AfricanJungleKing.Org

Dear President John D. Mahama,

Your Excellency

Your Majesty Nana Atopiah

Commander-In-Chief of Goats in Purgatory

Etc. Etc.

It’s not like I couldn’t have delivered this letter to you in the Flagstaff House, you see? It’s just that I don’t trust the people around your goat-skinned throne, you understand? And so I am writing you this open letter where I’m sure you would read unimpeded by the national security red flag that would have been placed on my letter should it have been delivered in that magnificent palace built by HE John Agyekum Kuffour, OBE, etc.

Oh, forgive me, Mr. President. I should have introduced myself. My name is JayJay D. Segbefia. I live in the jungle. That should suffice for now, no? I have been meaning to write to you for a long while but I have never found the time until now. No worries. Better late than never, no?

Don’t be fooled by my last name, however. You may just have ended your tour in Volta, but you need to resign if you think busing people into a political rally is evidence of overwhelming support for your incompetence with all people of Volta origin. In fact, as you’re about to discover, you have more to fear from my last name than you do from all Afrifa, Asante and Bretuo put together.

I. Let’s talk about Competence.

Let me start by congratulating you on your #ChangingLives and #TransformingGhana tour. Obviously, the Better Ghana agenda is so far from reality that you had to talk about change and transformation, as if you were in opposition. One of the highlights of your tour is your triumphant entry into the Wa Township with a motorcar, surrounded by a very formidable national security unit headed by Mr. Beautiful. I am sure your constituents were all awed by the shock and drivel of your tour. It must be a very easy thing to turn the presidency into an overwhelming circus of a joke. Was that stunt supposed to prove you’re in sync with the people? Why didn’t you go into Nkwanta with a bicycle? The potholes on their road is good enough to stock tilapia fingerlings, but I digress.

The story is told of a dead goat with majestically long horns that was full of choler and agitation against a white bunny rabbit that was yapping its tongue in a green, manicured lawn. The goat, angered by the rabbit’s yapping, decided to teach it a lesson by goring it to death. The goat grunted its displeasure, churned the grass with its powerful hooves, blew balls of gas from its nostrils and charged, with long horns lowered. The rabbit chewed on a carrot as the goat drew closer, unconcerned until just when the goat was about to strike. Then the rabbit swallowed the carrot he was done chewing and yelled, “Yaaaah!”

The goat stiffened, braked to a screeching halt and fell down dead.

The End.

Horrible story, eh?

What do you care? The goat was already dead to begin with.

It’s the same thing about your incompetence, you see? At the core of your very presidential existence is incompetence of the emeritus kind. You and your misbegotten party’s ilk are the definition of incompetence. Let me break down the definition for you.

1. The power crises will continue into 2016. You have been promising to end it since 2012, and the more years that elapse, the more ridiculous your promises become. That, Mr. President, is incompetence.
2. Your Power Minister promised to resign if dumsor doesn’t end by the end of 2015. We’re a month away from December 31. The power barges are in Tema now, no doubt preparing to be the rhetorical ground for another misbegotten presidential speech. Even if those barges are rigged into the grid before December 31, incompetence will ensure we won’t have relief until March 2016, if at all. Your Power Minister would therefore have failed. He won’t resign (tweaaa… who resigns in Ghana in NDC politics?) and you, Mr. President will not (in this lifetime or the next) have the giggle-berries to fire the son-of-a-dead goat. That, right there, is incompetence.
3. Did we not become the laughing stock of the world when we flew thousands of dollars in cash to Brazil to pay our Black Stars during the world cup when they had us all by the gonads (sounds like terrorism to me on their part but you don’t exactly write off your travel per diems, do you?). Wasn’t it incompetence that made you not pay their money, forcing them to adopt the terrorism approach? But, granted that Brazil was none of your fault and that you were as saintly as Prof. Mills (may he rest where there’s light and no dumsor) about the whole disgusting debacle, what’s your excuse for the $200,000 we flew again to the Black Star’s from Congo during their Rwanda game the other time? Surely that one proves you really are incompetent.
4. What happened to the GYEEDA, SADA and AGAM monies? Why haven’t they been retrieved? Maybe incompetence is to blame?
5. Finally let’s talk about the Eurobond incompetence…

You, it’s ok. I get high blood pressure when I talk about mediocrity.

Suffice it to say that you are the most incompetent President Ghana has ever known. I feel our NUGS and SRC Presidents in our universities might make better presidents (if they aren’t in those positions because they wish to be like you one day).

II. Stop Demeaning the Presidency with Your Nonsense

I want to be president one day, capisce?

What? Did you say tweaaa? Surely, Mr. President, if you, as incompetent, illegal and illiterate about what it takes to be president can be one, you must make room for the fact that a mere jungle boy like me can rise up to that occasion or, failing that, bring the presidency to my level like you have done. Trust me, you do not have exclusive rights to make a fool of yourself in the name of politics. It’s an inalienable right for all who choose to exercise it.

You demeaned the presidency when you ranted and raved, puffed up with a false sense of your competence like some thanksgiving turkey looking to be dissected, when you said only former presidents can criticize you. Who, in the name of all the ancestors of Bole, told you that? But let’s drop the ancestors for a minute.

When an economist with international pedigree like Dr. Bawumiah speaks to criticize your handling (or better, mishandling) of the Ghanaian economy, the answer to him should be a thesis, replete with graphs and charts stating your position as to why he is wrong and you are right. You mention facts and counter-facts to cancel, annul or, failing that, reduce the damage caused by his criticisms. But, since that path requires some … you know … depth of thought that seemed lacking owing to the high of the (let me charitably add) campaign platform, you did what came naturally. You goofed, gaffed and blundered.

Lamentably so. Let me just spell out for you in regular Ghanaian English what rights I have when it comes to criticizing your incompetent backside. See, I have the right to criticize you any darn way I please because I very well own you. I put the shoes on your feet, the clothes on your back and the boxers around Sir John Thomas with my taxes so you darn well will accept that I have the right to speak to you any darn way I please, whether through constructive criticisms or through outright rabbit jabs, and there’s not a thing you can do about it. If you want none of this, then you better not stand for election. Do I really have to tell you this, Mr. President? And, while we are at it, there isn’t a single clause in the Constitution that enjoins us to be decorous in our criticisms of you. You’re being paid to manage this country; you’re not being paid to be treated with awe.

But the Presidency is supposed to be more serious than even the shock and awe of the citizenry. You are not Donald Trump, darn it! You don’t just open your mouth and speak, even on a campaign platform. You think, analyze, and reflect on everything you say before you say it. When you speak thoughtlessly, you embarrass every Ghanaian living everywhere. You are bigger than you are. You are the President of the Republic of Ghana, for crying out loud, not some boy school prefect giving a speech in the assembly hall of a sister school.

Argh!

III. Keep off of our Rabbits.

The Presidency never, under any circumstances, says “Opana”. That just isn’t done. It’s unpresidential, it’s unstatemanly, and it’s downright disrespectful of the person and stature of a president. It’s what I expect to hear in the streets, not from a podium scaled by the highest officer of the land.

Opana. Really? A-don-biliv-it!

And, while we are at it, stay away from Asylum Down. Leave our live rabbits well alone, unless the stench from the resident dead goat is too much to bear, in which case you should consider resigning (… uhm… hold out on that a bit, will ya?  An Amissah-Arthur presidency will be an act of terrorism, not a nightmare).

I am no fan of yours, Mr. President, but I love Ghana. I love rabbits too. Especially those fluffy, cuddly, nosey ones. I’m having me a pet rabbit soon, and I know you can guess what I will be naming it. If your guess came anywhere near the name Opana, Mr. President, then you’re incompetent, plain and simple.

Keep off of my rabbit!

Yours, in Rabbit-dom,

Me.

PS: Say, would I get a hamper from you this Christmas? As you know, the economy isn’t doing well, and mankind can do with a presidential hamper every now and then, no? I am, after all, your biggest, hairiest, most audacious critic.

😀