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The Abysmal Mind of Dominic Nitiwul
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Forget the fact that Dominic Nitiwul, the main opposition
National Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Bimbila, has
LLM from the University of Westminster, UK, MBA in Corperate
Finance from the University of Glamorgan, UK, and BED (Science)
from the University of Education, Ghana.
Despite his university degrees and the fact that Nitiwul is 33
years, that should supposedly make him simultaneously modernized
and globalized - with all its attendant sophistication – his
statement that “President Atta Mills did not win the 2008
elections on merit, but by the help of a “magic ring” reveals
his incivility and appalling mind, in spite of his science
background, in relation to Ghana’s/Africa’s progress, where some
deadly cultural inhibitions are entangling greater progress.
By making such discouraging statements nation-wide on the
Accra-based Citi FM and Metro T.V’s ‘Good Morning Ghana’ Show,
and claiming that “he has irrefutable evidence that a ring worn
by Professor Mills during the 2008 electioneering period, was
not an ordinary ring, but one that gave him victory over his
main challenger, Nana Akufo-Addo,” Nitiwul reflects the sad mind
of the supposedly Ghanaian/African intellectual.
An intellectual who cannot extricate himself/herself from the
clutches of the inhibiting parts of the Ghanaian/African
culture, that have been blocking greater progress.
Deficient intellectuals of Nitiwul’s ilk confuses the ordinary
Ghanaian/African who normally look up them for sense of
progress. In Nitiwul, irrational Ghanaian cocoa farmers will
easily draw the conclusion that the destruction of their cocoa
trees by Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD) is the work
of either evil spirits, demons or witches. The farmers do not
take scientific explanations, despite Ghana Cocoa Board advising
them that witches aren’t responsible for CSSVD.
An odd logic: the unsophisticated cocoa farmer will argue that
after-all the Big Man Nitiwul thinks like that, so as ordinary,
uneducated cocoa farmer I must also think like that – monkey
see, monkey do. The result is a cocoa industry reeling under
destructive superstitions. Compared Ghanaian cocoa farmers to
their counterparts, in say USA, who are freed from such clutches
of demonology and are more scientific and wouldn’t attribute an
agricultural disease (s) to unforseen evil spirits.
Nitiwul makes the situation disturbing – and it certainly
indicates the kind of legislator Nitiwul is – irrational,
unreasoning, negatively superstitious, juvenile and
self-destruct. As a parliamentarian, Nitiwul’s transmission of
such irrationality nation-wide puts Parliament under bizzare
image, as to the level of reasoning that goes on there. Nitiwul
is a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee. How sad!!!
It also shows that Nitiwul has disturbingly shaky grasp of
Ghana’s and Africa’s development challenges – a situation that
needs hard, serious thinking to tackle pressing progress issues.
Like his counterparts in other parts of world,
Nitiwul is expected to radiate light when he speaks on demanding
Ghana/African development issues against the backdrop of mass
ignorance, especially Nitiwul’s Northern Region. No society
develops with mindless elites of Nitiwul’s thinking.
More so, Nitiwul’s wrestling with the inhibitions in the
Ghanaian/African culture, parts of which have entwined Nitiwul’s
mind, and made him erroneously believe that “magic ring” helped
President Atta Mills win the presidential elections in 2008 and
not painstaking campaigns, most times in rough terrains, to sell
his assumed development programs to the Ghanaian electorate.
In fact, to further take on Nitiwul’s rational weaknesses, as
progress and enlightenment issues, the contest between President
Mills and his main competitor Nana Akufo Addo was so close that
nobody would have convinced Ghanaians that magic was involved.
In the first round, Akufo Addo won the presidential elections
(short of not getting the legal percentage), where was candidate
Mill’s “magic ring”?
His university degrees included, Nitiwul isn’t different from
the supposedly illiterate Ghanaian/African who believes
witchcraft or evil spirits are responsible for vehicular
accidents or for deaths or for diseases or for poverty or for
conflicts or for other existential challenges. We can add
Nitiwul’s political superstition – that juju-marabou “magic
ring” can help win elections without hard campaigning that sells
one’s development agenda.
And why not make more of this “magic ring,” via Nitiwul’s
thinking, so that the magic rings will make Ghanaians/Africans
live a far better live than Norwegians or Canadians?
Nitiwul’s warped mind isn’t all that surprising. In Bimbila, in
Ghana’s Northern Region, where Nitiwul is the Member of
Parliament, negative superstitions are dangerously troubling
phenomena. Part of the reasons for their recurring backwardness
and wrenching poverty is counter-productive superstitious
believes such as witchcraft that have entangled the people’s
mind and made them ignorant to better living.
In relation to the on-going enlightenment movement spreading
across Ghana, Ghanaians at home and abroad have responded
appropriately to Nitiwul’s uncivilized and appalling mind masked
in his university degrees and the fact that he is a Member of
Parliament. At most Ghanaian web sites, especially ghanaweb.com
and modernghana.com, where Nitiwul’s statements were published,
there were over 800 hits, almost all damning his irrational
posturing.
One of the most striking responses was from Tetteh Asagba on
ghanaweb.com, who said that, “I am even ashamed to be a Ghanaian
with people like this Nitiwul sitting in parliament and uttering
such plain stupidity. If there are powers like what he claims he
knows, how come he did not lead himself or the leaders of his
party to go and acquire some? It is like people talking about
juju or voodoo being used to win soccer tournaments. Yet still
when you look at all the winners of our competitions in Ghana,
it is the the teams with the best players who emerge victorious.
How come there has not been even one winning team from the areas
of Ghana where such beliefs are prevalent? Such an ignorant
useless person is supposed to make laws for people of Ghana to
abide by. It is even sickening to think anything to respond to
this nonsense ...”
Kofi Nkyekyer said, on ghanaweb, that, “Where is our education
if at this age and time we are this superstitious?” Kofi Bempah,
writing from London, UK, stated that, “An MP thinks a ring can
win elections. How did he win his own seat- by magic?”
Kwaku Kele Ashiagbor angrily wrote that, “I feel sad and worried
sbout the intellectual level of some of our so called Honurable
MP's. It is about time we begin to examine the mental status of
who we elect to Parliament otherwise we will end up having
donkeys and monkeys sitting in Parliament making laws for us. I
feel sorry for the Constituents of this moron MP. Seriously
though, they should start thinking of replacing him.The guy is
not fit to represent them. The question to ask is how did he get
to be selected in the first place? This speaks a lot about our
electoral process. If we continue to send bamboos to Parliament,
we will one day wake to find that our dear Ghana is being ruled
by animals.”
In any case, who would dare say the Ghanaian enlightenment
movement hasn’t impacted on Ghanaians positively?
Kofi Akosah-Sarpong, Academic/writer, Ca,
2011nada, May 16
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