Once upon the same regime, Queen Catherine the Great came to lead that edifice of celebrities and star performances. On those days, our Queen regarded many of the directors pushing the celebrities to perform were refusniks who had no business building their reputations by taking instructions for her.
In those days when Obour the musician rose from being a singing cop on motorbike to head the singing industry, Catherine the Great wined and dined with the crème-de-la-crème. Some say she even overstepped the weekend rendezvous bounds and turned up on Mondays bearing the mark of the weekend booze. That has never been verified though. What was never in doubt was her high-handed approach to those under her orders.
The record on her leadership showed that Catherine the Great changed the sleeping places of many a director. In one instance, zombies were deployed to lock up a director who had refused to depart. The Queen’s beef was that the director was taking learning notes from those pursuing politics under the umbrella.
Truth, oh good truth and honesty, why have you forsaken this lovely country? It is becoming a verifiable truth that at least one of the directors given marching orders by the Queen was, and still, a serving Elephant nominee on one coastal district assembly. When one ubiquitous newspaper pointed out the folly in those dictatorial orders, Catherine the Great hit the roof and instantly ordered the immediate cancellation of the paper’s subscription.
Power, they say corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. To put the fear of God into all other publications, Catherine the Great decided that previous subscriptions of the paper in question ought not to be paid for.
A woman of class and exquisite living standards, our Queen is reported to have taken a dozen or so traditional rulers from the three constituencies in the oil enclave of this nation on a whirlwind tour of the land of the rain-coat and umbrellas, where the other Queen, universally acknowledged as the head of the Commonwealth, has her residence at Buckingham Palace.
The jury is still out on whether or not the royal tour received funding from the Marine Drive project envisaged to line up the coast of the national capital with high-rise hotels. The marine job was envisaged as a key player in the crusade to make the national capital attractive.
The bald old academic may have one leg already in the grave, but it is one project which is tantalisingly attracting the Asebu household to prepare to put on their dancing shoes. It is envisaged as the project to kick-start the revival of the fortunes of the old nurse, who is now virtually adding to the sitting room furniture.
During the era of independence, Asebu used to swing to good old highlife music with the nurse. Remember Lord Bob Cole? He was a regular sight at the Palm Inn of the Ambassador Hotel. Good old Bob with his beard on the mike rendering his hit song ‘I told You So’ was quite a sight to behold.
Just a minute! One nephew sent the bald old academic a video of A.B. Crentsil’s hit song ‘Atia.’ Time was when the old man jammed to that song at the Continental and Meridian hotels. Oh yes, the old Egyptian mummy kind of legs came to life on the sitting room floor. When you see an old lady, you might be tempted to think that she has never had it so good on an afternoon before.
Sad to state, Queen Catherine’s empire began wobbling. It did not come down exactly, but shipped to Ridge, not far from Boom Junction, to understudy the one-time representative in the House from that urban settlement where diamonds used to be washed ashore on rainy days, cannot be that glamorous. In the home of the elephant, tongues are wagging. Some say, the posture of Queen Catherine the Great is subdued these days.
Some say her main assignment at Ridge composes of ordering roasted plantain and ‘nkatie,’ or yes, Kofi ‘Brokeman’ itself. Insiders at the party office at the entrance to the residence of men and women with mental disorders say that if you spot the Queen dashing out at lunch time, she is definitely on her way to one of the cozy chop-bars. When you boss is a native Akan, be prepared to have a fair idea about the locations of all the ‘chop bars’ in town. It is this dash for fufu that has made the Queen visibly unhappy.
Wearing this melancholy mood has not helped the once all powerful Queen. When that information popped up on social media that some unscrupulous elements were using the Queen’s name for fraud, it naturally generated a lot of comments.
It is not all the comments that have been complimentary though. One wicked commentator even suggested that the Queen could have a fair idea of those she might be complaining about. Whatever the truth, the sight of the once all powerful dictator pleading innocence about the scam, and asking the miscreant to stop misusing her name, is of such a historical significance.
When Kofi Yesu ran excitedly to the Asebu household clutching his cell-phone, it was apparently aimed at sharing the picture of Queen Catherine the Great in tears. Even the old nurse came to life over the new posture of the once terrible Queen.
The bald old academic was the only sympathetic personality in the house that day. “You don’t strike a person when he or she is down,” the bald academic’s consoling words could be music in the ears of Queen Catherine the Great. Time, indeed, changes.
The contest about the no contest under the umbrella
The convention has always been that the flagbearer chooses his own running mate. This time round, the Vice-Presidential slot is becoming a hotly contested issue. Party insiders say the Executive Council has a shortlist of five.
The first on the list, they say, is the brother of the woman who signed away that huge state largesse to one businessman, who immediately repaid the riches bestowed on him by sponsoring party faithful to support the national team in the Cape of Good Hope.
The event leading to the spouse of the one-time all-powerful Alhaji creating a millionaire from scratch did a number of rounds in national tabloids. The ramifications of the state heaping so much money on one person for doing nothing has gone though the court system, with the mirage of financial re-engineering still unexplained, except that the state legal team is still trying to identify properties to be attached.
That is another issue altogether. What has got the political front so busy is the information that the brother, who was once accused of running the state oil giant with ideological spectacles, has thrown his full weight into the ring, in search of the vice-presidential slot.
The name suggests that he could mould the economy. He is already enthusiastically promising to match the economic guru who is virtually making the elephant move more majestically in recent times. When Alex Ferguson won the treble, he was immediately knighted. There are some in the political arena who believe that the man sharing the first name with the former Manchester United manager has what it takes to manage the economy.
Nobody has argued though in favour of the man with a moulding hand. The beef out there is that it will be a tall order for the moulding hand in the umbrella to match the economic guru serving the elephant. That is not the only reason why the brother has such a mountain to climb.
Even in the umbrella half of the field, the brother who was once in charge of oil production in this country, has a very strong rival. The ‘Kwasia Bi Nti’ factor is gradually coming to the fore, after being dismissed initially as the exploit of a living jackal. The founder of the ‘Kwasia Bi Nti’ political thought has been in the news for several decades in the Fourth Republic.
When a man appeared at a state function wearing the wife’s apparel, many were those not amused that the ‘Kwasia Bi Nti’ factor at home had re-surfaced all the way in Europe, which is why the battle would not favour the weak.
What is exciting political watchers in this land of our birth is that in all this it is not within the power of potential vice-presidential candidates to campaign, which is why the suggestion that the ‘Kwasi Bi Nti’ lineage is due for mention is merely for academic purposes.
The bearded old man is hearing some very strange mumbling. The political beef around the Swedru Municipality is that one of the loyal sons of Nana Nyarko-Eku has served the umbrella with all his heart over the years, and that the old bugger ought to be considered for the vice-presidential slot.
Once a Black Mamba, the poison could always be potent. Strategically, the legal guru who took care of state finances has so far kept a dignified silence. But political observers insist that after decades of heading the economic team in the steamy days of Abongo rule, he still has fire in him. It is been two and a half decades when he parted company with the occupant of Boom Junction.
Is he still retaining the fire for such a bruising contest? The jury is still out. The old bald academic is sounding a warning here though. The academic who took care of the state economy and left it in tatters might have lost all the magic that earned him the accolade Black Mamba.
He was lecturing long before the presidential candidate enrolled to read History and later Communications. The notion of the lecturer understudying the student at Government House might not thrill many voters at the polls. It tells its own story why that the idea of the other ex-minister of the same portfolio entering the fray might be another political mystery.
In all this, the clear message out there is that like the presidential candidate himself once wrote, he is still searching for the formula to motivate him to be more decisive.
The post Asebu Amenfi consoles weeping Queen Catherine the Great appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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