Ghana—a forced collection of African ethnic groups by European colonial pirates—has yet to achieve nationhood since its inception in 1957. Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, side-stepped the issue of nation-building by opting rather for continent-building and mansion-building in the skies. Or what he called the African Union. Our current president, Nana Akufo-Addo, was supposed to turn interests inwards after some sixty years of gross failure—for nation building. But the symptoms of his tenure point to one thing: He suffers also from the same elitist disease that Nkrumah suffered—Methatosis.
The Metha, i.e. the more educated than his ancestors, are a special breed of elites who can be found almost everywhere in Africa who have been left behind by European pirates who managed to leave marks of their terrorism everywhere they rampaged. The Metha are a direct product of the education imposed upon the colonized and the terrorized. Their colonial educationalists believe that they are discoverers—nothing is real until they have found it; nothing is developed until they have touched it; nothing is scientific until they have written it; nothing is publishable until they have sanctioned it. They are so intelligent yet are incapable of being sufficient. They are geniuses yet they are incapable of making Europe a self-sufficient sub-continent. These educationalists are so imbued with so much wisdom that they have to loot other nations, kill other people on other continents (i.e. commit genocides) and subject Africans to the most brutal form of labor-extraction in order to make ends meet. But they are said to not be uncouth. They are not savages!
These pirate educationalists who bred the Metha all over Africa belong to a special cabal of European terrorists. They are the more advanced yet idiots (the Mayi). The cognitive disease—which is Mayitosis—that the Mayi suffer has been passed on to the Metha through their type of education. Consider for instance that the Mayi nations represent about five percent of the world’s population yet consume more than fifty percent of the world’s resources. And when the issue of Global Warming or of Depleting Resources arise in discussions, the Mayi are quick to point to the need for a world-wide effort to reduce Green House Gases. They do not admonish the Mayi nations to curb their appetites. In fact, the Mayi insists that the problem of Depleting Resources should be solved only by depleting more resources. That is if the solution does not make “economic sense,” which is if it does not involve more consumption—economic growth—then it cannot be considered feasible.
Some of this cognitive malfunction of the Mayi has seeped into the consciousness of the Metha. So that when the Metha reads the New York Times and The Washington Post, in Mayi Language, he believes that every mention of “nation” refers to his own nation. For instance when the Metha reads that a company called Amazon—in attempting to help solve an American healthcare problem—would deploy drones to ship pharmaceuticals to patients quicker, he believes that this represents the solution to Ghana’s healthcare problem. The Metha does not know the difference between the United States Healthcare System and Ghana’s Healthcare System. To him, the two are connected. In fact, to him they are one.
For example, the president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, assured his fellow Ghanaians in a recent speech that the Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme—which has been bedeviled with countless bureaucratic and financial problems—was going to be fixed. (The speech was given at the 83rd Annual General Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH) in Ho, on the theme “Building Capacity to lead Change in Healthcare”) How was it going to be fixed? The president claimed that the system would be fixed “with advancements such as drone delivery of medical supplies to be introduced by the end of the year for an effective health system.”
The problem that drones actually solve—the Metha president of Ghana probably has no idea. He has not an iota of an idea probably because he couldn’t be more naïve; he couldn’t be more idiotic about the healthcare problems facing Ghanaians. What stares him in the face more than a drone delivery system is obvious to the average Ghanaian. Ghana’s Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the biggest and the most advanced clinic in the country, is better known as a grave yard. The Infant Ward there has incubators that haven’t properly worked for many years. The maternal mortality rate and the infant mortality rate are worse than the time of our ancestors some six hundred years ago! In fact, our ancestors would be shocked by the sight of Korle Bu. They would be right in thinking it was a Human Slaughter House. The ordinary patient there dies more quickly from malaria than at home.
The hereditary cognitive malfunction of the Metha remains pervasive and insidious. Everywhere one looks, many African nations are led by a horde of the Metha. And exactly how is Ghana supposed to become a nation, become self-sufficient, if it is continually led by the Metha, who have contracted and even inherited a special case of Mayitosis, called Methatosis? How are Ghanaians supposed to escape the quicksand of the human unthinking of the Metha; how are they to escape the cognitive illness of the Metha, and the gross unseemly violence they unleash on the human condition? How?
We have a disease but luckily we are not the disease, which fortunately for us means that we can get well. So long as we recognize the large unthinking crowd in our lands and make thinking and writing great again.
You best remove the Great & Venerable Ancestor Osagyefo Kwame “Nana Kasapreko” Nkrumah from the METHA list. You are sorely mistaken. If you are of the view that this lil taco wraps and burger buns such as Ghana & Togo stand a fighting chance as is then our posterity go kpeme for real.
There you have an argument. I think. May I understand why KN cannot be said to have displayed Methatosis sometimes? He was greater than the rest, but still not enough.
The intellectual community is partly to be blame to a great extent. A small fraction of the intellectuals in the developed countries are partly responsible for the relatively pseudo-developments we see all over those countries.
Of course it is common knowledge that the so called genius are gangsters and pirates. They plagiarize everything from science to technology, and pillaged any other things they can’t afford to keep their pseudo-economies afloat. Those who don’t believe me, just pause for a second and self-reflect why on earth is a military budget more than half of a countries GDP
But what is also true is the role of the small segment of existentialists that have refused to carve in for the promotion of imperialism. The thesis is there is nothing so dreadful to these invisible hands than the awaken masses, and so i would encourage you to team up so we do regular talks on the streets and seminars in schools around our country. Thanks
Seyram, I think a revolution is necessary. Not one by the gun, but one by the Narmer Cult. What this means begins with leading linguists my way: (wo)men who can turn most of Ghana’s disparate languages, even West Africa’s, into a super appealing language (SAL).
Then we must ditch our Oral Culture and implement a Literary Culture asap. This means: (1) wielding the SAL in the streets, (2) having a unique writing system for it and (3) implementing the free translation and distribution of all books, papers, etc., into that language. For instance requiring every town to have its own Newspaper in that language. This must be done quickly.
For the problem of Ghana, and for that matter Africa in general is the problem of illiteracy. The Oral Culture has killed us enough! And the language barriers present a tremendous challenge. My plan solves that.
I believe that to be alive is to be aware. To be aware of yourself and your surroundings is to be literate. To be literate is to wield a high culture in your own language, which is Writing! This is my revolution. This must become our revolution.
Sounds cool but wouldn’t that worsen the problem of the illiteracy? The imposition of English on Ghana impoverished some parts of Ghana (places not held by the English) and caused massive exodus of people out of their homeland. In as much as i agree with the spirit of Nermer cults’ definition of literacy : “to be literate is to wield a high culture in your own language, which is Writing” and also her proposition of the use of news media in all nooks and cranny of the country, i am a bit in the unknown (neither optimistic nor pessimistic) about the change of the language.
I might not have depth and gird of insight with regards to the workings of this idea but think we can use the individual existing local languages to our benefit. I understand the quest for the SAL and its benefits, but i think it would render the masses rather illiterate
Classical and contemporary examples are the south Koreans. They only changed the alphabet into hangul from the chinese hanja and that makes them independent of the chinese (at least they believe so).
This is my preliminary submission on the subject
Beautifully written but will our elitist metha even understand this? We need a revolution to rid ourselves of methatosis.
Nana Afia Serwaah Bonsu. A revolution it is: And there’s more argument in a more powerful but silent revolution. We must ditch our Oral Culture and implement a Literary Culture asap. This means: (1) having a common language hewn from all our disparate languages called Super A (of whatever), (2) having a unique writing system for it and (3) implementing the free translation and distribution of all books, papers into that language. For instance requiring every town to have its own Newspaper in that language. This must be done quickly.
For the problem of Ghana, and for that matter Africa in general is the problem of illiteracy. The Oral Culture has killed us enough! To be alive is to be aware. To be aware of yourself and your surroundings is to be literate. To be literate is to wield a high culture in your own language, which is Writing!
Please don’t be confused and put Nkrumah and our current president in the same category. KN at least had vision and was able to implement part of his vision and he is unrivaled in the sub region if not the continent!
I think you have a fair argument there. May I understand why KN cannot be said to have displayed Methatosis sometimes? He was far greater than the rest, but still he could not have been immune to the Methatosis.
I think he was seriously flawed in his Africa first approach. Not that it wasn’t magnanimous. I respect it. But you know, the road to hell can often be paved with such good intentions.
C is it true that Moummar kadaffi of Libya y was going to help you guys and that’s one reason they killed him
The Kwame Nkrumah angle in mine view can still be up for examination and re-examination. In fact to be taken up and onto the side of critique rather than being there in the ‘same boat’ category of some of his contemporaries. My take, on the call it; the Kwame Nkrumah on the national question cannot be missed. Firstly, thinking that got taken to the dialectical and secondly for that much the historical materialist interest, therefore bothering on the micro/macro project. The colonial question: of the purpose situate, the artificial boundaries, the gearing and operating mode- divide and rule, direct and indirect et al. To the substance/form, status quo overthrow/retention were all on the radar onto the big job. Being the determinations relevance bearing on decolonisation as a project. That must take on as well as confronting the criticals: class/interest pole positioning, in control and direction of power and production relations were all on the chart/formulation. That ethnicity even though bosom to the colonial project and heir apparents; to this day was in mine view not a big issue to Nkrumah. To Nkrumah was kudos. Can’t count how many of his contemporaries did put it down as project and for resolution. Without which will 24/7 come hunting the neocolonial paradigm. Get them young was strategic. Then to the tactics to mean the various operations targeting the strategic goals realisations. Will go straightaway to his Educational Programme. Not necessarily on the important though colonial legacy ‘detoxification’ but of relevance to national question resolution. On that in my mind comes the second cycle (Secondary School) school disemination. Free movement and choice of the youth that underlined the- Common Entrance Examinations. Five (old GCE ‘O’ Levels) or that of the Two (old ‘A’ Levels) years duration; thus moving out of, (comfort zones) one region to another was a signal for more goodies in the bag. Like the ability to speak another who knows, two or three more dialects. Then to the Sports/Games, Arts/Culture as well as of organised Academic interests and contests regime; that cannot be underestimated, just on gains of bonding in stock and for tapping upon in the process and challenges of taking on the national question and of progressive resolution. This are perhaps the understanding of the yardsticks by which it is possible of distancing Nkrumah from some of the inward looking forebears on the African peoples centered, three prong project.. Being liberation, emancipation and empowerment of the…