An exercise in speculation

Having been paid for the last 20+ years to read the fine print in big contracts, this writer believes she has a fairly good grasp of how they are written and of the different loopholes less-than-honest negotiators can exploit for their own interests.

Although people from every country of the world could find similarities with contracts that made the headlines in their own motherland, this write-up is by no means intended to vilify anybody or any specific country without proof. Indeed, we don't have any proof and would only like to attract the attention of the general public to risks of unpatriotic behaviour embedded in such big contracts.

Let's take, for example, the theoretical example of a relatively small country ordering several aircraft; contracting with a foreign security company to rid itself of the drug trafficking menace; buying state-of-the-art surveillance equipment to better monitor telephone usage; contracting the building of tens of thousands of houses; or building a monorail.

The theoretical careful reader of these news, having at heart to educate him/herself as much as possible on the affairs of his/her country, would have researched the foreign contractors and established that they were nonexistent; created a mere few days before the deal was discussed; without any identifiable track record of prior achievements; or so seriously indebted that their continued existence would be a matter of concern.

This theoretical careful reader would wonder whether the relatively small country officials did even ten minutes research into the foreign contractors to ascertain the feasibility of the contracts. Surely, a company that doesn't exist, or was formed three days before the deal, or that is crippled by debt would find it difficult to perform, wouldn't it? Surely, that much would be obvious to the least educated person, let alone high government officials, wouldn't it?

Like yours truly, this theoretical careful reader has been reading every single word of thousands of contracts and agreements over a 20-year span and knows a bit about the terms of conditions usually included in such instruments.

Considering the most plausible answers to this theoretical careful reader's above-mentioned questions, the next question would be: why sign anything if you know or suspect the contract can't possibly be performed?

There comes the loophole we alluded to earlier on. It's very boilerplate wording, very neat, and shouldn't be seen as anything sinister if the signatories' intentions were pure. Our experience is that whenever a deal is struck, and in order to secure the order for the contractor who will have spent money to put up a proposal, then will have to spend more to hire extra workforce and, generally speaking, make provisions to begin performance at the appointed date, all contracts include a provision which in effect says that if, at this point, you renege on your word or for any reason rescind your commitment to this agreement, you will owe the supplier penalties to cover their expenses and general inconvenience. These penalties are often a percentage of the contract price. The higher the price, the higher the penalty.

And in this theoretical string of seemingly senseless and impossible deals, what if the officials were signing in full knowledge of their co-contractors' dubious history or prospects? What if they even were in cahoots with them to share the spoils once the deals reach the headlines, there is public outcry, and the Parliament refuses to confirm the deals or rescinds them? What if pocketing a percentage of these penalties were the main motivation behind these so-called miracle deals (after a few weeks in the limelight and self-aggrandizement)?

Although this is all purely theoretical, the concerned, careful citizen may want to think about it and ask their government to provide verifiable background information on all the contractors entrusted with helping to build their country's development. Although nobody in their right mind would hope this theory to prove true, the concerned citizens of any country of the world would certainly do a service to the motherland by demanding that the standards of disclosure be improved.

Commenting is not complaining

A very long absence, due to my doubts about how useful it is to discuss everyday topics in this blog or anywhere else, when more often than not commenting on situations is considered disgraceful complaining.

I've therefore decided to give it another try, this time with what I believe could be workable suggestions. Exposing an issue AND suggesting improvements. Time will tell if it works. Readers, I thank you in advance for your constructive criticism.

The "National Cake"

Having a professional interest in words, I probably pay more attention to their choice in all sorts of communications. That's why something has been bothering me for a few days now.

The first time I read the phrase "the national cake" in connection with Ghana was on Minister of Information Ms. Zita Okaikoi's profile on Facebook.

I am the Minister for Information- Ghana. A young and active Lawyer born in Accra, I believe in Social Democratic ideals as the bedrock on which the national cake and development can be equitably distributed for all Ghanaians.

Her starting a page on Facebook elicited mixed comments, and I am not about to discuss her choice here. What I find deeply disturbing is the inference one can naturally and, worse, often unconsciously, draw from her describing our country as a "cake" that is to be "distributed" to all.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but cakes are not part of our daily diet and we mostly eat them in festive occasions. When was last time you shared cake with a large crowd? At a wedding, a birthday party maybe? I bet you prepared for the occasion, knowing that there would be food aplenty and everybody would be in a jolly mood, stuff themselves with delicacy, have a great time, and it will be an all-round carefree and enjoyable day.

Let's think about it again. If Ghanaians are to receive shares of the "national cake", doesn't it mean that Ghana is all but a big free-for-all buffet, where everybody is welcome to stuff their face for free? Isn't it what the audience will remember of the figure of speech?

After much pondering, I told myself, let's not make a huge issue of a single phrase. Surely, this will have slipped from an aide's pen unbeknownst to Minister of Information Ms. Zita Okaikoi. This cannot be an official stance.

I therefore researched the phrase "national cake" in relation to "Ghana", using a very popular Internet search engine. I couldn't believe it when I got more than 45,000 hits. Browsing the various hits, I zoomed in on the official Ghana government website. There again, I got far more hits than I was comfortable with: 45 occurrences of "national cake" on our government's website alone. I then narrowed the search to "john atta mills speech "national cake"

In a Daily Graphic article reposted on the Ghana government website on 20 April 2009, our President is reported to have given assurances of a permanent free-for-all atmosphere in Ghana:

The President gave the assurance that he will ensure that the national cake is shared fairly and equitably among all Ghanaians, adding that no region will be sidelined in that regard.

“We want to make sure that this country gives back to its people the investment they made in us,” he emphasised.

He said the people of the Volta Region deserved better and that it is fair that they demand their fair share of the national cake.

In another write-up posted on the same Ghana government website (undated), the author, implicitly endorsed as the voice of the government, by mere dint of being published there, writes:

To reduce poverty there is the need to rally behind the current NDC administration to make its promise of a “Better Ghana” a reality in order that the poverty level is significantly mitigated. Every individual must have a renewal of mind characterized by repentance towards bribery and corruption. This is the only way to ensure a fair share of the national cake among Ghanaians and ensuring equitable distribution of justifiable infrastructural development devoid of “kalabule” from any quarters.

In politics as in other jobs where communication is key, each word should be weighed carefully before being uttered, or written. Surely, our President, as well as our Minister of Information, being lawyers, are aware of the importance of each word. Conveying the notion that our country fellows are to receive more forcefully than they are to serve sounds very wrong to me. Encouraging the Ghanaians on this path seems particularly wrong today, with Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah's selfless qualities being extolled publicly and privately.

Political communication practitioners should work carefully at impressing desirable values into the population's minds, and should actively refrain from slips of the tongue (or the pen) capable of having severe and lasting consequences. Political communication is about working on the minds of the audience, with and without them realising it, to mould their mindsets and thoughts for them to, collectively, behave in the desired way. Being careless about the choice of words can, obviously, result in muddling the message irretrievably.

Founder's Day

Today is a holiday in Ghana. Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the great visionary and first president of independent Ghana, would be 100 today, had he lived.

So many things have been written everywhere about Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah that I won't add yet another hagiography saluting the great man.

A great man he certainly was. He had an acute sense of what Ghana and Africa needed, and he was determined to make it happen regardless of the cost to him. A dreamer he was, but -and that is what made him so peculiar- a do-er he was too. If two words can sum up what he was and what he stood for, they would be: a patriot and a visionary. He worked relentlessly at achieving what he considered his beloved country, and his continent, needed.

Now, I am more than a little disappointed that we decided to honour the great man with yet another holiday. Here was a man whom we recognise as instrumental in whatever significant progress Ghana made in the twentieth century. Here is the mastermind behind the very idea of African Unity, whom we implicitly and explicitely celebrate already with the African Union Day.

Today, our country, and Africa in general, is not visibly nearer to being a developed country than it was when Dr Kwame Nkrumah died 37 years ago. The engine is stalled. It sputters now and then, but never roars anymore and we are not going anywhere fast, or -some would argue defeatedly- at all.

Yet, our deciders found it fitting to offer us yet another day of sitting around omo tuo and a beer, or [insert your preferred holiday food and chilled beverage] all day. This, in itself, sadly shows their lack of vision.

Tomorrow again, omo tuo digested and beer-induced burps squelched, we'll sit and stretch our hands, hoping others will lend us money and foreigners will come and invest in our country.

What if, instead of flattering a very human tendency to laziness and carelessness, our deciders, driven by a real vision for their country, had launched a nation-wide selfless, community-serving activity? Plant a tree, clean the beaches, clean the street gutters,... There are so many things that need to be done to improve our lives, our environement and our country, and it seems so sadly strange that we should celebrate such a pro-active person as Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah by doing... NOTHING.

Wake up, my dear country fellows! your country won't develop without your participation, on foreign loans and foreign investment only. Stop selling it cheaply for yet another day of idleness and sweetness of life.

After everything has been said and done...

I'm not much attracted to celebs as a rule. In fact, I tend to find it slightly ridiculous to almost worship a mere human being for their looks, art or even their brains. That is to say how much I suffered through the demise of Michael Jackson, then Barack Obama's visit to Ghana, trying to avoid an overdose of tributes, laudatory comments and what I see as downright craze.

Despite my disinclination to follow the crowds, and although I am probably one of the very few people in Ghana who didn't buy the newspapers this week and didn't watch a single minute of Obamania on the tube, I read with interest Mr Obama's speech to the Ghanaian Parliament.

One sentence stands out:

Africa’s future is up to Africans.

After everything has been said about the need for international aid, the right to compensation for the harm done by slave traders centuries ago, the unfairness of the terms of contemporary global trade, etc., time has come for a change: let's DO something about our future. Mr Obama promised that the US of A will help those of us who work at their own, their country's or the continent's development, but the first step has to come from us:

"these things can only be done if you take responsibility for your future."

These are the two sentences I want to remember of Mr Obama's visit to Ghana. I hope that beyond the craze around the event, our rulers, lawmakers, as well as the ordinary people of Ghana will ponder over this speech and find in it the necessary inspiration to take things in our hands and build our own prosperous future.

Everything has been said. Let's do something about it now.

The Augean Stables can and will be cleaned

Yesterday I read two articles and found them very interesting, all the more so since they were about the same small and seemingly un-newsworthy district of Bongo, abutting Burkina Faso, in the Upper East Region, itself the last but one region of Ghana both in terms of size and of population.

The first article to catch my attention explained how the local Directorate of Education took the bold step of striking against those teachers who disgrace their job by resorting to absenteeism, lateness and drunkenness during school hours. The sanctions apportioned included suspended salaries and demotions.

Another article also dated Sunday, 21 June 2009 focussed on communal labour and how the Presiding Member of the Bongo District Assembly intended to make people's participation in communal labour mandatory and again, apportion sanctions for those who wouldn't do their share for the common good of the society.

If the first initiative has already had practical results, with 24 teachers already found lacking and sanctioned accordingly, the second one seems to be still a project.

The fact that officials in this far away (from the capital) district of one of the northernmost regions of Ghana decide to make these bold steps almost at the same time renewed my belief that the moment has not come yet and never will come to throw in the towel.

Corruption, lack of morals, and lack of civic-mindedness are widespread human flaws, which does not mean they should be accepted and left to flourish. Quite the contrary.

That Mr. Francis Agyeere, District Director of Education, in the first case, and Mr. Emmanuel Nsoh Atindana, Presiding Member of the Bongo District Assembly, in the latter case, have taken such bold steps to clean their local version of the Augean Stables is highly commendable. That each of them, in his own area of responsibility, decided to tackle the seemingly formidable task before them is extremely encouraging. These two gentlemen and, I believe, a lot of others, love their country, are dedicated to making it the best within their means and areas of resoponsibility, and started acting upon the vision they had of how the situation should be and will be, if tackled in an appropriate and efficient manner.

Despite the many valuable heads of cattle we keep there, we left our stables get so filthy that a lot of fainter-hearted people than Heracles will abandon the idea of cleaning them as impossible. That's what we all do when we decide that despite the many fine people inhabiting our country, we -each one of us being a steward of the common property- neglect it for so long that the ills and rots of corruption, laziness, lack of morals and of civism creep in and pile up so high that we would rather sit and weep on our wasted riches than tackle the task of cleaning and buffing and shining it anew.

Please read or re-read the story of the Augean Stables and how Heracles cleaned them,

not only using his great strength, but using his brain to plan this challenge.

Please think about our own Augean Stables, start planning how you can clean them, put the plans into practice, and persevere.

Like the mythical Heracles, we can and, with perseverance, ambition and foresight, we will clean our stables of the muck and turn stinking waste into a fertilizer for all the surrounding fields.

The way forward: believe

For the few decades since I started scrutinizing the way Africa and, notably, Ghana, has been doing in terms of development, one thing struck me repeatedly: a substantial share of the people, from all walks of life, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, urban or rural, don't really seem to believe their continent, their country or themselves can achieve anything close to Western success. A few of them profess they don't want Western-style development, but most acknowledge their yearning for the kind of comforts it gives. Yet, most of them seem to find normal that Africa should be persistently lagging behind all the other continents in terms of basic needs like food, health, and education.

Henry Ford is said to have coined the sentence:

"Whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right."

Let's give it a little thought: how can we really expect to achieve anything, small or big, if we don't believe we will? Doesn't it make perfect sense that the first step to any achievement is how much we believe we will achieve it?

Take the Roman Empire. Yea, right, that was long ago, and only touched the Mediterranean fringe of our continent. Yet, around two thousand years ago, this city-state had visionary leaders, individuals who believed what they couldn't see, who had a vision so compelling that they actually moved thousands of people (and mountains) to make their vision come true. They built bridges on such mighty rivers as the Rhine. Stone-covered roads, laid on proper foundations, ran to every corner of the empire, allowing trade to prosper (and taxes to be generated). Where human settlements needed more water than the local resources supplied, they built channels to carry water from elsewhere to where it was required. Emperor Claudius even had a tunnel built through the hills to carry water from a lake into Rome. Sometimes though a valley could lie in between the place from where the water came and where it needed to go. Here the Romans simply constructed bridges for the channel to cross the valley: these were named aqueducts and can still be seen today.

What was possible around two millennia ago certainly should be much more easily achievable today. Reading about the bridges Julius Caesar built in 10 days for the first, "a few days" for the second, on the river Rhine in 55 and 53 BC respectively, I cannot help thinking about remote areas like our Ghanaian Afram Plains, however aptly dubbed "the food basket of the country", for example, where teachers refuse to go because the district is only accessible by canoe; where people die en route to the nearest hospital (by canoe too); where helpless farmers lose the most fertile lands they've been farming for generations to foreign investors and are made to abandon farm work in mid season because of the uncertainty on whether whatever is grown there still does belong to them or to the foreign investor.

What did the Romans have, two millennia back, that we don't have today?

• They had skilled and ingenious engineers. So do we. The Ghanaian universities are considered among the best in West Africa; American students travel to Ghana for their year abroad programme; Ghanaian students attend universities everywhere in the world and learn about state of the art techniques and technologies.
• They had cheap manpower. Ghana has a lot of unemployed and underemployed youth. Hands are plenty. Lots of them lack direction, leadership, a civic mind, and dedication to a task the achievement of which they could proudly claim to have contributed to. With proper channelling of all these youthful energies, there is little that cannot be achieved in the interest of the nation.
• They had enormous willpower, driven by extraordinarily influential leaders, so compelling it trickled down to the confines of the empire, to the most remote military, administrative and tax outposts and officers (by the way, yes, they had taxes: a steady supply of money that kept increasing the more they made every region of the empire accessible and able to trade; feeding and funding more infrastructure works).

Leaders. Visionaries. Far-seeing people, who believe their vision is achievable if only they put their minds to it.

Of the whole array of assets the Romans had, the lack of visionaries seems to be the one obstacle hindering Ghana's progress. What we have, mostly, is rulers; stewards, at best; but leaders and visionaries are yet to emerge.

Visions are what electoral promises should be made of. Once a government is voted in, some of these promises tend to fade off and get conveniently forgotten, swept under the rug, even retracted. In the name of "realism", we tend to accept quite easily that promises are routinely broken, that what looked like blindingly bright visions during the campaigns was only wool being pulled over the eyes of the voters, and that few of the promises which led people to vote for a candidate will ever materialise. What it proves is that we, the citizens, as well as the would-be leaders, never truly believed in what we were promised or promising.

We, the citizens, but also the people "at the top", need non-partisan, impartial log-keepers of the government's programme and achievements. This post is published today on www.promisestoghana.com, which, in essence, is such a logbook. I can only commend the excellent initiative, the admirable dedication, and the huge work behind this website. Long life to it, and thanks for making this wonderful tool available to us.

Efficient communication

Today I read an article that gave me a lot of food for thought. It was about something very dear to my heart: the availability of basic infrastructure to all. By "infrastructure", I mean roads and electricity, but also schools, health services, and hygiene (tap water, waste removal, etc.).

I was therefore quite glad to read about small town water projects sponsored by DANIDA in certain parts of the very underserved Kwahu North (Afram Plains) District, namely Memkyemfre and Kayere near Donkorkrom.

The following:

At Memkyemfre, the [Eastern Regional] Minister [Mr. Samuel Ofosu Ampofo] urged the community members to take good care of the project because it was constructed with other people's money. (1)

prompted me to write this post.

Indeed, it is very commendable that foreign aid organisations help underserved communities have access to clean water. However, the catch in aid is that it comes from outside, is brought, built, donated by people the local community never set eyes upon before the project and will probably never see again after its completion, and communication of the kind shown here only serves to reinforce the alien nature of the effort. There is no local ownership of the project.

What is it all about? For something to work at the grassroots level, that is, where it is needed and will hopefully be used, it must be appropriated by said community. Reminding the recipients that someone else paid for it may have been said with the best intentions. Surely, the honourable Minister wanted to impress on the community how important it is to take good care of a gift. However, this kind of utterance can very well have the very unwanted effect of people never considering it as theirs.

What do we do with things that don't belong to us? The best case scenario is that we keep it very carefully so that if and when the rightful owner comes, s/he find it almost as s/he left it. If need be, we will guard it and prevent everybody from touching it out of fear of it being spoiled.

The other scenario is that we won't care about something that cost us nothing, we'll use and abuse it and when it's spoiled, either we will revert to our previous makeshift ways, or we will go and demand that the donor repair or change it.

Empowerment is what we need to make real progress. Empowerment is about including the local community at every step of the project, from collecting ideas about the actual needs and the best place to install the infrastructure, to constructing the project, learning how to regulate its use, and how to maintain and service it.

Empowerment is the opposite of making the community stand in awe on the sidelines. Empowerment is not tantamount to being ungrateful. Empowerment is about using this aid as a stepping stone for community improvement. Being grateful doesn't mean that you have to go back to the donor again and again when you need something else. The best show of one's gratitude is to be able to display that one can use what is being donated effectively and incorporate it into one's array of tools to go farther and achieve bigger, longer-term goals.

It is unfortunate that this communication seemed rather to aim at glueing the community to a specific point in time (aid) instead of a continuum called 'community development'. Development is a dynamic, evolutionary process. We won't achieve anything of substance if we keep waiting for aid to come to us, no matter how warm our demonstrations of gratefulness are whenever we receive such aid.

(1) Ofosu Ampofo Inspects Small Water Projects, By Samuel Opare Lartey, Afram Plains, Donkorkrom. - The Ghanaian Times, Projects/Developments, Wed, 13 May 2009

Please define "top"

This morning I read an article on this Top UK Security Firm visiting Ghana to help solve our problems with drugs and other violent crime.

Like a lot of people in Ghana interested in public interest news, I heard on the radio and read that

Government's efforts at fighting the narcotic drug menace and illegal armed trafficking received a boost on Tuesday as officials of Yahuda Security Management Consulting, a top United Kingdom security firm arrived in Accra to assist national security agencies. They would discuss with national security officials wide-ranging security matters, international trade in drugs including cocaine, illegal arms, armed robbery and links to possible terrorism.(1)

The situation in Ghana has become a matter of concern for all patriots and we can only be glad that this administration decided to give it its full attention. I could only regret in passing that these experts had to be brought in from the UK instead of Ghana training her police force to international standards and giving them the means to accomplish their mission successfully.

What woke me up seriously today was another post on the Internet revealing that this "Top United Kingdom Security Firm" appeared officially out of the blue only two days ago. Indeed, a search on the UK Companies House's website revealed to this vigilant citizen (and I was able to verify it) that this "top" firm was only registered on May 20, 2009.

Let's be serious for a minute. This is a company that did not exist only two days ago. The Companies House's website shows when there has been a change of name or restructuration, so it's unlikely that this company existed under another name or legal form before May 20, 2009 without it appearing on this website. How could the President of Ghana or any person of his entourage, while on an official visit to the UK last week, have met representatives of this company, and based on what compelling information did such representatives convince their interlocutor that their company was ideally positioned to help Ghana in this very sensitive job of getting rid of drugs and violent crime, let alone terrorism?

The CEO of this startup (which is the most positive designation I can imagine for such a firm) is a Mr Tetteh, so I suppose he is a Ghanaian living in the UK. Why he didn't register in Ghana instead of the UK is not very clear. Since the company was non-existent when he allegedly met the President or a member of his entourage, he could easily have chosen to register in Ghana (paying taxes to the mother country is a nice civic gesture too).

My hypothesis (and I'm sorry it's the only one that comes to mind right now) is that it sounds so much better, richer and more impressive to say "Top UK Security Firm" than "Ghanaian team with international credentials" (they do have credentials, don't they? Has anybody checked this? Has the Ghanaian High Commission in London done its homework on this?). The unsavoury underlying idea is that UK is key, and "top" only reinforces the obvious: an obscure UK outfit tops a Ghanaian one any day. Sad, very sad.

We, members of the public and taxpayers, are supposed to say wow, and ahhh, and clap our hands in ravishment of being graced with a Top UK Security Firm coming to solve our problems, while this story has all the makings of yet another scam to rob the taxpayer of their money in the form of obscure fees and kickbacks going to line nicely the pockets of whoever engineered this umpteenth trick that is being played at Ghana's expense.

Whether one wants to give this administration the benefit of the doubt and believe that they were merely gullible (and sloppy, for not having checked this company's existence), tricked by the all powerful "UK" rattle being waved in front of their collective nose, or this administration is as guilty as others before it of giving precedence to their own pockets before Ghana's interests while giving a leg up to a member of the Ghanaian Diaspora, this story is very disappointing. We, as a country, need to urgently change our mindsets so that we serve Ghana first, for the greater good of all. Only then will we earn international and self-respect, and bring real lasting, sustainable change to our country's situation which so far was a "fate", but can and will become a "destiny".


(1) Top UK security experts arrive in Ghana - GNA, Accra, May 19, 2009

And the winner is...

This building is what all the contestants in the last Ghanaian presidential elections had in their sights. You may contend that only one won in the end. I believe that despite a few bumps on the last stretch of the ride, Ghana as a whole won these 2008 elections.


Is it really important which individual will be the tenant of this brand new palace for the next four years? Not to me. Neither should it be to real patriots. What is at stake is so much more than one party checkmating the other. What is at stake is Ghana's development. Her possible leaving "least developed country" status to join the club of emerging countries, on the back of the soon-to-flow-in oil revenues. What is at stake is the improvement of whatever positive has already been started by the outgoing administration, the trimming of less inspired decisions, and groundbreaking on the many economic and social issues that remain to be tackled.

No matter which candidate we supported until yesterday. Today a whole new challenge lays before us: it is our role, as patriots, to put to rest partisan differences and do our collective civic best to cooperate and, through unswayed vigilance, make sure that our leaders won't yield to temptation and let a few sticky fingers stray in the oil kitty.

In December 2008, Ghana was saluted by the international media and observers for the outstanding example of a living democracy she gave to the continent and the world.

We can rest assured that the way Ghana handles this new oil riches from 2010 onwards will be under close scrutiny. If she proves to be as economically rigorous as she proved to be politically mature, it would be a first in African oil producing countries and a new example for all.

Ghana is a country of firsts: wasn't she also the first African country to gain independence in 1957? With the right leadership and devoted patriotism, she now can be the first to emerge from poverty. We too can say:

Yes we can!

Important people ask me for favours

Hey, who would have thought I knew people high up? More to the point, that people high up are courting me for favours?

As you probably know already, Ghana is choosing a new president and new lawmakers today. I was very surprised to receive the following on my mobile phone:

Sender: AkufoAddo

Text: Do you Believe In Ghana? Vote for me,Nana Akufo-Addo on 7th Dec for quality education,jobs,healthcare and a brighter future for our children.God Bless Ghana

Now this is interesting. I would never have thought somebody as important as Mr. Nana Akufo-Addo, presidential candidate and, if I read the signs well, soon to be president elect, knows me or knows of me and values my modest person so much that he would text me to ask for my vote.

I'm terribly flattered and, had I been a Ghanaian, I would willingly have participated in this voting exercise. I may even have voted for him, out of sheer gratefulness and loyalty. After all, he was the only candidate to reach out to me.

Being a cynic and a bit paranoid too, I however wonder where Mr Nana Akufo Addo got hold of my mobile phone number. Did he (or his campaign) try all possible mobile phone numbers sequentially? Did he (or his campaign) buy listings from the mobile phone company? Doesn't the Ghanaian law frown upon this? Is it legal in Ghana to buy subscribers lists?

This is democracy in the making. International medias wow and ahhh about how advanced Ghana is in the exercise of democracy. Would they be as impressed by consumer protection as they are by Ghana's political maturity?