You are ‘okro mouth’!

In this country to say one is ‘okro mouth’ or one has an ‘okro mouth’ means the person is indiscrete. It is the description of a person who goes about sharing all information, whether public, intimate or classified!

I remember being reprimanded by my mother, when as a child and in my childishness, divulged innocuous family information about her itinerary the previous day to a friend who had visited.

The way and manner my mother chided me, including the words, “you are ‘okro mouth” purged me of all inclination of divulging any information at all to third parties.

So, when on Wednesday, October 13, 2020, the Deputy Minister of Defence, Major Rtd. Derrick Oduro, sharply rebuked one of my kind for being ‘okro mouth’, I was really amused and gingered up to write a response.

In Maj. Oduro’s tirade against journalists, who had surrounded him for a response to the announcement by the Interior Minister, Mr Ambrose Dery, that the Parliamentary Protection Unit was to be beefed up with 200 police personnel, he, among other accusations, said journalists were causing disaffection for Members of Parliament (MPs) and were also inciting the public to do same.

He said journalists had risen against MPs, as if they were from Afghanistan or the Congo River Basin and supplanted in Ghana to serve the country.

“Meanwhile, you voted for us. You are supposed to love us, get us closer to you. But you hate parliamentarians...”.

Okro mouth

Yes, Mr Minister, I do not only belong to the fraternity of those with ‘okro mouth’, but I am also against parliamentarians who do no work!

I am against parliamentarians, who promise me the moon when needing my mandate, only to give me the scorching sun when in power!

Now the argument is that the brouhaha by Ghanaians over the bodyguards of parliamentarians is misplaced, it should rather be at the executive, who are in charge of all that goes on in the country.

That argument for me is also misplaced.

The Minister for the Interior, did not come to seek my vote to become a minister. He was appointed by the President, and to the President he stands accountable if he fails in ensuring security for all.

However, it was for my mandate that my MP campaigned, and when he did that, he assured me that he was going to represent me in the House of Representatives.

He was going to stand in there, as though I was there myself, detailing my grievances and challenges, detailing my insecurity as a resident of my community, and lobbying for redress.

That was the social contract I had with him or her.

Maj. Oduro in his tirade said MPs could not hold a cane and beat the executive into order.

His exaggeration does not detract from the fact of Parliamentary oversight, where Parliament supervises the executive to ensure that the aspirations of citizens are realised.

The various committees of Parliament, comments on the floor of Parliament and even press conferences are but a few of the ways parliamentarians could employ to ensure executive action.

Be all

Maj. Oduro then foists the fact of voting for a particular candidate as the be all and end all of the existence of Parliamentarians! Stating that journalists are supposed to love MPs and get them closer, is to say the least preposterous!

The relationship between journalists and those that wield power is never a love relationship or a cozy one! When that relationship gets cozy, it ceases to be journalism, and the journalist rather becomes a propagandist.

Our job is not to love you, Mr Minister. My job is to shine a light to your acts of omission or commission that is depriving the common man or woman from realising his or her dreams.

An eyewitness at the scene of the attack on the MP for Mfantseman on Joy FM said when the MP was accousted by the armed robbers, one said, “You are an MP. You MPs have made life difficult for us in Ghana!”

The killing of the MP is sad and harrowing; the words of the robber is, however, a reality of our time.

Writer’s E-mail: caroline.boateng@graphic.com.gh