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This boy is simply my idol! You want to know which of the above? Have you heard of a straw man fallacy and all its related arguments? Perhaps it is important that we don’t build straw men when we don’t actually need them.
You know what? If you are short of ideas in an argument, there are two simple things you can result to; insults and semantics. When a nation agrees that only ‘issues’ and ‘issues’ alone must be the basis upon which it chooses her ruler, it is a good thing. What that nation, in my estimation, must make an issue, however, must not emanate from a referendum. Rather, issues must emanate from every society’s own values and perceptions of what is good for that society. This is because what may be an issue today may be a non-issue tomorrow and vice versa.
Which of these will you consider an issue? That a presidential candidate of a leading political party of a certain democratic country has made an ex-convict (convicted for dealing in cocaine) a leading member of his campaign team or that a presidential candidate of a certain political party has a black palm or, yet still, that a Prime Minister of a certain powerful country has appointed an ex-journalist from a certain media house that had as its hobby, the hacking of people’s phones as his communications adviser? I am sure that the varying nature of the questions above has already suggested to you that what is to be made an issue must not be cast in stone.
I am a political watcher not because I enjoy the kind of politics that goes on in Ghana, but because I am duty-bound to do so for the sake of my profession as a journalist. And one of these young men whose names have appeared in my caption has, for the years since I started observing him, endeared my heart. He has done so because of the civility with which he has argued his positions out and the level of education he brings to the many that may care to listen to him. If you hate this young man, it may not be because he spews out thrash and slights his opponents, but for the sole reason that he has chosen politics as a profession and that you will have preferred that he was a technocrat. The issue is that you can’t blame him for his right of choice because even in this political business and discourse, you never get jaded listening to him. This young man is cast in the mode of Dan Botwe of the NPP and John Mahama of the NDC. I pray nature smiles at him and take him to the heights these great men have attained.
There is the other of the two whom you will not hate because he passes for what he does and does it well and in his overzealousness, combines what he does with insults or better still, non-issues. For him, the trick is simple; become an adversary of the ‘number one man’ and you will become an instant hero yourself. Thanks to some parliamentarians and party fanatics who will boycott parliamentary duties for his sake or will mass up at his lawful detention venue to demand his immediate release. He has chosen to repudiate the long-standing Ghanaian virtue of ‘respect for elders’. You simply cannot hate this young man because he is the master of what he does.
So you see? These are young men of two tales. They have therefore presented me and other young men with choices to make. Which of these will you try? Fake an attack on yourself when you are planning one on others or be factual and speak to the issues when making your case. As for me, my choice is obvious.
Felix Ofosu Kwakye is my idol.
If the public is the ultimate judge of the conduct of political actors, then why not leave the issue of insults in the court of public opinion which has never failed in their judgements anyway? If Prof Mills did not lose elections in 2008 because he was a poodle, it is also my conviction that Nana Addo will not do same because he is short. That is why I find it extremely inexplicable that someone who calls himself a lawyer in the making thinks that war of insults is what he will tender as evidence in this ever powerful ‘court of public opinion’. How sad!
There are two things that make me sad. I have never met any of these young men anywhere; I have only known them vicariously because of what they do and somehow, I am greatly affected by what they do. This is because they all represent the future of this great nation but who wants to see this country in the hands of future leaders who are ready to set ground rules for political aspersions anyway? What about the recent craze of party fanatics massing up at lawful institutions to make one demand or the other in blatant disregard for lawful procedure?
You know what they say? “He who the gods want to destroy, they first make mad”. A word to the wise is in the heart of the Afram Plains where talents abound but no one cares about.
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| Source: Joshua Tigo [email protected] The writer is a Freelance Journalist based in Accra |
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