SO MUCH ROT-WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Living several nautical miles away from home, my heart beats every minute for what transpires daily in Ghana My-Happy-Home. My sure bet for information has always been www.myjoyonline.com. Let me pause for a second and say kudos to the team at the Multi-Media Broadcasting Corporation (or is it Company?), for always doing what Napoleon could not accomplish. Kwesi Twum, may your vision transcend many more borders.

Events in recent times, as I gather from my source, are not only heartbreaking, but they also smack of a lot of rot in the system. So, thinking aloud this evening, I asked myself; after 52 long years, when we seem to be persistently taking one step forward and two steps backwards; where are we going from here? Are we ever going to be able to get to that place where anybody in their right senses will describe as a middle income level status? Can’t we for just once get some of the simple things of life right?

Listening to News-Night this evening on Joy Fm, I heard a pregnant woman died at the La Hospital, apparently through the negligence of the staff. I wasn’t too surprised because, things like that are almost a commonplace occurrence in Ghana. Not even her baby could be saved. How sad! The bereaved husband objected to a suggestion of a post-mortem. He feels it is unnecessary as that was not going to bring back his wife nor the baby. Besides, he would have to bear the cost of the post-mortem. So I guess, on the strength of his argument, the said post-mortem was not conducted. A very vital information regarding the actual cause of the death of this woman, has been lost. My questions:
Must the husband give his consent before a post-mortem is performed?
Must he bear the cost of the post-mortem?
Shouldn’t the hospital staff and authority be taken on for failure to do the post-mortem?
Can we or can we not suspect the husband for the death of the woman, for insisting (with a silly, flimsy excuse) that the post-mortem was unnecessary?

I heard Dr. Elias Asore, head of the Ghana Medical Service, trying to explain away the situation. According to him, they would normally perform a maternal death audit to ascertain the cause of death. So what prevented them from doing so? So much rot.

Another rot; I wrote about it a couple of days ago; is the killing spree that the Ghana Police has embarked on lately. It is code-named “Operation: Calm Life”. Indeed. As a result, they mount road blocks and snap checks on heavy traffic roads in the cities, as early as 7 pm. This does not make any sense. No armed-robber in his right elements will go car snatching on such heavy traffic roads as early as 7 pm. The police only end up slowing the already bad traffic situation and compounding the stress of tired workers who want to get home early and rest their wearied heads. The police should get their acts together and reason properly for once.

Then even before the dust settles on Obama’s “audacity of hops”- the beer solution to racial profiling, another racial fire is being stoked. This time, at the center of the furore is the young Ghanaian; Eric Frimpong (aka Saviola), who has decided to stray so far away from care, to make the loose ends a wretched young Ghanaian life, meet somewhere on the breezy coasts of Santa Barbara in Obamaland. The young man is languishing in jail; and maybe for the next 7 years; if the gods of his forefathers at Antoa, do not arise early enough from a long slumber to intervene. His crime? They said he could not tame the ‘langalanga’ between his small thighs. He has been charged with the rape of a white drunk American girl from his school. The most compelling evidence in the case, paradoxically goes in his favor. The sperm found on the girl has been proved to belong to the girl’s boy friend and not Eric. Can we also do that in Ghana? This fact not withstanding, the all white, three-man, six-woman jury found Eric guilty.

For me, the most intriguing dilemma in all this rot is the loud silence and conspicuous absence of action on the part of the Ghana Embassy in the US. So many groups and individuals-mostly white- in the US, are fighting for the re-trial or release of the young man. I am yet to hear the position of the Ghana mission that is charged with the moral and constitutional duty of representing the interest of Ghana and her citizens in Obamaland, on this issue. Are we supposed to believe that age-old axiom that silence means consent? Rot. So much rot everywhere. Where do we go from here?

Well, I will be here in the cold, and as usual let my controversial pen do the talking, while I sit back and watch.

Worla 03-08-09.