Lets stop the insults of leadership

This is a post I shared on my Facebook page to bring to the fore the need to stop the abuse and unbridled castigation of our leaders without proffering any evidence. I have also added some of the comments made by my friends on Facebook.

 So we started this long time ago, where we use kids to castigate & cast aspersions on our leaders. This has not stopped, last time during the 2012 elections we were using some kids in James Town to call one of the Presidential candidates of an opposition party by an allegation that is unsubstantiated & just this month we also saw schools kids taunting president by some unsubstantiated allegations. Ghana we have done this forever. We should stop it. Tomorrow is the state of the nations address,

I hope we will stop this tradition that was meted out to President Kuffour, President Mills and now to PresidentJohn Dramani Mahama, where right on the floor of parliament the President is overly heckled.

Yes some of us might not agree with the President & his policies. But lets respect the sanctity of the Presidency of the Republic of Ghana, the soul of the nations. There are better ways and opportunities to express our disagreement. Insults of our leaders is alien to our culture, lets not let the Whiteman’s way of life destroy our time tested traditions. After all the people we copy do not do that.

At least I did not see it in the last state of the Union address by Obama.

My friend Nii Anang T as  Bro Edem Ashigbi and when you read Nkrumah’s Dark Days, it talks quite extensively , about how the subversive forces used kids in this otherwise pathetic manner.. In response to this I responded to him saying I know! but we should stop this and I hope the state of the nation address will not be characterized by a lot heckling today. Thank God as I write this piece I am listening to the President speak and there has been little or no heckling at all. I hope by the time you read this our honorable MPs will not have change their decorum.

My friend Eben Akuamoah Boateng who decides to call me seniors says, “this has come at a better time. We hope things will be done right. We are still in the 21st century” and Quabena Buating says “Well done friend. I bet to even say Europe do not practice politics of insults. It’s sad all over the place filthy words are used. I really do believe we the young ones has a lot to offer the nation through respect for each other. I do not believe in certain areas of policies by government but to be derogatory is so wrong. Thanks”. My brother-in-law Ben Hyde says, “Pozo, rightly said but until our leaders learn to respect themselves and be disciplined enough to act with some decency nothing will change. Our children learn by observing and acting it out. I heard what happened last and the teachers see no wrong with it. Also civil society groups were defending it on the airwaves, our children listened to them and I believe would even get them more confused because they wouldn’t know right from wrong. God have our motherland!!!” To that I replied to his post that but we are the leaders, so lets all start respecting ourselves & be disciplined. We should also speak against ills in society when we see them & also we should contribute to the change we want to see & not just talk about them”.

So Akonta Ben Hyde replied again saying, “Yes, we are the leaders but I am referring to those in political offices however not counting myself out. They have more visibility in terms of media coverage and therefore reach out to more people at a time using the media platforms.”

For Shika Acolatse this is what she had to say. “I am very sad that we are leading our children by showing them and encouraging them to do the wrong things! I strongly believe we all have a responsibility to fix this before it get nasty. The media’s support cannot be over emphasized”. Wilma Akuya agree with me and says “we owe it to ourselves to retain our dignity. the wrong and shameful need not and should not be repeated”.

So as a country we should live our culture, if we have evidence that our leaders have wronged us, lets use the laid down systems to address it. But the culture of just peddling insults and denigrating our leaders without evidence is not the best. It does not strengthen our country and democracy.

God bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.

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