GENERAL SYMPTOMS OF POLITICS

Dear Nyaaba,’

As I ferried my flesh and bones to the plantation this morning, I heard from my ‘akasanoma”, which I have jealously protected in a khaki purpose-built holder, that there is after all a logic to this business of governing the village.

Nyaaba, it is a relief which comes to settle a long-persisting worry I have nursed; whether or not our elders and the chief have bothered to learn the ropes of governance. It confounds my thinking that for a job as important as the national chief no work experience is required, just a loose collation of random school certificates and proof of  half-executed projects as well as parts played in the political drama of the village.

So went off I did to foreign lands to find out if the regimes were different and to my disappointment, I found that our lot here in Nkrumahland is very better. Some people have it worse.

So this morning as I drove to work I was startled at some revelations. On the radio was a literary exercise, a book review of sorts. The book was Imperium I think and the author was so refreshingly frank and well rooted in the art of painting vivid imagery.

As the banter went on I picked up a few words and phrases which I thought were not only true but rather artfully rendered.

“Power brings a man many luxuries, a clean pair of hands is not one of them”.

“As a politician, when in doubt as to what to do next, start a fight and while it rages, you will know what next to do”

“The making of laws is in many ways like the making of sausages, one is better off not watching too closely”

To top my morning was the one in which President Francois Mitterrand was asked what was the most important quality in a leader, to which he replied,” I should probably be saying “integrity” but I would rather say “indifference”.

Voila, they are the same, everywhere and every time!