Letter to my Wannabe MP – By Kwame Gyan
Dear Sir,
Please my name is Kwame. I live in your area. I have seen your billboards around. I don’t see many billboards belonging to your colleague candidates like I see yours. It means you have more money than your competition. In one of the billboards I see a set of binoculars and you say you have ‘vision for this area’. My friends tell me they see similar things in their constituencies. My friends say I have a big mouth and they think I know ‘grammar’ so after we had gone through a couple of hours of discussing politics and all, we agreed that I should write this letter to you, copying all the others like you living in different constituencies stretching across to Cape Three Points, Paga, and all over the country, including those praying that the EC make the mistake of adding another 45 ‘honourable members’ to our parliament.
Please Sir, why are you people promising us that when you become our MPs you will bring developmental projects such as roads, schools, KVIPs, scholarships, markets, bus stops, boreholes, farm inputs like tomoatoes and pepper and okro seedlings and many other things? Please Sir, I went on Google; you know it is the world’s number one search engine, and you will be amazed at what I found there. I even found things about you that I am sure most of your constituency folks do not know about but don’t worry; you qualify to stand so you will stand.
As I was saying I saw a copy of Ghana’s 1992 constitution online and when I checked in chapter 10 where issues concerning Parliament, AKA Legislature are mentioned, I noticed that building KVIPs and schools and all that is not part of your business so why do you lie to us that you will do them? You see Please Sir, when you tell us that you will do all these things and we vote for you and you refuse to do them, we get very angry. But don’t worry, as for this year, my friends and I will tell our friends and families that when you promise us these things we should disregard them. Yes we know that you get some monies for development but that one ‘dieee’ any one of you who wins the seat will have it so it is no point at all.
Please Sir, we have still not been convinced that you are the best candidate for this area. In fact, none of you seem to be. We know that most of you belong to NPP, NDC, PPP, CPP, PNC, GCPP, LDPP, QWERTY, XYXP and the rest of the acronymic parties but does that mean that blue turns to grey if an issue favours your opponent more than it does you? Or that you cannot appreciate it when the other is right on an issue? Please Sir, trust may be in short supply these days but we still demand a lot more of it from you if we are to allow you to represent us, especially when we are contributing towards the GHC80, 000 or so that you will be getting as an ESB after ONLY four years of work; not forgetting all the goodies you will be getting courtesy my friends and I who earn so little but yet pay taxes nonetheless.
Please Sir, I have also been reading the newspapers and listening to the news on the radio, and watching the TV news. My friends and I have realized that those in parliament are always disagreeing even when there is no need to disagree. Sometimes I also find their arguments and debates more laughable than seeing my 6 year old nephew and his friend fight. The only time that those people in parliament agree on issues is when it concerns money or some properties that they will share among themselves only. So my friend and I have come to understand that when you go to parliament, most likely you will be thinking more of you than of us. That disturbs us a lot so please, in the name of God and of Allah please the least you can do for us is to fight for our interest sometimes and not just that of your party or your family.
Please Sir, I have a lot of things to say to you and you and your friends but I my time has run out. So until you hear from me again, BY BY (as my 74 year old father jokingly says all the time).
Yours Constituent,
Kwame Gyan (on behalf of my friend in Ghana)