{"id":448513,"date":"2011-06-27T11:49:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T11:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/06\/27\/ghana-when-prof-yankah-brought-dzi-wo-fie-asem-to-the-fore\/"},"modified":"2011-06-27T11:49:36","modified_gmt":"2011-06-27T11:49:36","slug":"ghana-when-prof-yankah-brought-dzi-wo-fie-asem-to-the-fore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/06\/27\/ghana-when-prof-yankah-brought-dzi-wo-fie-asem-to-the-fore\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana: When Prof Yankah Brought Dzi Wo Fie Asem to the Fore!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Ghanaian<\/a><\/p>\n

Ebo Quansah<\/p>\n

24 June 2011<\/p>\n

\n

British Council Hall \u2014 The literary standing of the man delivering the lecture was always going to entice academic-minded Ghanaians to the British Council Hall.<\/p>\n

When it turned out that Prof. Kwesi Yankah, the outgoing Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon, was speaking on the topic – Dzi Wo Fie Asem: Rhetoric and the Politics of Expediency – the space in the hall was naturally over-subscribed.<\/p>\n

Two days before the lecture, word had gone forth from the Vikings’ Secretariat inviting all members to report at the British Council Hall to give the former student, tutor and Hall Master of the only hall of residence at Legon named after a human being, maximum support.<\/p>\n

Trust traffic in Accra to slow down a person’s movement. As I sat by the steering wheel of the old ‘banga,’ meandering my way through narrow alleys in a mad rush to reach the hall in time for the event, my cellular phone kept ringing. I knew Vikings were calling, but with the police alert for those who talk while driving, I ignored all the promptings from the phone.<\/p>\n

Apparently, it was Abusuapanin Kofi Dua-Adonteng, who had triggered the cellular phone into action. When I entered the hall, there was a sizeable number of Vikings present, all with agitated faces. I soon got to know that the source of the agitation was a literature prepared by the Public Affairs Department of the University of Ghana, profiling the speaker.<\/p>\n

It is still difficult to conceptualise how the university named every institution, department and organisation Prof. Yankah has touched with his magic wand, and failed to name Mensah Sarbah Hall, where the professor was mentored as a student and became the senior tutor and hall master.<\/p>\n

“At the University of Ghana, where he officially retires next month, he has served in several capacities, including senior tutor and master respectively of a hall of residence…” It was this description that had angered members of the Mensah Sarbah Hall Alumni Association – the Vikings.<\/p>\n

The contention was that the script might have been prepared by a Vandal who mischievously left out the name of Mensah Sarbah Hall. When the House Master of Mensah Sarbah Hall, Dr. George Dapaah, arrived with his delegation, Vikings moved straight to lodge an official protest. After a few minutes of consultations, it was agreed that science doyen Prof. F.K.A. Allotey, who chaired the function, would be made to mention the name of the hall in his introduction of the speaker.<\/p>\n

That arrangement put Vikings’ hearts at ease for the lecture to commence. So it happened that when the chairman read out Prof. Yankah’s short biography and mentioned that he was a Senior Tutor and Hall Master of Mensah Sarbah Hall, the seal of approval given by Vikings with the Yee ye chant, sent the packed hall giggling.<\/p>\n

The lecture took the audience on a trip down memory lane to various political dispensations since independence, and the terminology that helped to define those regimes in the minds of the ordinary people of this country. “On January 7, 2011, His Excellency the President, in a face to face encounter with the media used a proverb that has now become a household expression – DZI WO FIE ASEM. This incident could be considered as only a trigger for the evening’s talk, which centres on the character of political rhetoric within contemporary history,” Prof. Yankah began.<\/p>\n

The Dzi Wo Fie Asem concept became the peg as a result of the local and international furore it generated in the immediate effects of ex-President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire declaring himself head of state after losing the Ivorian election, universally accepted as won by President Allassane Ouattara.<\/p>\n

The paradox of the Dzi wo Fie Asem declaration was that the President had signed an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) declaration committing all the 15-member-states to arms in the event of dialogue and all persuasions failing to dislodge Gbagbo. As Prof. Yankah eloquently portrayed, the Dzi wo fie asem concept was exploited by officials in the Atta Mills government in different situations to signal that the President was right to resort to that Fanti proverb to underscore national policy towards the Ivorian crisis at the time.<\/p>\n

While the President explained away the concept to indicate that we could not sign onto a declaration this country had already committed itself to, because was not prepared, due to lack of military personnel and logistics, his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, saw Dzi Wo Fie Asem as connoting African solution to African problems in the wake of western powers hijacking the decision-making process in the Ivorian crisis.<\/p>\n

One significant impact of the dzi wo fie asem concept was its ability to mask the real issues at stake; a trend that cut across the use of proverbs and wise-cracks throughout the various regimes.<\/p>\n

A good researcher that the professor is, he tracked down the use of Dzi Wo Fie Asem in various forms along the fisher communities in the Central Region of Ghana. Prof. Yankah told of his encounter with a 70 year-old woman, whose grandmother got the Dzi Wo Fie Asem inscribed on the entrance to the house many years ago.<\/p>\n

The genesis of it was that the original owner of the house always entreated the household not to meddle in the affairs of others. There was a fishing canoe belonging to the household with the same inscription. That canoe, though, is no more sea-worthy.<\/p>\n

Prof. Yankah spoke of political allegory epitomised by the Yutong bus episode made famous in Ghanaian political discourse by Michael Teye Nyaunu. The Member of Parliament of Lower Manya had called for the change of driver in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) primary in Sunyani next month, on the basis that though the bus was new and all gadgets working to perfection, the driver was not well-versed in the art of driving to safely steer the vehicle home.<\/p>\n

Vice-President John Mahama’s solution to the Yutong bus episode is for the passengers to keep the driver awake by giving him stimulants.<\/p>\n

Prof. Yankah took the audience on a trip down memory lane to the various regimes in this country, and the phraseology or proverbs that stood them out. In the Nkrumah regime, a phrase like the declaration of persona non grata masked deportation orders on people classified as non-Ghanaians the authorities wanted out. But, what stood out is the phrase with which the former President declared independence. “The independence of Ghana is meaningless, unless linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.”<\/p>\n

In the opinion of the lecturer, those words gave meaning to Ghana’s own independence, while spelling out the commitment of the newly-independent nation to help with the liberation struggle on the whole continent of Africa.<\/p>\n

In the era of former Prime Minister Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, the former premier’s declaration: ‘Kafo Didi,” the debtor has a right to eat, underscored the dilemma of the time. When austerity had been recommended by international creditors as a condition for re-scheduling Ghana’s debt, the Prime Minister used Kafo Didi to signal to nationals that in spite of external creditors breathing on the neck of his administration, he would not jettison the interest of Ghanaians in favour of the dictates of the nation’s creditors.<\/p>\n

As opposition to the reign gathered momentum, Busia’s assertion was riled thus: Kafo Didi Na Nso Ondi Abenkwan. Yes, a debtor eats, but he does not eat palm soup, indicating that though a debtor has a right to eat, he cannot afford to be expensive with his choice of menu.<\/p>\n

When Kutu Acheampong removed the Busia regime and repudiated Ghana’s debts, he coined the phrase ‘Yenntua’. We won’t pay. He also coined the phrase: ‘Capturing the commanding heights of the economy to rationalise the nationalisation of some foreign assets, as well as state acquisition of majority shares in all foreign operations in the country.’<\/p>\n

“The politics of political expediency,” he said “becomes more pronounced by multiple voices that seek to shed light on subtle or public policy assertions by a President. The contemporary political practice makes ministers Government spokesmen in their own right.”<\/p>\n

In the opinion of Prof. Yankah, the proliferation of spokespersons for office holders, who are themselves spokespersons, is muffling the message in the ears of the audience. He used the example of the recent experience, when the spokesperson for the Vice-President mis-communicated a decision reached with the World Bank, and created so much furore in the body politic.<\/p>\n

“The situation conveys the impression of a rather wobbly executive apparatus, which needs parallel structures for reinforcement or double assurance.” In the opinion of the speaker, the proliferation of spokespersons in all fronts in our political discourse might not be very necessary.<\/p>\n

He also kicked Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s ‘All die Be Die’ mantra to party faithful to guard the vote to touch; suggesting that it could be misconstrued to mean a call to arms by the faithful, while opponents might view it as reason to be combative in their discourse with adherent of the mantra.<\/p>\n

Prof. Yankah was ill at ease with the establishment of the Heroes Fund by the NDC. “The current state of rhetoric in the public sphere is a cause for alarm. Regardless of the real intent of the prevailing party slogans, I dare say that the establishment of a Heroes Fund by one party, and the adoption of an ‘All die be die’ slogan by another party, are bad news for peace and democracy. They are liable to interpretation as institutional preparation for lawlessness, hooliganism and civil strife in Election 2012.<\/p>\n

“Indirectly however, they both constitute an indictment on a partisan state security apparatus that cannot even even-handedly discharge their constitutional obligations of protecting life and limb, and a state that appears to lack a reliable mechanism for non-partisan celebration of national heroes, leaving this to the capricious designs of individual parties,” Prof. Yankah stated.<\/p>\n

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