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By Isaac Ato MENSAH
Takoradi – 9 August, 2019
The recent ill-advised comments by prophet Emmanuel Badu Kobi have enraged the whole nation.
But sadly stereotyping is not at all uncommon in Ghana.
Many people place strange labels on Ashantis, Fantes, Ewes, “Northerners”, “Southerners”, soldiers, policemen or Whites; they make sweeping conclusions without any basis.
What Ghanaians should learn from today is what my mentor has always said: “Academia and practice can never be divorced from each other”.
Next time you declare something sweeping or even particular about say teenagers, give your audience “a reference point…..a chapter and verse” as my mentor has always insisted.
If journalists will also write with reference to published scholarly material or by referencing an authority on a subject, the quality of their output will improve. And certainly, they will not even report on Badu Kobi’s drivel which was based on nothing.
How can we forget the universal admonition about thinking before you speak…….or write.
Those who go on air to speak – be they political party reps, sportsmen and women or music artistes – without adequate preparation are all acting and behaving like Badu Kobi.
They almost always enrage others who may not respond publicly like the way many of us have done. And they certainly disgrace themselves.
Again as my mentor has observed, you cannot write about entertainment, culture and even humor without making it “scholarly”; it is never appropriate to talk or write “by heart”.
MP Kennedy Ohene Agyepong, often castigated for unguarded language, has made an important contribution to this debate.
“His comments were borne out of foolishness and not research. What is his level of education to conduct such a research”, Agyepong was quoted by mynewsgh.com in a story culled and published on Ghanaweb on 6th August, 2019.
All an educated or wise person needs to do is to refer his audience to some well conducted research or high quality reference material and discuss it.
This is important so that we do not deny ourselves the opportunity of examining any such data and in the process educating ourselves.
If ethnic group X women are not good at marriage as Badu Kobi asserts, then he should provide us with his data and or reference material so that we can evaluate it.
Simply put, when Badu Kobi or anyone makes an assertion, he must back it up with evidence and reason; they should put up or shut up.
We are tired of the noise; it drags us down; it achieves nothing.
Finally in “Define and Rule” Mahmood Mamdani gives us info Ghanaians sorely need; he provides the historicity and or context of the vexed word, tribe:
“Tribe as an administrative entity that distinguishes between natives and non-natives and systematically discriminates in favor of the former against the latter – defining access to land and participation in local governance and rules for settling disputes according to tribal identity – certainly did not exist before colonialism.”
Enough of the mediocrity; enough of the madness.
Any more prophets?
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