do you know how much the state would have lost by not claiming interest? Massa, is this a country worth dying for?
I hear there has been a ministerial reshuffle. It’s good that Hon ‘Don’t-Ask-Useless-Questions’ has been given the boot. But what would be the effect of the reshuffle? A Dagarti friend would say, ‘‘The value is the SHAME.’’
I leapt for joy when I saw Ambassador Alhaji Haruna Atta in his elements in faraway Botswana. When Alhaji came out publicly and chastised the Osono soon after the 2012 polls and offered to serve in whatever capacity in Mahama’s government, some of us smelled opportunism. His opportunistic tendencies have yielded results, haven’t they? He is now a diplomat, even if it is an African state. Alhaji, Ka na lafia?
Lest I forget, my unsolicited counsel to the ogwanfunu syndrome-infested president is that he can continue classifying our moaning and groaning as “useless lamentations’’. But he should remember that “useless lamentations” did help in making him president. Regarding the ogwanfunu syndrome, we shall cure him of that ailment with doses of ‘kokromoti’ power on December 7, 2016.
See you next week for another interesting konkonsa, Deo volente!
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