Re: Dr. (E)Zanetor Rawlings at NDC vetting
As a Ghanaian, one major flaw I find in many of my compatriots is our uncanny ability to destroy any attempt at changing the status quo and doing something different.
Time was when I thought it was only the poorly educated and illiterate folk who delighted in that attitude because of perhaps, their little exposure. Over time that class has proven actually to be more enlightened, tolerant and mature in their assessment of issues, both local and national.
Our biggest problem in this country is the so-called educated who sometimes have the opportunity to use the pages of our national news mediums to talk to us, selling their own brand of wisdom but unbeknownst to many of us, setting an agenda to satisfy their own parochial interests.
On Friday October 17, 2015, Daily Graphic columnist, Enimil Ashon, a former Ghanaian Times journalist, tried to play a fast one on his readers when he took on Dr. Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings in an article titled ‘Dr. Ezanetor Rawlings at NDC vetting’.
He sought to visit a litany of unsubstantiated allegations viciously thrown at the young woman’s parents by persons of questionable character and tried to belittle the National Democratic Congress vetting process because it probably failed to ask his all-important questions – his myopic criteria for approving Dr. Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings’ candidature.
I always prefer to assess quality journalists through the simplest of facts and also basic logic and I was surprised the so-called widely read Ashon could not even tell the correct spelling of the medical doctor and author’s name. I even wonder if Ashon has done any checks on the lady’s academic and professional profile.
This is not about praising the aspiring Member of Parliament. It’s about protecting her from hawks like Ashon and others who meet in dark places and plot to destroy people’s reputations because it suits not only their political whims but also their petty economic needs. By the way, she is Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings.
Yes she flew in a jet fighter with her father. You can question it all you want but how do you link it to Hilla Limann? Was the jet fighter going to move Limann from one place to the other? Was the fighter aircraft the cause of mechanical failure of President Limann’s vehicle? How can we relate those two incidents to the fact that Zanetor is a qualified professional in her own right and has the requisite qualities to represent and defend her constituents in parliament? She is disqualified by virtue of her parentage?
Ashon should list to us how many articles he has written in his career about aspiring members of parliament and their capacity to represent their constituents. I also want to ask; what happens to the children of convicted criminals? Do they coil into some corner to wither away when an opportunity arises to seek public office?
You claim in the beginning of your article that no child can be held accountable for the actions of their parents. True, but I even want to ask how you dare try to insinuate that her parents may be criminals. How will Ashon feel if I insinuate that his children were educated not from his meagre salary as a reporter, but from the generous ‘soli’ and other ‘motivations’ he received during his active years in the state media? We do not need to go there because it will not inure to the atmosphere of cohesion at Ashon’s home and may sound petty, as petty as his shallow article which questions why a state factory was acquired by an NGO headed by a former First Lady. Come on, Enimil! You can do better. Was the NGO qualified to operate as one? If so what stopped it from acquiring property? Were you oblivious to the huge impact the movement had on women’s emancipation in the country? Were you blind to the effect the movement had on early childhood development?
Mr. Ashon, your article is poorly written and not well written as you seek to convince us, the readers. It is an article that attempts to apply satire but ends up exposing the cheap political chicanery that drew Ghana back right from independence when Kwame Nkrumah tried to do something good for our country. It exposes your failure to acknowledge and understand the deep seated political abuse our country had suffered after Nkrumah’s demise and also exposes the fact that those gifted with the power to write our history in a truthful and chronological manner chose to sell their assets to the highest bidder to the detriment of our political progress and national development.
Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings was educated at Wesley Girls High School with her sisters. Subsequently she and her sisters were educated outside the country. It is no crime for a head of state’s children to educate themselves abroad. They had their basic and secondary education here during the core period of the Rawlings regime. The choice of educating themselves abroad for their tertiary education should not be a matter a senior journalist of your ilk should turn into gossip on a national medium. It is a bona fide right of every Ghanaian. Many have chosen to educate their children abroad from primary all the way to tertiary. This young woman has chosen to come back home to serve her country and you start haranguing her as if she has stolen your birthright.
To me Ashon’s article exposed his shallowness and I felt sad that we allowed media freedom to stoop that low at Daily Graphic.
Dr. Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings should brace herself for more of such bloated hot air aimed at her not because she is a Rawlings but because she is a threat to the establishment. An establishment hijacked by the likes of Ashon, intolerant to opposing views, blind from reality and simply stuck up in their antiquated ways.
I pray people like her do not feel intimidated to confront such pettiness in their quest to create a brand new opportunity for mother Ghana!!
Eric Kyei-Mensah
ekkyeimensah@gmail.com