Murtala and Ayariga in a tangled foxtrot... While Segbefia beats the ‘agbadza’ drums
I had been shocked in the last week by the reckless behaviour of one deputy minister, the ill-thought and tribalistic talk of a minister-designate, and the very arrogant posture of a cabinet minister.
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The Minister of Health-designate, Alex Segbefia, last week asked indigenes of the Volta Region, where he hails from, to take advantage of his ministerial appointment to develop their region.
Ordinarily, this could have been a harmless statement, but considering it that Ghanaians have repeatedly expressed the desire to eliminate tribal and ethnocentric politics, Segbefia’s call on ‘his people’ to take advantage of his ministerial position against all the other ethnic groups in Ghana is troublesome.
“Ministerial positions are like [those of] football coaches and so you do not know when you will be changed so if you do not use me while I am there, don’t blame anybody tomorrow,” Segbefia confidently told his ‘nye bros’ in the Volta Region.
Though he has been forced by public outcry to withdraw his statement, no one can convince Ghanaians that his mind has been completely cleaned of this disturbing tribal political thinking.
Perhaps, Segbefia needs to be reminded of how under the Acheampong Regime in the 1970s, Col. George Minyilah championed the rapid development of Koforidua, the Eastern regional capital, though he hailed from the northern part of the country, while then Commander Joy Amedume changed the face of Cape Coast, though he was not a Fanti but an Ewe from Segbefia’s Volta Region.
Clearly, people like Segbefia with such ethnocentric thinking and approach to how Ghana should be developed should not have been given responsibilities in government.
Unacceptable ideas
His withdrawal of the statement notwithstanding, he must be ashamed of having such ideas in the 21st century when Ghanaians talk about one nation, one people, one destiny, while he goes about beating the famous agbadza drums of the people of the Volta Region instead of singing “yen ara asaase ni”, the national patriotic song which urges us on to build the nation in unity.
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The arrogance of our media friend Mahama Ayariga, the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, has now become legendary. Not long ago, he said journalists asked him useless and senseless questions when they asked him as Minister of Sports, to account for his stewardship in relation to Ghana’s participation in the Africa Cup of Nations.
Now it is alleged that last week he told Ghanaians to buy their own generator sets if they were willing to have constant and uninterrupted supply of electricity.
If this was truly what he said, then I am at a loss as to the solution being proposed by a cabinet minister to such a big national problem, where the erratic electricity supply for about three years has caused companies and factories to either close down or operate at about a quarter of their capacities.
I pray that he didn’t mean what is being attributed to him otherwise it could be really sickening to hear that from a minister in charge of the application of science, technology and innovation for the development of Ghana. Did he consider how many people from the Bawku Central Constituency of the Upper East Region, where he is the sitting Member of Parliament (MP), could buy themselves generators?
Is it not surprising that Ayariga, who, from the sweat and toil of the people of Ghana, including the hard-working but poor people of Bawku, had scholarship for his education, would be telling the people to buy their own generators, when he is using a generator in a house paid for and fuelled by the taxpayer?
Sharp brains
There is no wonder President John Mahama still faces a daunting task in finding a solution to the erratic energy situation, when he has people like Mahama Ayariga as cabinet ministers. I really pity the President; he needs sharp brains to help solve the country’s problems, but it’s sad to say that it doesn’t seem that he is getting that critical support from some of the people in his government, and sadly, he also lacks the willpower to dispense with such people.
Let’s come to the very outrageous, reckless and disturbing utterances of the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry and National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Nanton, Mohammed Murtala, raising questions about the quality and conduct of some of our ministers.
Murtala, while speaking on a radio station, accused a cabinet minister in the same government he serves as engaging a girlfriend of another cabinet minister to film his colleague in sexually compromising positions to be used to disgrace the said unnamed minister.
As if that was not enough, the deputy minister said some of his colleague ministers from the northern part of Ghana had filthy and ill-gotten money with which they bribed northern chiefs and mallams to keep them silent.
In his rage, Murtala even used the ‘f’ word. Listen to him on the radio: “Let no hypocrite in the party stop me when I begin to speak. Filthy money, ill-gotten money! They should not underestimate the consequences of my actions, and no one, no mallam, or chief, or anybody should dare call me when I speak up, because people have given them money to shut up, filthy money, ill-gotten money. Who the f…k are you? Are you God?!”
Statements such as these from a deputy minister who has inside knowledge of government, accusing cabinet ministers of filthy and ill-gotten money used in bribery are serious and should have attracted a very swift action by the government.
Elsewhere, Murtala should have been fired immediately, yet the government and the NDC party seem to be just fondling the deputy minister without the public seeing any action against him.
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Very shockingly, the Northern Regional NDC Chairman, Sofo Azorka, in one breath said he had set up a committee made up of two MPs, the party’s council of elders and the Northern Regional Minister to examine Murtala’s case and give directions on the way forward, but at the same time he was defending Murtala.
Speaking on an Accra radio station, Azorka said: “We hear a lot of nonsense on radio stations and in Parliament and nothing happens; it is wrong for any Chief Imam or mallam to ask that the President should sack Murtala, and moreover he didn’t mention anybody’s name in his allegation.”
How can this party chairman defend a deputy minister who has accused cabinet ministers of getting filthy and ill-gotten money with which they are bribing chiefs and mallams?
Being in government is a privilege, hence ministers of state and other government appointees must always show humility in their utterances and actions. Regrettably, we do not see this in many of our present government ministers and other appointees.
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President Mahama must realise that the buck stops with him and, therefore, he needs to be a little sterner on his appointees than we have seen. Most of the problems he has faced have come from the attitudes and actions of some of his ministers and other appointees.
The NDC has many capable and distinguished people who could be better ministerial materials, and one had long hoped the President would spare us the agony of having to live with these arrogant, disrespectful, inexperienced and sometimes ethnocentric appointees.
The writer is a Political Scientist and Media and Communication Expert.
Writer’s email : fasado@hotmail.com