Tissues of the Issues: President Mahama must not appoint Mr. Achan again

If you misread Achan as Akan in the caption above, you are yet to get the import of this instalment of ‘Tissues of the Issues.’
We have weightier matters to talk about than the tribe a person emerges from or their father’s last name.
Achan is the diabolic and shameless character no nation or group of people needs in their midst.
Achans are liars, thieves, fraudsters, and doom-mongers.
They are creatures of bad fortune who cut us short and defeat our collective resolve to win.
Achans bring us back to where we started, and they hate to see us move ahead.
The biblical narrative in Joshua chapter seven recounts the reprehensible action of Achan, son of Carmi of the tribe of Judah, who went against Joshua’s directive, to steal from the spoils of war after the Isrealites had defeated Jericho.
The silver, gold and brass had been consecrated unto the Lord and should be returned to His treasury (Joshua 6:19).
Achan’s actions brought a colossal defeat to Israel when they fought the people of Ai.
He, his family and livestock were stoned to death and buried under rocks at the vale of Achor, for defying the divine orders of the Lord.

God does not win elections
Achan is neither a metaphor nor antonomasia (using a name to indicate an idea).
Let’s see Achan for the person he is. He might even be you, because he looks just as unassuming and as promising as you. You might even be Mr Achan’s doppelganger.
Like you, Mr. Achan is well-spoken and has a bag of advanced degrees from prestigious universities in hemispheres unknown to these parts.
Achans are all over. They are in government, churches, offices, and in our homes.
The 2024 elections started with a few Achans masquerading as prophets.
They proclaimed at the highest decibels behind their pulpits: “Let God be true and all men liars”.
Another refrain that sponsored the prophecies they churned out about who was going to win the election: “If I be a man of God”. They swore that they should be burnt alive if their prophecies failed.
A controversial prophet was definite on the date the result will be announced, which he decreed shall be two days after the date the election body was supposed to declare.
However, the losing candidate, his favourite, conceded the same day. There will be tension, he prophesied.
In the end, they proved their God the liar and men like Mussa Dankwa true.
The refrain soon changed to be: “I saw right, I heard right, God spoke to me the same way he has been speaking to me. But the opposite has occurred.”
Sadly, their congregation hails them even after their prophecies have failed.
You wonder whether they are fooled by these flamboyant pastors to shut down their reasoning faculties and only treat prophecies as make-believe in retrospect.
After their win, we have seen the President-Elect and some MPs visit churches to thank their men of God.
Dr Otabil told us the other day that if God has been the character behind the leaders in Africa, then he has not helped us much.
The NDC’s vigilance and powerful campaign won the elections. Owusu-Bempah and Nigel Gaizie were asleep.

Educate more, steal more
Another area where Achans show up in our national lives is the degree and credential conundrum.
Here, let me quote verbatim a Zambian academic on the value of education in relation to corruption: “The high profile cases that are in contention in the courts of law do not involve villagers; it is those who know the figures; those who have read Aristotle; it is those who have studied psychology; it is those who have studied the principles of accounts.
” The professor asks: “If education is producing thieves, why then should we continue to educate? It means the more we educate the more thieves we produce”.
If President Mahama wanted to decorate his cabinet with resumes of globally relevant public intellectuals, there may be too many to choose from.
The NPP boasted that they had the men, producing a solid team of professionals to form the economic management team.
The results were not solid enough. They borrowed through the roof, made pensioners cry, and sunk $58 million in an expensive hole.
At the end of his term, President Akuffo Addo had completed and commissioned only three out of 111 hospitals under the Agenda 111 project.
President Mahama should not repeat these mistakes by engaging shady characters who boast brilliant resumes and fine english; he should gauge the content of their character.

Silencing smartest voices
There are Achans in the media too, and the President-Elect should be careful how he engages with the fourth estate of the land.
It is said there are three types of people we cannot trust: a man with money, a woman in love, and an African with his religion. The fourth, we might add, is a man with a microphone, otherwise called journalists.
The most dangerous elements in that fraternity are those who trumpet their neutrality and objectivity on rooftops.
Throw a position as indefinable as a committee chair onto the laps of a journalist, the tongue will sing another tune.
President Mahama knows us too well; he used to be one of us–at least in theory.
The Achans in civil society and the NGO community are a bit like an amoeba; they change shape and direction freely, and often with influences from elsewhere.
At their vociferous best, they have no faith in the campaigns they prosecute, except to dignify the funding demands of rich donors. They are a constituency that appears difficult to ignore, but they can be coaxed like an angry girlfriend with a promise to tweak some policy, or ignored like the opposition in parliament.
In the past, their smartest voices have been tamed with political appointments.
If the president finds any Achans in his government, he should be Joshua enough to stone, burn and bury the thief at the vale of Nsawam.

Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin

bigfriontiers@gmail.com