By Kwesi Yankah | [email protected]
Reactions to the breaking news were varied. Utter dismay and grief among party folks. Then nail bites, tear drops; ‘Eeei,’ ‘Aww,’ then ‘Hmm, this is political persecution. We shall appeal.’
But there were also muted celebrations, giggles, whispers of ‘Amen,’ ‘Thanks God, ’ plus a clink of champagne glasses. I refer to those with stony tear buds, only struggling to shed tears for Wontumi, and off camera whispering, ‘good riddance.’ Wontumi then deserved his plight: ‘too boastful,’ ‘too loud,’ ‘open display of gold bars; ‘I am richer than JDM,’ ‘nobody can arrest me.’
Finally then, Wontumi had met his ‘meeter.’ The jail sentence was a composite anti-biotic prescribed to stop chronic verbal diarrhea. It was indeed payback time; in his own favorite sneer: ‘Woboooowa!’
Monday, July 26 noon time. Ghana’s airwaves were cloggedby the breaking news: a 20-year jail term for Wontumi. His forgotten name? Bernard Antwi Boasiako. His guilt was illicit mining: Galamsey. Over a period of 12 months his trial lasted, court days have been crowded and high anxieties. Would this business tycoon ever submit to jail? But earlier signs of a coming doomsday were evident. Check the body language of his lawyers ahead of judgment day. His Principal Lawyer dramatically drops out of the case. Lawyer Two, the substitute, seeks alibi ahead of judgement; ‘out of jurisdiction’ was the legal lingo. On arrival at court that day, Wontumi’s warm reflexes had dimmed, his signature smile and finger play, giving way to stress marks on a cheerless countenance.
Mid morning, news flashed across screens countrywide: long term imprisonment for the NPP regional chairman. That was a bombshell dropped to crack his very nickname Wontumi: which means ‘Unbreakable.’ 8.30am, he had arrived at court in a plush Lexus saloon car. 2 pm, the narrative had changed. He left the court premises handcuffed, and on board anenclosed police wagon, the Black Maria. By 4.30pm, the new home of ‘Wontumi’ was no longer the luxury mansion at Kwadaso; but the dreaded security facility reserved for authors of complex crime: Nsawam Prisons. Original capacity 717, but currently hosting over 3000 inmates in communal dormitories. Nsawam, Wontumi’s new address.
Among those who exploded in joy was a moral majority:concerned Ghanaians, and Galamsey nay-sayers who were quietly awaiting a day of reckoning for terrorists, nation wreckers, and masqueraders bent on poisoning the Black Star out of existence. Those are faces behind the sudden upsurge of kidney disorders, poisoned rivers, malformed babies, devastated forest cover, convulsed marine life, and degraded farmlands.
If Wontumi has been a catalyst in the Galamsey pandemic,too bad. ‘No Tears for Chairman Wontumi.’ In that case, Let our tears recoil.
But the tale is more complex. A guilty Wontumi is only a drop in the ocean. The wide world knows the roll call. Govt knows guilty MCEs MPs, high officials, chiefs, but will not give them away. ‘Touch not my appointed’…‘See no Gala, Hear no Gala, Speak no Gala.’ Indeed true love of country, sad to say, exited with Osagyefo Kwame who left the world empty handed. The country is now a sprawling heap of filth and flowing sewage once called rivers. A lawless space of scavengers; sprawling landscapes of filth, debris, squalor, with piggy nationals sniffing, snorting, swimming; scavengers feasting on carcasses; forest reserves plundered and shared; boys and girls diving for blood gold in muddy pits; while helpless leaders stand and stare. Did our elders not say ‘The elder that looks on while children eat a python meal, is added to the list of python eaters.
Every now and then, one political Wontumi is arrested,showcased, and sentenced; and then back to bed, leaving poor citizens to their fate, in a fight with armed miners.
Meanwhile the opposition is learning fast; quietly making their own list of candidates for Nsawam, and those to be freed. The law has a strange term they call ‘presidential pardon’ and then the abused term ‘Nolle Prosequi, ’ which give Govts the moral right to free criminals, or abandon unfinished cases. It simply means, ‘I feel too lazy or too hungry to continue the case;’ or rather, ‘We are too smart to retain our own beloved in jail.’ So then let my people go with their stolen wealth; we will the taxpayer. Then comes another maxim: “One good Sedina deserves another; so my colleagues in jail simply pray for 2028. The Good Lord will make his face to shine upon you.
And to you Wontumi, your imprisonment is meaningless unless it is linked with the total prosecution of Umbrella kingpins.
In your new home, weep not Chairman.
Woboooowa!
Source: newsthemegh.com