Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it. –
(MarK Twain)
You may recall the Botany class or Agric class and the quiz: Give the botanical name for cocoa. You might have “chewed” the topic, and you will have no difficulty recalling: Theobroma cacao of the Malvaceae family; you may recall that the cocoa tree grows in the tropical areas, including much of West Africa (Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Benin). You will recall also the story you heard about Tetteh Quarshie smuggling the seed from Fernando Po by swallowing and arriving in the Gold Coast, and starting a cocoa plantation at Akropong up on the Akuapim Mountains.
You may recall with relish the fact that Ghana was topping the world as the leading cocoa producer until 2022 when Côte d’Ivoire jumped into the lead. History will tell you how the United Party (then in Opposition to the CPP in the 1950s) adopted the cocoa tree as its emblem: “Wobeye bribiara a, kookoo.” (Whatever you do, it is cocoa — that uplifts you).
One may not regret having their parents as cocoa farmers living in Esienkyem, Awaduwa, Goaso, Sefwi, … Even though you and your colleagues, being children of cocoa farmers, never got the Cocoa Board’s scholarships — to attend secondary schools with full scholarships or bursaries, you stung to up and its successors.
Or you may be phonetically-inclined, so you will not cherish people pronouncing “cocoa” as “kookoo” as if they were cocoa farmers in the village, so you will try to educate yourself to pronounce it close to “keukeu.”
We enter the promise made by NDC during the 2024 campaign period. They were in the campaign mood, and cajoled cocoa farmers to believe that if they were in power (at that time) they would pay the farmers GH₵6,000 per bag. Halleluiah. So, the NPP was cheating them by paying them around GH₵4,000 per bag, even though the world price was around GH₵12,000!
So the cocoa farmers switched loyalty; vote for NDC, to teach NPP a lesson in political campaign, and they did. Overwhelming for NDC; and people thought they deserved it, claiming Akufo-Addo had turned the NPP into “family and friends” party or rather, Nana’s People’s Party.
Then, the table changed hands; power slipped, and NDC won. Cocoa farmers jubilated. The existing price of GH₵3,625 was surely expected to go up to GH₵6,000. But the farmers forgot that we Ghanaians do not use much of the cocoa we produce, and therefore, the price is determined outside our shores. World cocoa price hovering around US$12,000 per ton in 2024 slumped to around US$7,000 per ton. Shiee, asem aba. If it had been NPP, they would have rushed to look for a syndicated loan — to cushion off the shortfall, they would have “celebrated” the acquisition of the loan with a “kenkey” party, and Ken Ofori-Atta would wear all-white political suit to sit as “table head”.
But Mahama, with the eye of making history as the “best” President, eclipsing Kufuor, Atta Mills, and even “your” Kwame Nkrumah, would face the people and reduce the price from GH₵3,625 per bag to GH₵2,587. Was the President not afraid of the “lashing” from the NPP and other opposition members?
Presto! The NPP had “got” the NDC! Come see, “yekae na moantie” (we said it and you did not listen). Honourable Annoh-Dompreh, the Nsawam/Adoagyiri MP and a coterie of honourables would put their coats down and go to the villages (for some, that must have been the first time they would interact with the farmers). Annoh-Dompreh would be the loudest; “If the President (Mahama) were sensible, he would not use public loan money to buy four aeroplanes, and leave cocoa farmers… at time of voting, let the aeroplanes vote for you.” Four planes? Used by Mahama and his family members? Behaving in the air like Nana Addo, as per Asiedu Nketia? And we remember Annoh-Dompreh: If you are an NPP member and you see a fellow NPP member fighting NDC member, assist the NPP member to beat the NDC member.
So, what do you say about NDC explanation? In NPP’s time, cocoa fetched GH₵9,000 per bag at the world market. And while all these were going on, a cocoa farmer, apparently well-soaked in “ogogro” would gesticulate; “Mahama wode yen ka” (Mahama, you owe us) … Wope o, wompe o, wode yen ka”.
The newest hit in town is Mahama wode yen ka. You could see an empty space in the man’s mouth where his lower front teeth (mandibular incisors and canines) should have been, Kevin Taylor makes a mockery of this man (identified only as Mahama-wode-yen-ka) and his toothless lower jaw
The story cannot be complete without the readers being told of how fast and first this Mahama-wode-yen-ka man is trending. He advertises in Ghana Black Stars outfit.
He is the newest content creator with all these funny episodes, why should anybody crave for a military take-over. Odike must not have been in the right political mood when he clamoured for a military coup, saying: “If anybody stages a coup d’etat in Ghana, I will support him…!”
We thought the vicious, inhumane Rawlins’s coup of 1981 with its sad memory (so kanea, dum no) would be a thing of the past. No one would pray for a repeat of it.
Let us enjoy the politicians and their politricks. Let us enjoy our fufu, akple, tuo zafi, akyeke. Let us love Ghana.
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