Ghana’s former High Commissioner to Namibia and Botswana, Harruna Attah, has decried the recent sacking of Alfred Ogbamey from the Ghana National Gas Company Limited as Corporate Communication Manager.
Mr Ogbamey was recently replaced with Ernest Owusu Bempah by the Akufo-Addo administration.
In an article titled: “Together Let’s Get Ghana Working”, in which he decried the “tit-for-tat” attitude of hounding out appointees of previous administrations when new governments take over, Alhaji Harruna Attah deplored the manner in which Mr Ogbamey was “booted out” of office.
He cited some examples to decry the practice but said “one recent one that has chilled my blood is the booting of Alfred Ogbamey from his communication job at the gas company”.
“The office he was occupying before Election 2016 was not even at the CEO level. Rumour has it that his ‘case’ came up at a cabinet meeting and like in a Roman arena where blood-thirsty spectators bay for the blood of the vanquished, the thumbs down for his blood were overwhelming and he had to be axed. Other rumours claim that the letter for his decapitation emanated from the highest office of the land!” he said.
Below is Harruna Attah’s full article:
‘Together Let’s Get Ghana Working’
How many Ghanaians remember “The Decade that Stopped the Decay”? This was the message that sprung up on billboards in Accra – and possibly around the country, during the tenth anniversary of the coup of December 31 1981.
Governments would often come up with such things to convince themselves that they are either doing well or enjoy the goodwill of the governed and are “carrying the people along”.
Some are also meant to build a personality cult around a “leader” and so images of whoever at that time is in charge pop up all over the place accompanied by quotes from his or her sayings.
At one time in the not-too-distant past, the state-owned media started referring to the PNDC Chairman as the “Leader of the Revolution”. It did not catch on and fizzled out after a while. The same state-owned media, specifically in this case, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, had much earlier toyed about, during the Acheampong NRC days, with “Voice of the Revolution”! Military regimes are rather fond of these things…
During civilian administrations, electioneering periods offer opportunities for political narcissism, now accepted as a legitimate part of the game and citizens are bombarded with images and sound-bytes that are intended to wiggle out the votes from us. Whether they succeed in that or not, basketfuls of money are expended from campaign war chests to get the messages following us all over the place.
Election 2016 has come and gone. A change from one administration to the other has been, by and large, smooth and seamless. Stunned into silence, the departing administration has vacated the agitation-propaganda space, now dominated by the victors’ part sneering, part triumphalist messages. The “Ayeeko” immediately after the change-over were fawning gloats from party people and can be excused as post-election celebratory exuberance, but official sounding ones have also made an appearance. Two that caught my attention in the weeks after the change-over were the one commanding us to get together and get “Ghana working” and another one with a “Pledge” as its theme…
As public exhortations go, who can quarrel or indeed why take issue with a national rallying call to get together and get the country working?!
It is just that something about them doesn’t sound convincing and genuine – perhaps rather contradictory and hypocritical to the reality.
First of all, our multi-party dispensation does not make the exhortations possible and secondly the people behind such exhortations lack the kind of sincerity and magnanimity that will get all of us getting together to get our country working.
Our (mis)interpretations, over the years of elections, is that the winning party has all the wisdom, expertise, knowledge, experience and human resource to run our affairs single-handedly. A tradition, therefore, of discarding vital human resources after elections, that do not belong, has been established. Very good people have been put out to pasture simply on the grounds that they do not belong. They have been discarded not on the grounds of inability, incompetence or crime against the state but simply because of elections…It is a long inglorious story of nugatory vindictiveness and pettiness, spanning these past 60 years of our nationhood. Our immediate post-election periods often mirror military take-overs.
In the 4th Republic, there have been three real change-overs: 2000, 2008 and 2016 when one political party has handed over to another and true to form, they have all been fraught with the military take-over mindset…
There is nowhere more victimised than the public services where CEOs fall prey to witch-hunts and purges. A couple of examples will suffice: When the NPP came to power after the 2000 elections Dr. Akoto at TOR was a victim. When the NDC came to power after the 2008 elections, Dr. Sarpong at TOR was also shown the exit… These are two MDs I worked with whose abilities I can vouch for and who deserved better than their politically-motivated booting out of office. There are many, many, of such humiliating exits…
But one recent one that has chilled my blood is the booting of Alfred Ogbamey from his communication job at the gas company. The office he was occupying before Election 2016 was not even at the CEO level. Rumour has it that his “case” came up at a cabinet meeting and like in a Roman arena where blood-thirsty spectators bay for the blood of the vanquished, the thumbs down for his blood were overwhelming and he had to be axed. Other rumours claim that the letter for his decapitation emanated from the highest office of the land!
So with this kind of purge mentality, how can we, together, get Ghana working? The exhortation, that “Together Let’s Get Ghana Working”, is not only patently insincere and hollow, but rather insulting, in the face of these witch-hunts.
A nation, said Abraham Lincoln, cannot survive half free, half slave; true, a developing nation like Ghana, I also declare, cannot make progress with half in vilification and half in self-righteous Machiavellian axe-wielding! This electoral cycle of tit for tat cannot be the catalyst to encourage, grow and nurture the spirit of “Together Let’s Get Ghana Working”.
Source: classfmonline.com
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Both Haruna and Pratt are not people of substance. Who does not know that when you publicly endorsed a party against the other, when the latter wins, any position you hold as a result of your endorsement, you will loose. Pls you can vomit and go back licking same. Pratt, Haruna , Ben Epheson , Randy Abbey,Alfred Ogbame and cohort its bitter but swallow it with pride b'cos at a time Ghana needed a leader you chose a dealer, you chose to accept the crumps thrown at you rather than the principle you stood for. When corruption was inscribed as a mode of govenance, you voice of conscience was silent..Your dealer has been busted so keep quiet and suffer. No tears !!
After denigrating the character of Nana Addo, this 1diot who calls himself Haruna Atta still wish to have his NDC men serve under him? This is characteristic of a real donkey. You think NPP members have sealed their lips and anuses so they no longer eat and sh*t. You ain't seen nothing yet! Be ready for more sacking and eventual jailing.
I feel so sad. There is a part of me that agrees so much with the sentiments of Mr. Attah. Indeed we cannot build a nation on vindictiveness having suffered enough of that. I am not even bothered that Mr. Attah is/was a member of the NDC or served with the government. That does not take his right to make comments where the current government falls short. The serious unsubstantiated allegations he made against Nana Addo in the run-up to the elections and in fact his previous attempts to run down the NPP which he used to identify with. Mr. Attah has always alluded to an unfair treatment of Vice-President Aliu. Strangely when the fine gentleman was alive he worked hard for the victory of Nana Addo and Dr. Bawumia. In spite of his (Mr. Attah's) attempt to denigrate the memory of the late Vice-President by claiming the NPP should not be a party, many of us got most surprised. Mr. Attah, may have strong points but I will never support his ethnocentric postures. The unity of the country transcends any ethnocentric considerations. Everybody has a right to belong to any party of their choice but none can divide the country on ethnic grounds. God bless Ghana.
who is talking are u not ashame of yrself. After Saying all dis lies abt Nana Addo he has the boys to talk abt his govt.
U.N.G.R.A.T.E.F.U.L Haruna Atta, I cannot believe that you have any nerves left to comment on this. Is this government the only one that has let previous appointees go? Are you serious? Stop this stomach politics! You stabbed H.E.Akufo Addo in the back with f.a.l.s.e.hoods and here you are again. Give us a break! Stomach politicians
SO THESE THIS HARUNA ATTA ALSO HAS ( PHD) ? THIS NDC PHD STUDENT
Who is this Haruna Atta? Has he forgotten what he said about Nana Addo before the elections? If I were him I wouldn't talk at all but fo*ls always think they are the wiser people on earth so always come out to show their bufoonery,in any case is Haruna Atta now from ambassador to Namibia to PRO for Alfred Ogbamey? Eeeiii! Then this man is a Real dangerous guy And Who Is He Talking to? There is no position for him in this government so he can go drink the Korle lagoon.Every government has people they can work with and it is not in the Constitution that the president can't remove people he can't work with. Traitors have no way in the NPP government mo besu ara awu we are moving forward. .
CRY TOUR OWN CRY, HARUNA. YOU WHIMPERING, HUFFING AND PUFFING CRITTER!!! A HYPOCRITE OF THE HIGHEST ORDER, AND WHOM I RESPECTED VERY MUCH, FELL FROM THE HIGH PEDESTAL I HAD PLACED HIM WHEN HE SHEEPISHLY AND WITHOUT SHAME, DEFENDED THE TRIBAL CAMPAIGN VITUPERATIONS OF JOHN MAHAMA!! NEVER KNEW THAT YOU WERE A ***barred word***; ALAS, YOU ARE AND WORSE THAN THAT YOU HAVE NO MORAL PRINCIPLES!!! YOU EKE SELFISH POLITICAL FLATULENCE AND YOUR SPITUM IS 90% NONSENSICAL GARBAGE!!! YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A COWARD AND OPPORTUNIST WITH WARPED POLITICAL LENSES AND LACKING THE MORAL UPRIGHTNESS WHICH PERMITS YOU TO SCREAM AGAIN FROM THE ROOFTOPS ABOUT POLITICAL INCORECTNESS!! DO YOU HAVE ANY GUTS TO COMPLAIN?? ARE YOU AND HAVE YOU BEEN A PRIVILEDGED RECIPIENT OF POLITICAL SPOILS TO THE DETRIMENT OF OTHERS?? JUST GO AWAY QUIETLY AND NEVER MAKE EVEN A WHIMPER. NOBODY WILL MISS YOU!! YOU UNREPENTANT LEECH!!!!
EKAA OKWATREKWA NKO A, ANKA DAA YEGRO ASAFO. HARUNA ATTA IS DOWN TODAY AND SO HE IS LAUPHING AT ALFRED. BUT MIND YOU, ALRED IS BEING PENCILLED FOR A NEW POSITION, AND THAT WILL MAKE HARUNA LAUGH AT THE WRONG SIDE OF HIS MOUTH.
Haruna Atta or whatever he calls himself should know that before the NDC assumed office in 2009, the position of Ghana's High Commissioner to Namibia was held by a person appointment by President Kuffour who was a Ghanaian but the NDC appointmented their own. Hypocrate Haruna should ***barred word*** because when he was appointed as Ghana's high Commissioner to Namibia he did not turn down the appointment by saying that the person who was holding the position at that time was a Ghanaian. When it suits you, you say that everything is well but when it does not suit you, you say all is not well.