COVID-19: POLARIZED GHANA EDUCATION SERVICE TO RISK LIVES OF SCHOOL CHILDREN AND TEACHERS IN THE MIDST OF INCREASING NUMBERS OF HORIZONTAL INFECTIONS.

By Issifu Seidu Kudus Gbeadese
(0244198031)
skseidu_14@yahoo.com

The consequences of the curveball President Nana Akufo-Addo threw at Ghanaians on that 9th of April 2020 by lifting the three weeks partial lockdown are still fresh in our archives. So, anytime there is a hint of any decision which won’t be backed by science and valid data, we are quick to start pointing to the future consequences such decisions will have on the lives of the people of Ghana.

The Ghana Education Service and for that matter the Government of Ghana is set to act against all professional advices from the certified Teacher Unions in Ghana, the National Council of Parent-Teacher Association, the Africa Education Watch and other key stakeholders in the education sub-sector, to reopen schools as the Ministry of Information dropped hints on such a decision. The Ministry of Information added that government will ensure that schools and pupils adhere to the existing protocols as it prepares to reopen schools.

It is recalled that the Director General of Ghana Education Service, Prof Opoku Amankwa, requested for inputs from the stakeholders in the education sector to inform its decision to reopen schools in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

In its letter dated 18th May, 2020, and signed by the Executive Director, the Africa Education Watch has warned the Government of Ghana not to risk the lives of innocent children and teachers by reopening the schools as planned. Among the four concerns raised by the Africa Education Watch is the caution that any such decision must be based on science and backed by data generated by experts, and this should be done after a consensus reached by all stakeholders.

The African Education Watch bemoaned the poor hygienic conditions in our school coupled with poor infrastructure which will obviously cause congestion in times when the government is enforcing other protocols including social distancing. The civil society organization finally warned that any attempt to reopen schools without consensus from all stakeholders including PTA, SMC, will suffer patronage since parents will fear to expose their children in a school environment which cannot be properly controlled in these times.

The National Council of Parent-Teacher Association (NCPTA) equally frowns on government’s resolve to reopen school against experts cautions. The NCPTA describes any such decision as premature and that there is no sufficient data from the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Medical Association to back a decision to reopen schools. Parents and school managements also foresee a huge risk as compliance on protocols amongst children especially wearing of nose masks for a long period of time and social distancing cannot be guaranteed.

In furtherance, the NCPTAs in its press release dated 20th May, 2020, admonished government to still monitor the situation up to August or September to ascertain a downward trend of infection before considering the reopening of schools. The NCPTAs recollects events of the Tema Factory infection which happened as a result of concentration of people at a closed place for a long period of time. This the NCPTA says should be a warning to the government.

In the midst of all these resistance by the key stakeholders including PTAs, SMCs and other civil society organizations, the government of Nana Akufo-Addo is bent on acting against all odds. To make matters worse, the Ghana Education Service which is supposed to work and act in the interest of Ghanaians especially innocent school children, has rather allowed itself to be polarized and compromised by this desperate NPP government. This is why the Ghana Education Service is only applying what the NPP government puts forward for implementation and not based its decision on valid data, science and common sense.

We had a similar case when the President lifted the three weeks partial lockdown without any consensus from experts even at a time the cases of infection assumed a horizontal trend and community infections kept growing in larger proportions. Prof Agyeman Badu Akosa, Former Director General of GHS described the decision to lift the lockdown as reckless and one not backed by data. He was at the time advocating for an extension of the lockdown and even extended to other parts of the country.

The cases of infection has not plateaued and the community spread in almost all the regions is getting alarming. This is the time we require an agile government which can assume a strictly responsive position with the ability to timely review policy instruments and options to meet the exigencies of the time.

We cannot sit back and allow this polarized Ghana Education Service to sacrifice the lives of innocent school children, teachers and parents for President Nana Addo’s appetite to remain in power at all cost. To the President and his allies, lives of school children don’t matter once their interest gets served. Ghanaians must resist any daring attempt of the GES and government to reopen schools.

SPEAK UP MR IMF! THE GRANDSON OF THE ORIGINAL SLAVE MASTER.

Dear IMF,

I am Issifu Seidu Kudus Gbeadese, one of the offsprings of your slaves, who you have been tormenting ever since you picked the first gold at the shores of our Coasts. Mr IMF, we have surrendered, yes, we pronounce you the slave master and the power broker. Please, it’s time for you to speak up in order to quench the ongoing rat race in our nation-Ghana. We agree that you are the warmonger and so you can spark civil wars in nations where family feuds are hardly registered. Speak up Mr IMF!

When your grandfather, Mr Slavery, came to devour half of our manpower using that dehumanizing method, we still fed his hungry dogs with our own flesh. Your grandfather took away our strong men; parked them at the booth of your cargo ships while the gold he picked from our seashores were packed in the deckhouse of the ship.

Even along the deadly voyage, about a quarter of our cherished labour you caught with nets and hooks were offloaded into the hungry but struggling waves of the sea simply because they couldn’t pronounce your botanical names. Our “smelly mothers” your grandfather took along, who for weeks and months never had their baths became the center of entertainment. Your grandfathers raped them to death, and called them prostitutes in the end. Those who survived the rough penetration but had reason to share a tear, were thrown into the cage of the hungry dogs of the slave master to feed on.

Our own hands were used to slap the hell out of us. You picked our gold and silver, stole our pride, caught our men and women, bundled them into chains and decks, took them faraway to your land to labour in vain to build your own towers and bridges which today we are asked to pay to come and watch. Without Africa, your lands (The West) are empty, dirty and dried.

Just when the first agenda (slavery) started to fade off as a result of the struggle and resistance of those who survived it, your father (colonialism) was born at the Berlin Conference in 1884-5 over liquor and dirty wine. The imaginary lines were then drawn and called Maps. Families were divided without their consent. They said we had gold and silver but we and our chiefs can’t manage them and don’t know their use.

After taking our pride and made us to believe that we were nothing but pieces of objects to be used, you imported your way of life for us to live with. Africa doesn’t and can’t have a tradition except what the West practice, so said Mr Colonialism. We were taught how and what to eat, how and what to wear, how and what to speak. Our traditional practices were branded witchcraft and outmoded. We nodded in agreement anyway.

Mr Colonialism took his much from us and left us with a system that keeps us vulnerable and susceptible to their dictates they call “external shocks”. After the opposition and the ultimate breakdown of the walls of Colonialism, they swore to do worse using their invincible hands. So, they came with this thing call Democratization. They moulded slavery and colonialism into what they want us to believe and practice as democracy, which they never practiced as Colonial Masters.

The African Democracy is what the West say it is and not what the people of the African Continent decide at the polls. Worse of all is it’s attachments (globalization). They say the world should be one; they say we should all buy from one market; they say we should all spend one currency; they say we should all use the same court systems; they say we should all have same form of governments, but all of these were put together to keep the gates of Africa opened 24/7 for their insatiable exploitations.

They put together greedy merchants and call them investors. Their governments milk and sell our resources and put them into funds which they call Multilateral institutions like the IMF and the likes. Their dirty games are designed around what they call NGOs and used as baits to get our selfish leaders (Politicians and Chiefs) to open more opportunities for their vultures to rummage.

Today, these so called multilateral institutions are their controlling poles which they use to cause conflicts, change governments and destabilize peaceful African nations. Once they can get leaders to indoctrinate and corrupt, they are good to go. Interestingly, most of these leaders were educated by these same Slave Masters. They get them to think and ready to behave like them. So, in the end, they become deviants in their own African Context.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and his twin Brother, the World Bank are a torn in the flesh of the Skin of Africa. They say we should see and call them banks and fund managers, I see and call them bullies; I call them witch camps; I call them slave masters in masks; indeed I call them coup makers in Africa. They are the new deal, they are the New World Order where resources of Africa are no more on the seashores to be picked, but in the middle of the seas to be drilled, in the lowest depth of the mountains to be exploded and in the poor markets to be collected as taxes.

IMF is the Big Brother who decides who’s credible or not. He’s the Master who decides which policy will best fit the taste of the dirty merchants and not the ordinary people in Africa. He’s the power broker who decides when to cause the fall of any government in Africa. They get married to fresh governments and get them divorced when they are done milking their succulent breasts of all the loan deductions with unending but revolving interests.

Today, there is a huge conflict in Ghana. Indeed this conflicts come every four years and coincidentally they come at the time elections are due. Incumbents run for cover from the pronouncements and mostly publications of the IMF while opposition parties run to the same IMF for credibility. This is the game of chess that these dirty merchants in suits and ties  play with us. In the end, we are allowed to attack our own systems, attack our ourselves to a point of chocking while they wink at us through their stolen glasses.

If the Big Brother IMF knows he’s not a coward, he should speak out in the midst of the ongoing intellectual and political brawl  in Ghana now. Be bold to tell the Government of Ghana that per the regular practices, the data as presented to you and the political language they are speaking to cover the reality are at variance with the feeling of the every day Ghanaian. This deliberate twists and turns by you, IMF, in the midst of a conflict you created with the help of our greedy leaders is one of the muscles you have to show how powerful you are. Well, it’s a matter of time. 

We the people know some politicians in our country can pull out from their foreign bank accounts same amounts of dollars same politicians come to you with cap-in-hand to beg for. We know some of the money you put in boxes and flown back to us as loans are mostly from the bank accounts of our own politicians. Why are they afraid to also put themselves into groups of dirty merchants? They are already dirty anyway! Stop pulling the strings from your silent pigeonholes and speak up! Let us know how you steal from us and use same to colonize us. Even if you don’t speak up, we know the reality because, we feel it and we live it. 

Is it a curse on Africa to keep serving the Slave Master who’s nothing without the slave? Just one day, the son of the slave shall rise again, and that’s where the Slave Master will know how deep our wounds are. 

Sincerely,

Issifu Seidu Kudus Gbeadese
(0244198031)
skseidu_14@yahoo.com