Hassan Ayariga might not deserve mention in any serious story or even commentary we know. However, in the interest of correcting historical fallacies, his hallmark, this position can be varied.
With the standard of education fallen to an all-time low – a fact captured in an international survey – we are constrained to respond to sickening remarks made by regrettably a man who once sought to become the president of the Republic of Ghana.
His remarks and gestures a few days ago and even when he gained notoriety during the IEA presidential debate – although appropriate comic reliefs – the mendacious tomfoolery contained therein must be responded to accordingly when they threaten the integrity of education in the country.
He was the presidential candidate of the People’s National Convention (PNC) in the last presidential elections but we doubt if the party would risk fielding a politically eccentric person with a penchant for selling his conscience for a pittance.
Hassan Ayariga is not a showcase of the quality education prevalent in the northern parts of the country before the National Democratic Congress (NDC) became part of the political landscape of the country.
That he is unable to differentiate between a ceremonial president and an executive one – the former being what Nana Akufo-Addo’s father was – is so shameful that the blunder must be highlighted with a view to deflecting it from infecting pupils and students across the country.
Although his jokes have never been attractive, the latest one was even more drab and silly: the leadership of the PNC must consider holding an emergency meeting to rein in their fooling one-time presidential candidate before he drowns the party in irreversible ignominy.
For all they might not know, he is nursing another dream of bearing the flag of the party into the 2016 polls, especially since this time he might make more money from the other side.
With money playing critical roles these days, they underestimate what he can do at their peril. If they want to keep the party above the parapet in these politically turbulent times, they must act fast and with surgical precision.
We have heard some party persons dissociating the political grouping from the man now largely discredited, his remarks no longer considered worthy of even listening to.
For the purpose of educating the man whose so-called certificates from foreign institutions might even be questionable after all, Nana Akufo-Addo was not an Attorney General at the time that he (Ayariga) claimed he (Nana) was.
The free education policy instituted by the Nkrumah administration, indeed an extension of a colonial policy, has never been stopped by any government since Ghana gained independence.
The late President Akufo Addo, one of Ghana’s finest statesmen, could not have referred to any technocrat as a boy as Hassan sought to imply with his nauseating “hey boys scrap it” nonsense.
We regret dwelling on such a character in place of more urgent subjects, but as we pointed out earlier, the truth must be told so the kinds and others can winnow the grains from the chaff.
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