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Am I
electrician? Asks President Mills
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
Mr. President, the answer, of course, may
surprise you: Yes, you are. Your ability to create space and
opportunities, just like light does, makes you one.
Your predecessors, at least, understood that. As unnerving as
the term, “Junior Jesus,” was, Jerry John Rawlings understood.
Whether his understanding produced the desired result is a
matter to be argued or discussed another day.
President Kufuor, in 2001, went cap in hand to Nigeria to rescue
the country from energy collapse in the belief that he was the
electrician.
In other lands, the claim, instead of refutation, would have
been “the buck stops here” Mr. President. So please, let us
readjust and reassess the matter. You are THE electrician.
The visit to the Electricity Corporation ought to have been a
glimmer of the understanding of your role as the electrician.
But this role you abandoned with your question “Am I an
electrician?”
Unknown to you at the time of your sad oratorical outburst,
there was hope if only you would put in context what the
Managing Director of the Electricity Corporation said while
standing right by your side:
“The frequency of outages, and the on-and-off, they annoy
everybody including ourselves. What we can say is that his
Excellency's government and the previous government have
facilitated for ECG a lot of money,” he said.
To put the above in plain language, he said your government and
the previous one (Kufuor’s) - two electricians at work - had
invested a lot of money for the solution of the problem. So you
had the moral right to have demanded solution right there from
ECG. Instead, you reduced yourself to self-pity.
I can understand your frustration. I have heard with sadness and
rue so many disparaging things reported about you. The last one
being “Atta ameye hwee;” meaning “Atta has achieved nothing.”
Truth be told, the pain that came with hearing this certainly
cannot compare with that of your grand niece’s experience at the
hairdresser’s shop.
You said, “A seven year old grand niece of mine went to
hairdresser, as they were doing her hair the electricity went
off and all the people there shouted Atta Mills! And the little
girl, thanks to her, said is Atta Mills an electrician?” as
reported by JoyFM.
Fortunately, she wasn’t asked what a seven year old girl was
doing at a beauty shop and for what reason; knowing how hard it
is for some of us to come by money these days!
Still, after hearing your grand niece's lamentation, you should
have kept her dilemma out of public discourse. She, as a child,
may bristle on hearing her” super big time uncle - The
President,” being laughed at by commoners. But you, the
president, should know that some of her tormentors were probably
the same people who voted for you.
Your criticism by some people of Ghana may not be justifiable.
However, remember that these might be the same people who bought
the ticket for your current show. So you have to turn on the
lights, regardless!
Of course, I will not want anyone to call my president “Atta,
the electrician.” But, by turning the subject into a public
discourse, you have made this possible. So take pride in this
new accolade and carry on!
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher
www.ghanadot.com,
Washington, DC, April 25, 2010
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a website,
email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at all.
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