I have received so many telephone calls from many young political animals in the past couple of months. All of them asked me the same question " Is it true you are running for NDC national Propaganda secretary"?
'Yes, I am considering running for the deputy position', I will say to them on the phone. 'Why not the main position? Who else can do it better than you in our generation', They would ask?
I confess; that question gives me a smile. Why not the main position?? Why deputy??
Many of my friends have said to me that they cannot see any new generation political activist, well abreast with old and new media communication skills, more capable of running a propaganda secretariat for the NDC than I can. What a challenge!
Unbelieving of my friends, I decided to embark on the onerous task of finding out if indeed there aren't more qualified people capable and committed enough for that strategic office of communication than I.
I began by asking what basic skills are required to run a propaganda outfit. I found three most important: writing skills, speaking skills, and scheming/networking skills.
Writing skills are crucially required since the mass media - print, broadcast, web portals, new social media etc - provide the channel for propagandists to disseminate their information.
Speaking skills cannot be done without since the propagandist will need to substantiate what he writes through voice speech.
Scheming/ networking skills form the foundation for propaganda since the propaganda scheme of the political opponent is laced with malice and demands an above average mind operating in the third dimension to be able to decipher and counteract appropriately. PROPAGANDA IS A BLOODLESS PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR that aims at either totally annihilating the political opponent or repairing the lethal impact of the political opponent's Propaganda machinery. And this WAR is not for weak hearts or unprepared minds.
Besides, it takes a certain thinking to be able to align your propaganda war forces in scattered patterns, and to undermine the minds and psychology of your opponents.
So: basically, these three qualities combined, the propagandist only need the full support of the party machinery to be effective. On this score, I dare say that, in the past five years, Propaganda within the ruling party has been so ineffective that a certain government and party communications team has taken over propaganda work, and they do so at their abysmal best, to no positive effect.
Still in my quest to find the most qualified candidate for the December congress, I first looked within the office. The current secretary, Richard Quashiga (Hon) abandoned his post two year ago to join the legislature. He will excel at his new job provided that legislating is easier than propagating. I double doubt that anyways. The first deputy, Hajia Laadi (Hon), followed her boss to parliament as MP for Pusiga.
With two Party propaganda officials now in parliament, there remains one deputy propaganda secretary Solomon Nkansah. Naturally, Mr. Nkansah feels like a heir apparent to the main position of Propaganda secretary of the ruling NDC. After all, he is the lover boy of General secretary Asiedu Nketia. He is also the god - son of "uncle Ato", one of the richest men in Ghana today and NDC kingpin.
Unfortunately, god - Son - ism really does not bear propaganda fruits for a political party wanting to maintain power. I have never read a single piece of article authored by Mr. Nkansah as deputy propaganda secretary for the past four years. Mr. Nkansah does not even operate a Facebook account - not because he does not want to but because he lacks the know - how in such hi-tech areas. And I know it for a fact. On this score of writing/hi - tech networking skills, he is counted out in my books.
On speaking skills, Mr. Nkansah specializes in speaking Fante. I cannot imagine that speaking eloquently in Fante can really propagate party policy or program to the entire nation, since Fante is not a lingua Franca. That also provides a deficiency in him. As for the third dimension thinking, it requires writing and speaking skills to manifest. Without the first and second skill, the third does not manifest at all.
I know that It will not be pleasant in the ears of Mr. Nkansah and his surrogates, what I am writing here. However, it is the truth: that he is woefully unskilled and unqualified at this moment for the position of national propaganda secretary of the NDC. And Supporting him is tantamount to endorsing mediocrity. And since I am not in the mediocrity business, I disapprove of him. Having cast him aside in the analyses, there remains no one in the current office until elections are held in December 2014.
What I don't understand is why so far, we have had people opt to run for the two deputy propaganda positions but no one seem BOLD enough to challenge the hegemony of the ruling national executive. And since I don't understand it, I opt to be different.
I have written and published in the past seven years, over a hundred feature political pieces of articles, news paper columns, press statements and conferences, youth manifestos, not to mention new social media publications and constant blogging. These does not include my unpublished manuscripts.
Again, taking the words of my friends, not as flattery, they tell me that I am an adroit writer when I try.
I am not such an excellent speaker, but with practice, I can manage. And if what some people say I have an "evil genius" is anything to go by - what ever that means - then I believe I can think in the "third dimension" and translate that into writing and speaking propaganda.
Besides, as a media man, I am strategically positioned to align more prudently with the conveyors of propaganda.
Since the daunting investigation have yielded no suitable candidate - both capable and committed - to run effective and results oriented propaganda for the ruling NDC, I am left with no option but a moral mandate to take up the challenge and contest the ultimate position to prevent a mediocre propaganda outfit totally incapable of matching the opposition NPP boot for boot in the next general election from emerging.
We can do better. I will do better.
Amenga -Etego Akaabitono SaCut
(Aspiring National Propaganda Secretary, NDC)
www.sacutamenga-etego.blogspot.com — with Larry Gbevlo-Lartey and 20 others.
Yes, I am seriously speaking. We live in a society in which human rights have been ursurped by dogs. And who are they that have transfered the rights of man to dogs?? Dogs nowadays don't feed on crumbs of bones like we saw growing up. It is men who now look for crumbs - but to no avail.
The rich and powerful - of course! Who else? Aren't they the ones who champion the social gospel of Christ? And don't they occupy the front seats in the church at congregation? Akin to the pharisees?
Yet these are the people who have taken away the fundamental human rights of the poor to food.. Not only that, these rights have been transfered to dogs.
And yes, that is what is envoke. Rich and powerful people keep a 'foreign dog/s', feed them on a foreign meal at a dollar price per day - a cost relative per day capable of alleviating hunger in large communinal house holds for a week in Ghana.
Well, these days there are rationalising but untenable arguments about security etc. Of course, the rich man has the right to protect himself, his family and property from intruders with all the dogs they want.
However, the rich man has more to fear from hungry neighbourhood mobs whose rights to food has been transfered to watch dogs. The hungry masses are the ultimate threat to the rich and powerful. And even though the beastly dogs may protect them -for a while-after eating the fat crumbs - animals have never been able to tame man in the course of history. Therefore, ultimately, dogs can never protect man from man's machinations against man. This makes the security argument an illusion.
What is sad about this 'popular culture' is how unaware, or rather more appropriately, how unconcerned or indifferent, rich people are about what destruction it is they are doing to the human society - the elevation of so - called pet - animals above poor people.
Let me just remind all the rich and powerful people - lawyers, doctors, bankers, politicians, business men, pastors, con men, artists, journalists, foot ballers etc etc - that if they ever die any where in the absence of their family, or friends, their well fed dogs will have no role to play. The poor starving neighbour may give them a burial or even a police report. Better still, since the rich have become obsessed with their own funerals, and since funerals are all about human numbers to dignify them, let the rich men and women be aware that Dogs - foreign or local breeds - do not attend funerals. Again, they will need the poor miserable masses to make up the numbers for their final dignity - that's if they have any left at end of their greedy lifes!
It's a shame!