This morning, I received a video of a New Patriotic Party (NPP) National executive member insulting Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng.
I cannot repeat some of the terms used. How can anyone insult the first black one to perform a heart transplant with such words?
Since then, I have reflected a lot on intellect, leadership and national development. We used to respect achievement, but we don’t anymore and that is why Ghana is regressing.
A few months ago, I heard Asiedu Nketia stating that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo once said, “We seek power with fools”, quoting an Akan proverb.
One may successfully seek power with fools but one cannot govern successfully with fools– unless the objective is to just “loot and share”.
Over a decade ago, I was chatting with the late Alhaji Gibrine when some youth from Central Region came by to urge him to contest for Central Region Secretary. Alhaji said, “Oh, Regional Secretary dze oy3 akrakyefo hon adwuma. Ame dze manko school ntsi mentumi ny3!”.
He was right. Virtually every transformative social movement have been led either openly or from behind the scenes by intellect.
Ordinary Americans fought but it was the intellect of Jefferson and Franklin and Hamilton that made the American revolution successful.
They marched in Paris, but it was the intellect of Cardinal Talleyrand-Perigord and others which moved things. The Russians marched but Lenin’s intellect was indispensable to the success of the revolution.
Lee Kwan Yew had a first class from Oxford and Mahathir was a great physician, as was France’s Clemenceau. Even in Ghana, the leaders of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society were not street urchins– they were distinguished Attorneys and businessman.
Nkrumah had a master’s degree in divinity, Busia was a Professor, Limann had a PhD and spoke 6 languages, Kufuor picked up every Prize in sight at Prempeh College before breezing through Oxford.
And Mills was a Fulbright Scholar who got a PhD before turning 30! As for Rawlings, he once said, “We staged our coup so that men like Anang and P.V. Obeng could implement their ideas!”
Even the 4th Republic started with respect for intellect. Da Rocha, Ala Adjetey and P.V. Obeng were no slouches. But since then, we have moved far in the wrong direction.
Now don’t get me wrong. There are intelligent, uneducated men and women but respectfully, let us bet on intellect. Listen to Frimpong Boateng, Nyaho Tamakloe, Prof Adjepong, Efua Laing and Ernest Afflu etc on Medicine and Development– to Prof. Azar Asare and Domelovo on accounting, Max Logan, Paintsil and Bondzi-Simpson on Law, George Twumasi and Boadu Ayeboafo and Adjoa Yeboah Afari on media , Prof Anegashie and Kutsoatsi on Economics and Kwame Pianim and Goosie Tandoh and Yaw Nsarkoh on anything! And I missed quite a bunch.
These are the men and women who will move us forward! The world has never been moved forward by twooboi men and women. A nation that does not know the difference between twooboi men and its deep thinkers is doomed.
Yes, freedom of expression is foundational to democracy, but we are not obligated to listen to every ignoramus. Our media houses owe us a duty not to pollute our airways with, tafraky3, ignoramuses.
Too many now in our politics think insult is a winning political strategy. But no insult has ever built a bridge of healed a sick person or built a road! Long live Ghana.
