True State Of The Nation Address
President John Evans Mills
The president reminds me of the Jaguar Jokers and Ahanta Trio of yesteryears. Co-incidentally, the Jaguar Jokers happened to come from the Central region where President Mills comes from. Those were the days when concert party was a craze and we the unschooled urchins would carry benches to the venues, hoping that when the place became full the promoter would let us in with the benches. When you are lucky to be allowed in, you were not even allowed to sit on the bench. We happily sat on the floor to watch the show. Those were the days when money was a really scarce commodity. If you do not have any bench in your house, you make sure you fetch water for the bandsmen and come in the night to watch the show. If you are not lucky and did not see the one you fetched water for, you are not allowed in. In such circumstances, you wait outside the gate until the ‘free gate’ is opened. And that happened when the show was about to come to an end.
The Jaguar Jokers and Ahanta Trio will make you laugh till you wet your pants. As I looked at President Mills delivering his State of the Nation address on the floor of parliament, I cast my mind back to those days when the jokers entertained us. I have had the opportunity of listening to six US presidents, from Nixon to Obama, and also listened to Mr. Rawlings and Mr. Kufuor for the eight years that each of these gentlemen ruled the nation. As compared to the aforementioned gentlemen, Mills was a joker on that Wednesday morning when he had the opportunity to address the august house. He simply repeated the same shameful act he performed when he had the rare opportunity to address the United Nations General Assembly. This is a man who still thinks providing school uniforms, exercise books and constructing classroom blocks are enviable achievements and a legacy. As if no other government ever did same. We need to thank God for small mercies because in a matter of 10 months, this burden will be taken off our necks. On a more serious note, my dear reader, permit me to deliver the True State of the Nation Address.
Madam Speaker, Madam Chief Justice, Members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen. As the Constitution of Ghana demands, I am obliged to deliver the State of the Nation address to this august house at the beginning of every year. The difference between that of this year and the previous years’ is that I am on my way out as the president of Ghana and I can assure you that this will surely be the very last time that you will ever hear this voice in this house. I would have wished to come here again next year but from all indications, I have failed to deliver the gargantuan promises I made to the good people of this country in the run-up to the 2008 general election, so “I sack myself”.
Madam speaker, I have come to realize rather very late that it is always easier said than done and I would like to use this opportunity to profusely apologize to Ghanaians, particularly, those who voted for me, for disappointing them. The gospel truth is that all is not well in this country. Almost all the towns and cities are engulfed by filth and hard as we tried to surmount the problem, it still remained so. From Agbogbloshie to Kaneshie, Kumasi to Tamale and beyond, people are dying of cholera as refuse dumps keep piling up. When we wrote in our manifesto that we could take one 100 days to do away with filth in the country, we thought it was possible because we had plans to commandeer tipper trucks and bulldozers across the length and breadth of the country to evacuate refuse dumps but sadly, owners of these vehicles disappointed us badly. To add insult to injury, monies which could have been used to purchase tipper trucks and bulldozers to do the job were stolen by Alfred Agbesi Woyome, a thief who came in from the crowd unannounced and unnoticed.
Madam Speaker, this reminds me of the promise I made to fight corruption till the last drop of my blood, during my swearing-in ceremony. For the past three years, this canker called corruption has been following me like the protruding belly of Koku Anyidoho. From my MMDCEs to ministers of state and party executives, the value is the same. When my predecessor, Mr. Kufuor said corruption started from the days of Adam, I laughed at him because I knew I could banish corruption from the shores of Ghana. Three years after holding the reins of power, I have come to understand him better. Madam Speaker, I want you to apologize to him on my behalf and also extend my apologies to the founder of our great party, Mr. Rawlings, for ignoring his advice. If I had heeded his warning that there were some greedy bastards surrounding me, the situation would have been different. “Efo Kwashievi Rawlings, me dekuku na wo.”
My brothers and sisters, another gargantuan failure of my government was the issue of subduing armed robbers. I promised the good people of this country that as president of Ghana, citizens would always go about their duties without fear of being attacked by armed robbers. Three years after coming to power, my government has woefully failed to subdue these criminals and nation wreckers. The sad aspect of this failure is that this time around, policemen who are supposed to arrest these criminals are rather killed day after day. These undesirable elements have become so daring that the other day, they ambushed a military vehicle on the outskirts of Obuase and seized the guns of the soldiers. Madam Speaker, I bow down my head in shame for this failure.
My brothers and sisters, fate did not treat me well at all as far as the issue of inflation is concerned. Even though my government has been able to bring down inflation to a single digit, prices of goods and services continue to skyrocket. As I am speaking to you now, the price of a bag of cement is heading towards GH¢20 and the dream of the poor Ghanaian worker to own a house for himself and family has been dashed. If Adam Smith and other imminent economists were to be alive today, they would have redefined inflation.
Ladies and gentlemen, my promise of introducing a one-time premium for the National Health Insurance Scheme has hit the rocks. Dr. Kumbour and Rojo Mettle Nunoo disappointed me and I will never forgive them. And when I decided to introduce Capitation to replace the one-time payment, this Kumasi people kicked against it. They brought in their ‘Ashanti thing’ to destroy everything. How I wish next time they would broaden their horizon like the way Kobby Acheampong has done. These Kumasi people, Hmmm! They do not understand anything. They did the same thing to Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Madam speaker, sometimes I wish this particular region is carved out of Ghana so that they could become a state of their own. See what Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, an Ashanti woman, and her FONKAR did and continue to do to me! The Ashanti people are bad paa and I will ruthlessly deal with them before, during and after the general elections. Habba!
Before I take my seat, Madam Speaker, permit me to shamefully retract my promise to fight the cocaine menace. When cocaine turned into konkonte, I seized the opportunity to hoodwink Ghanaians by telling them that such a thing would never happen under my presidency. To punish me for lying to Ghanaians, cocaine turned into baking soda under my presidency.
Madam Speaker, Members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, as I leave you in sorrow, if I am given the opportunity again to choose between being the president of Ghana and a labourer at the Ashanti Goldfields, I will choose the latter. As the president of Ghana, my name has become so cheap that even if you sell it for one Ghana cedi, nobody will buy it. Thank you.
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