The Foibles Of A Deputy Minister

Baba Jamal�s obsession with making his mark in propaganda politics has often been greeted with hiccups. In fact, he set off on a wrong foot in politics and has since been seen as one who blunders over everything he sets out to tackle. While sometimes we think he deserves sympathy as he incessantly falters on the rough road of local politics, others think he deserves what he has suffered all along- from the ill-fated jihad effusion to the cow-for-sheep blunder. If his assignment in the Eastern Region failed to enamour him to the good people of this country, the Ministry of Information transfer has exposed him to public opprobrium; one which has left his underbelly bare for the toxic arrows of political commentators. Having recoiled into his cocoon for a while since the voice controversy in the North exploded, with the government machinery rushing to rescue him from the sharks of local politics, he appears to have had his wounds healed. Unfortunately for him, his return to the field of abrasive propaganda has been met with avoidable challenges, leaving his bones without any trace of flesh. If the cow-for-sheep joke could be pardoned, an outright lie about the president�s academic qualification only shows deliberate mischief and recklessness of the highest order. Baba Jamal�s case has been aggravated by the already horrible impression people on both sides of the political divide have created about him- a good for nothing politician, full of nonsensical noise. Putting the academic qualifications of the President on the public domain in the manner in which Baba Jamal did is not only cheap and puerile but smacks of unpardonable recklessness. We are constrained to point out the debasement of political engagement in the country as chaps like the man under review use academic qualifications to define performance in political office. Never in the history of post-independence Ghana has governance been reduced to such depths. If there is any correlation between academic qualification and indeed the class of a degree from the university, experience, as exhibited by renowned politicians such as Winston Churchill and others have punctured holes in this premise. An attempt at presenting Nana Akufo Addo as an academic misfit, as Baba Jamal sought to do, could only expose the busybody deputy minister�s hatred, if you like envy, for the man who leads the largest opposition grouping in the country and one whose feather-studded cap brilliantly depicts him as one who erased the criminal libel law from the statute books, an important milestone in local democracy. Whether we like it or not, Nana Akufo Addo and others playing their part on the political landscape are the country�s leaders who should be deserving of our respect and acknowledgement. Anything short of this, is unacceptable in the kind of country we seek to build for posterity yet unborn. We countenance the ilk of Baba Jamal at the peril of our political development given his penchant for unnecessary polemics just to attract the attention of his boss, the President, even if he decides not to wink an eye in disappointment, at least not in public or under the glare of TV cameras anyway.