I had planned to share with you my views on an entirely different matter today, but events I had no hand in creating or promoting have compelled me to return to current news. So today too, I must write on what is agitating our minds; the spectre of the deadly Ebola entering and ravaging our kith and kin and the unending sporadic violence that has the largest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party, in its deadly embrace.
Readers of this column will appreciate that I have written strongly against the propensity of our medical doctors going on strike for pecuniary reasons, chucking out of the nearest window�� their love for the profession of healing and the Hippocratic oath they solemnly took at the beginning of their careers.
In the case of the threat of Ebola, our health professionals are the most endangered labour force in the path of the epidemic. We need every health professional up and working, ready and willing to help us all ward off the shores of this country, if possible, the deathly grip of this horrendous disease.
In view of this, I was personally horrified to read the fraudulent Whatsapp message in which a supposed lady pharmacist who presumably attended the recent conference of the pharmacists in Ghana last weekend was telling her colleagues about the deliberate cover-up of the presence of Ebola in Ghana by our own government.
No reason was given by this lady why our government would seek to hide from us the presence of this dreadful disease in-country. And why would doctors and nurses who have been at loggerheads with the government over so many years assist in such a futile programme of concealment by it?
Wicked falsehood
Not surprisingly, the pharmacists quickly reacted to this wicked falsehood, and went on to ask the government to track the perpetrators of this falsehood.
This paper carried an article on the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) last Wednesday in which the level of ignorance displayed by the writer, one Joseph Akabontoak, left me shaken. The writer did not reveal in his unjustified diatribe against NMIMR, his own credentials for us to assess the weight to assign his ridiculous views.
Noguchi Institute is an internationally recognised medical research facility whose output is available to the medical research community worldwide. The scientific staff is similarly world-class, and as I write, some of them are in neighbouring West African countries giving substantial assistance to affected countries as they fight to control the spread of the disease. You do not need a grounding in science to detect the obvious flaws in Mr Akabontoak�s article.
What is Noguchi supposed to gain from hiding the so-called true results of the 60 or so Ebola tests they have carried out so far which have turned out negative? This level of argument, reflected in the lady pharmacist�s earlier message, is an abuse of logic, and exposes the writer more than it endangers the public.
False alarms
The continuous false alarms may be deliberately designed to create a shortage of re-agents when the real thing hits us and the scaremongers would be ready to turn around to exclaim the rightness of their earlier false messages.
Certainly the intended effect is not to dispense verifiable knowledge, but to create and spread panic among the population. Panic is the worst possible ally in the fight against a raging epidemic. We must all remain as calm as possible, learn as much as possible from credible sources, and empower our health professionals both materially and spiritually to continue being the formidable barrier they have so far been against the disease.
Then the cycle of violence, which has in recent times become associated with the NPP machomen, reared its sad head last Tuesday once again. A press conference to explain to restive party members nationwide and the expectant public the rationale for recent changes in staff at the party�s headquarters ended in a brawl between two sets of party security men.
What is worse is the fact that all of the party office staff claim to be volunteer workers, meaning no one is compelling them to offer their services to their beloved party, neither is the remuneration the reason for staying on. Moreover, all the protagonists are faithful party members without any doubt in the popular mind about their loyalty to the NPP.
Untenable reasons
What I find intriguing in all this gratuitous violence is the propensity for the NPP to preach to the rooftops the high credentials of its leading members. Nothing prevents all those affected by the changes to seek employment elsewhere, or establish their own businesses to await the coming into glory of their preferred candidate. Therefore, the reasons for this resistance are clearly untenable.
It is the public image of the party that suffers when such thoughtless actions become the stuff of the news we see and hear about the party. Way back in 1980-81, when Comrade Addae-Amoako and his friends were destabilising their own ruling party because they wanted President Limann out as leader of the party and presidential candidate for the projected 1983 elections, we all know what the immediate outcome was. In this Fourth Republic, this type of senseless violence and sharp acrimony attending intra-party affairs have been more associated with the Nkrumaist parties, leading to their demise as a credible political force in Ghana.
Whatever the interpretation and explanation proffered, I urge the riotous elements in the party to remember that this is a democracy envied by many on this continent and admired by others in the wider world. This country is bigger than all of us, and our egos and ambitions must match the sense of responsibility that we need to co-exist in peace.
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