Woyome never dies! ‘…Woyooo, Woyo…’

There is so much wailing in our Land Of Death. But what do you expect from a land that every decision taken is so synonymous with grief? And so while families wail, sob and cry over the loss of dear ones some of whose lives are taken away by our rotten system, the hopelessness of Gaana makes weeping a daily ritual. It’s a way the oppressed openly display their lack of faith and believe in the system.
It is a dire situation that most youth of Gaana have been compelled to join in the despair chorus. As I made normal rounds in town the last time, I overhead some teenagers, who claim they were only 13, singing loud the popular Wooyo..woyo hit highlife song by good old Nana Kwame Ampadu, a Kwahu indigene of the Eastern Region of Ghana.
The gusto, with which they sang the song, made me grow goose pimples and instantly propped up my instinctive curiosity. The sheer bravado in their voices made me think they were not only excited about the almost three-decade-old music but not necessarily about the moral fibre embedded in the folkloric song.
“So what message are these young boys sending across”?, I soliloquized as I mustered the courage to enquire from them what on the face value seems to be their level of excitement and love in a song that when personified as human, could well be their grandparents?
“Young ones, why are you so much consumed by such an old highlife tune or music that you don’t seem to be bothered about the way you’re attracting attention to yourselves”?, I asked them with high alert and caution; you know the K4 and Egya Atta boys and girls of today and their lack of respect for the elderly.
But strangely, the guys were obsessively courteous and very accommodating to my inquisitions.
“Daddy, it’s ‘Woyooo, woyo…! Wope wo wu a wo be nya. Woyooo, woyo! Wo pe wo ko a wo be nya’”, literarily wit “If you wish for death, you will die”… if you wish for your life… then that is what you will get…”. And what about that?” I further enquired from them.
“I hope you’ve heard about the Woyome case. Don’t you see that any NDC person who has contrary view to Atta Mills and officialdom position on the issue faces a sack or is asked to resign from the Mills administration? You see how Martin Amidu was sacked and the way Auntie Betty Mould had been forced to resign,” one of them muttered.
“Clearly it shows that you express a different view to that of the NDC big men at your peril,” one of the young boys added.
“Oh that is what you imply in the song?” I said immediately as comprehension dawned.
“Yes Daddy,” one of them, who gave his name as Amoah David, replied.
Golden Old Days & Contemporary Times
I tried reminiscing the golden old days when songs were used as a major medium by our medieval men and women to express an opinion, especially in dirges during a period of grief. So I gathered that after all, Africanization has not entirely lost out yet in this era of modernity, for here are teenagers, who seem to have been enveloped by Western ethics and values, following that good old tradition of speaking in songs.
But the larger issue that I gathered from the young boys’ song is that the Woyome GH¢58 million judgment debt saga is not necessarily consigned to the elitists and middle class group but is an ever-present discussion even among teenagers. It is so to the extent that I picked similar signals from the country side from even old men and women, who hitherto neither cared for nor appreciated the intricacies of politics. And believe you me they are so vexed over the Woyome case.
Even the youngsters wondered why the President would sack Martin Amidu, the very person who he once described as a man of integrity and a bold and upright person with unbridled principles that are very rooted in the ideals of the Provisional National Defence Congress (PNDC) revolution that ultimately gave birth to the political party—National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Sad enough, the boys believe it was the same principles that compelled Amidu to be bold enough to tell the untouchable Woyome called the financier of the NDC that, indeed, he has a case to answer in relation to how he was awarded the GH¢58 million judgment debt.
His assessment of the Woyome case came at a time that his predecessor, Betty Mould Iddrisu, said Woyome should rather be rewarded with a favourable judgment debt than be hanged. Indeed, Amidu called the bluff of the orchestrated campaign by his party members to destroy him and stood fast by telling the President in the face that, he still possessed the principles that made the President bypass many suitors, including the then untouchable Obed Yao Asamoah, to pick him (Amidu) as his running mate for the 2000 elections.
A façade of disrespect
Then comes what, in my opinion, constitute a façade. I hear Martin Amidu showed disrespect to the President and that compelled Egya Atta to give him the sack. But like the kids alluded to, every discerning Ghanaian knows that the President fired Amidu, because his (Amidu’s) searching and prying lenses into the Woyome case has the potential of uncovering possibly every hidden government official who might be connected to the Woyomegate.
One thing stood out quite clear from the Amidu dismissal. The former Attorney-General, who was also the deputy Attorney-General during Rawlings’ NDC 1 administration proved once again that he could not be influenced to go against his conscience; he stood up for his beliefs, to the point that he would not be bothered even if it incurred the displeasure of his party people, including the President himself.
But what was the kind of disrespect that Amidu showed the President? Since the presidency is failing to tell Ghanaians the nature of Amidu’s crime, then officialdom is opening its action up to many interpretations. And we still insist that the former Attorney-General only paid a high prize for insisting on doing the right thing. It was therefore not surprising that he has warned his party members who are still calling him a “disrespectful traitor” not to dare him.
Instantly, the pro-government party newspapers, which had been at the fore front of the “Get Amidu Out” campaign, had ceased forthwith their smear campaign. Of course, they are aware of what Amidu is capable of doing to such hired surrogates and their pay masters.
Some of us were not least surprised about the President’s position on Amidu. Clearly, right from day one of the Woyome theatrics, the President had amply demonstrated that he was not in favour of the stance taken by the former Attorney-General to unravel every detail of how the judgment debt was paid to Alfred Agbesi Woyome.
It still remains a puzzle how the President set a parallel investigative body in the Economic and Organized Crime Organization (EOCO) to investigate a matter that the former Attorney-General was already pursuing before a court of law. Is it because the President did not trust the former A-G to do a good job, or is it the case that Martin Amidu defied Egya Atta and proceeded to the court to prosecute those involved in the Woyome payment?
…And Betty adds up to the mess
The Amidu case had hardly died down when we were hit with the resurgence of Betty Mould Iddrisu; this time, her resignation, which has also generated a lot of interest and interpretations. In her letter to the President, Auntie Betty said she did not want to be an impediment to the Better Ghana Agenda of the President and his administration.
Betty’s former deputy at the Ministry of Education, Mahama Ayariga, also told a section of the media that Betty resigned, because the numerous criticisms against her by the opposition elements, affected Betty’s performance as Minister of State, precisely as Education Minister. She therefore felt distracted to the level that the only way to have her peace was to lay down her portfolio and take a hike.
The logical question then is: How did the former lady Minister, in her own words, impede the Better Ghana Agenda of President Mills? Please Betty, come again and come clean to Ghanaians. And when did Ayariga become Betty Mould-Iddrisu’s spokesperson? And how do we reconcile Betty’s stance on the issue to that of Mahama Ayariga’s stoical defence.
In the heat of the Woyome issue, just days before she resigned as Minister of Education, Auntie Betty called a press conference, ostensibly to state her involvement or otherwise in the Woyomegate. Strangely, that press conference could not come off as advertised. Auntie Betty had to come out the next day to apologise for her indiscretion. The anticipated information on the scandal died out on Ghanaians.
It soon became clear that the coup to abort the press conference was master-minded by hands of the Mills administration. That set the tone for speculations about Betty’s exit and presto she exited with speculations still on the high.
Deflecting national attention
Then the President tried albeit unsuccessfully to deflect the Ghanaian attention from the mirage of scandals that have rocked his administration on what many perceive as special New Year bonanza. Long before the end of last year, it became rife that Egya Atta had completed his list of reshuffling ministers, but that strangely could not see the light of day.
Credible information that emanated from the seat of government indicated that the President had to shelve that idea because he thought such an “Extra Time” reshuffling would not achieve the desired result because most ministers who are members of Parliament and retained as parliamentary candidates for the ruling party will only concentrate on partisan campaign to get re-elected rather than to pursue vigorously the national agenda.
The NDC accused K4 same when the former president re-cycled some of his ministers just about the same time—some four years ago. So what has changed now? Obviously Egya Atta misjudged the political awareness and the general mood of Ghanaians against his below mediocrity administration. After all, he nominated and virtually used his majority in the legislature to bulldoze his way through for even the most misfits among his ministers-designate to be approved as ministers of state. So who cares if he wants to shift them around?
The fact still remains that the Woyomegate still remains top of the chart priority and for the rest of the 52 weeks that make up the year. Nothing will sway the minds and eyes of Ghanaians from such Gargantuan Loss of State Funds which ended up in the pocket of one single individual as a virtual gift.