Glen

Gunner. Retweets are not endorsements or agreements unless expressly stated.

[Osagyefo Oliver Barker-Vormawor @barkervogues]

13. I ask leave to place beside this a case this Court knows well. In 1958, in Balogun v Edusei, four men were seized under deportation orders. Their families moved at once for writs of habeas corpus, contending that the men were citizens and could not lawfully be deported. The court heard them, directed that notice be served on the Minister and the Commissioner of Police, and fixed a date for hearing. The Minister was told, by counsel and by the Law Officers of the Crown themselves, that proceedings were pending and that the men should not be moved.

14. He did not wait. Arrangements were made with an air service, and the four men were flown out of the country before the court's order could so much as be served upon him. When the motion came on for hearing, the judge had no one before him to produce. The men were gone. The application collapsed in his hands.

15. The court found the Minister and the Commissioner in contempt, holding that their conduct had summarily put an end to the proceedings and brought the administration of the law into disregard. Of that interference, Smith J spoke words I ask this Court to hear again this morning:
"I cannot over-emphasise the undesirability of interference by the Executive with the functions of the court. Persistent indulgence in such a practice could not have any other than the most serious ill-effect on the well-being of the country. Decisions of a court are as binding upon the Executive as the laws which Parliament passes are binding upon the ordinary citizen."

16. Mark how that case ends, for the ending is the warning. The court, in mercy, stayed committal to allow the contemnors to apologise. There was no apology. Parliament sat in emergency session and passed an Indemnity Act within days, lifting from the Minister every penalty for his contempt. The finding of contempt stood. The men remained gone. The law had found the wrong, and the law could not undo it.

16. I recounted that history to my colleagues yesterday as a warning of what might come to pass. I had hoped to keep it a warning. If the reports this morning are true, it is no longer history and it is no longer a warning. It is this case. It took off from our soil at sixteen minutes past nine, wearing today's date.

17. I turn to the words of Justice Amissah-Arthur in NPP v Inspector-General of Police, words that have guided our constitutional courts for a generation:
"It was to rescue us from such an abyss of despair that on three successive occasions, in 1969, 1979 and 1992, elaborate provisions on fundamental human rights have been set out in our Constitutions and the courts given clear and unequivocal power to enforce them... Like a bird kept in a cage for years, we have come to think of the cage as home rather than a prison. The door has been flung wide open, yet we huddle in a corner and refuse to leave."

18. Your Honour, those provisions were written for a man exactly like the one I represent. Not for the popular, and not for the man whose freedom no one troubles to take. They were written for the man the State has already resolved to be rid of. That is the only kind of man who has ever needed them.

19. Consider how he was held before he was taken. In the course of his detention it was determined, by no order of any court and at the demand of no law, that Abu Trica should not see his family, should not hold his son, and should not sit with his counsel and speak freely of the case that would decide the remainder of his life. Each is a small thing. Together they are the whole of what it means to be treated as a person before the law rather than as freight to be moved from one hand to another.

[Glen @gsnorg]

Predictable

[Elton Brobbey @EltonBrobbey]

NKOKO NKITITI PROJECT
- Unfortunately, some of the beneficiaries have consumed the birds, and they are sending me videos - Agric Minister tells Assurance Committee

[Glen @gsnorg]

@KKmarfo It’s disappointing! At other world cups the underperformance of African teams have masked this but now that the gap is thin, it’s become more stark and a little obvious that they are often at the wrong end of decisions.

[Glen @gsnorg]

Couldn’t do something as basic as collate a list and set up a distribution and verification point🤦🏽‍♂️. The idea that people in need of support be afforded dignity and structure is alien to some of these ones

[SIKAOFFICIAL🦍 @SIKAOFFICIAL1]

Chaos erupted at Avenor on Sunday afternoon as hundreds of flood victims rushed to collect mattresses distributed as part of a relief effort by the Okaikoi South MP, Hon. Ernest Adomako, popularly known as KEON.

[🎥: 1957News]

[Glen @gsnorg]

@C_h_i_e_f_f @premooooooo @boltapp There’s a way to do that. All you need is some orange paint, a yellow plate and a lighted sign on top of the car. You will be free to choose where to go.

[Glen @gsnorg]

Preparing the narrative….

[BBC Sport @BBCSport]

How hard is it to run at high altitude? 🤔

This is something the England team will have to face tomorrow in their last-16 tie against Mexico in Mexico City 🇲🇽

[Glen @gsnorg]

Never Proactive! Always reactive to ride the wave of current attention. Rain season ends and all will be forgotten till next season

[SIKAOFFICIAL🦍 @SIKAOFFICIAL1]

The Ashanti Regional Minister, Dr. Frank Amoakohene along with the Kumasi Mayor, Hon. Richard Ofori Agyemang, has led a large-scale desilting exercise across major drains in the Ashanti Region as part of proactive efforts to improve drainage systems and reduce the risk of flooding.

[🎥: Gists Online]

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

At least 59 people have died in Ivory Coast due to heavy rains and flooding. In Ghana, torrential storms have killed at least 12 people, with officials warning climate change will worsen impacts.

Al Jazeera’s Camille Nedelec reports.

[Glen @gsnorg]

Did he say capital punishment regime? Did he mean corporal? Is there new research that shows better disciplinary outcomes through physically assaulting children?

[SIKAOFFICIAL🦍 @SIKAOFFICIAL1]

“We may have to rethink and review our punishment regime, and to clothe the Ghana Education Service with authority to deal ruthlessly with students who misbehave.”

— The Minister for Education, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, has hinted at a major overhaul of disciplinary measures in Senior High Schools, aimed at empowering the Ghana Education Service (GES) to take tougher action against student misconduct amid rising cases of indiscipline among students.

[🎥: Channel1tv]

[Glen @gsnorg]

Finally! People need to take on the institutions… especially the conditionally visible district assemblies

[#TV3GH @tv3_ghana]

Calls for accountability over the June 29 Accra floods have intensified, with survivors demanding justice and compensation for those who lost loved ones, suffered injuries, or had properties destroyed.

78-year-old Yaw Twum-Barimah is among stakeholders exploring legal action against local authorities for allowing construction on waterways.

#News360 #TV3GH

[Glen @gsnorg]

I love a data driven argument! Too many lazy unverified narratives choking us on this continent and being used to drive policy.

[Enoch Δ @agyeitah]

Totally missed your response.

But this isn’t about pride, @garyalsmith. It’s about false narratives being given the time of day.

Underdogs lose leads to favourites. Everywhere. In every confederation.

When Japan lost a 2–0 lead to Belgium, people praised Belgium, gave Japan some slack and moved on. Nobody indicted Asian football.

Croatia scored first and lost yesterday.

It’s football.

But I find the way you build this supposed 30-year pattern strange.

Your most obvious pull was Nigeria in 1994. So I went back and checked the actual data.

All of it.

Since 1970, African teams have taken the lead in 79 World Cup matches.

They won 44, drew 21 and lost 14.

That means African teams avoided defeat 82.3% of the time after taking the lead.

Even in this tournament, the full picture is different from the story being told.

Yes, Côte d’Ivoire led and lost to Germany. DR Congo led and lost to England. Senegal led and lost to Belgium.

But Morocco led and drew with Brazil.

Egypt led and drew with Belgium and Iran.

Cape Verde led and drew with Uruguay.

Algeria led and drew with Austria.

South Africa led and beat South Korea.

Côte d’Ivoire led and won two games.

Egypt led and beat New Zealand.

Senegal led and beat Iraq.

Ghana led and beat Panama.

Algeria led and beat Jordan.

So African teams have led 15 times in this tournament: 7 wins, 5 draws and 3 losses.

That is not a continental pathology.

That is football.

And if this were an African problem, Africa should at least be uniquely bad at it.

We aren’t.

From 1970 to 2022, African teams lost 17.2% of World Cup matches after taking the lead.

AFC teams lost 20%.

CONCACAF teams lost 23.4%.

Even if we start from 1994, your 30-year window, it is CAF 16.4%, AFC 20% and CONCACAF 22.9%.

So where exactly is this unmistakable African pattern?

You have built a continental theory from a few painful games spread across decades.

To do that, you have to ignore Algeria holding against West Germany in ’82.

Cameroon repeatedly holding in ’90.

Nigeria seeing off Spain in ’98.

Ghana killing games in ’06.

And just four years ago, African teams led nine times at the 2022 World Cup and didn’t lose once.

Cameroon held against Brazil.

Tunisia held against France.

Morocco held against Belgium, Canada and Portugal.

That was four years ago. Not 30.

And before someone says these numbers are inflated by games against weaker opposition, let’s narrow the sample further.

Let’s look only at games where African teams took the lead against European and South American opposition.

Since 1970, it has happened 53 times.

African teams won 27.

Drew 14.

Lost 12.

That is a 77.4% non-loss rate after taking the lead against the two historically strongest footballing regions in the world.

So what you have identified is not a pattern.

It is a highlight reel of pain with the denominator deleted.

Yes, the collapses were real. Senegal’s was bad. DR Congo’s was bad. Côte d’Ivoire’s was bad.

But Japan’s against Belgium was bad too.

Croatia scored first and lost.

Spain’s collapse against Nigeria in 1998 was spectacular.

The difference is that those failures were attributed to the people who actually oversaw them: the players, the coach, the team.

Nobody said, “Croatia blew a lead, so Europeans lack concentration.”

Nobody built an Asian theory from Japan doing it more than once.

As for the coaches you cite, Thiaw was diagnosing Senegal’s game management.

That was his team in a game his team blew.

Senegal is a team.

Africa is a continent.

A coach owning his own failure is accountability. Stretching it into a verdict on 54 countries is your addition, not his.

And that is my pushback.

You may be coming from a place of good intentions. But Africa, and I must say this to you as an African, is diverse.

Sometimes coaches make bad decisions. Sometimes players panic. Sometimes underdogs sit too deep. Sometimes the better team comes back.

Sometimes a team just blows a lead.

[miss forson @lydiaforson]

Suddenly, everybody has something to say about the attitude of Ghanaians.

But weren’t we all here a few years ago when we were told to “fix ourselves”? We pushed back then, didn’t we? Now, somehow, everyone has suddenly decided that our attitude is the reason we’re where we are.

So let me ask again: at what point do our institutions take responsibility? At what point do the people we pay to plan, regulate, enforce and lead accept their share of the blame?

I’ll never stop saying this: when you go to countries where the streets are clean and the drains work, it’s not because their citizens are magically better people.

Yes, attitude matters,personal responsibility matters and we all have a role to play.

But functioning societies don’t operate on attitude alone; they have bins where they’re needed, they enforce sanitation laws, they stop people from building in waterways, they maintain infrastructure, they punish offenders.

Institutions do their jobs.

It’s both.

Yet somehow, every conversation in Ghana now ends with, “It’s our attitude.”

So why are we paying people?

Fine. Let’s say I fix my attitude today.

Will my road stop flooding?

[Bright Simons @BBSimons]

I am watching a fascinating video of military relief operations in & around Tema Newtown, rescuing residents stranded by floodwaters. See the GAF PR attached.

The Sentuo Refinery footage is very revealing.

Ghana imports most of its refined fuel despite having domestic crude. So, naturally, Sentuo is seen as a totem of the country's industrial future.

The flooded refinery would no doubt spark more moralising about “building in waterways.”

For good reason.

6 years ago, EPA resisted the refinery site. They said the land sat in a sensitive wetland & flood-buffer system linked to Chemu Lagoon.

Tema City authorities disagreed. They insisted that Ghana must industrialise & create jobs. Sentuo land was thus rezoned.

That is the real tension of SERIOUS POLICY.

There are at least 5 levels of analysis when it comes to the intersection among waterways, flood risk & urban development. From direct obstruction to buffers to accelerants.

A city & its natural setting are both living organisms. There is no fixed hydrological or urban reality.

Yet elites continue to treat it as simple with their lazy moralising. Identify structures. Demolish them. Punish offenders. Problem solved.

In the theory of katanomics, that only answers WHAT.

The HOW is where the mess lives & where elites are too aloof to go.

Who mapped the waterway? By which flood standard? Is the wetland legally protected? Did the assembly, TDC, Lands Commission, EPA & Hydrological Authority agree on one binding map?

Sentuo was given permission because they promised to develop a drainage channelway for that whole part of Newtown. I can't see it. Can you?

Is there a group of elite Tema citizens that paid attention? Demanded permit conditions? Studied & published dissent or modifications? Mobilised civic pressure? I will save you the hassle. No.

This is katanomics in its rawest form.

It is easy to see the WHAT: free waterways.

But the real burden is in disaggregated execution: buffer widths, culvert levels, catchment maps, retention ponds, permit triggers, maintenance bonds, etc.

It is not our busy Makola mothers who work from 4am to 7pm and then rush home to cook that can mount such citizen surveillance. Only the educated Middle Class elites can. "Critical Policy Audiences" in the katanomics vocabulary.

If only they would sacrifice a few English Premier League matches.

Moralising is cheap. It makes people feel good about themselves. Digging for info, organising, thinking deep about alternatives, & then mounting civic pressure is HARD.

That is why it is seldom done. But elites in some places get it.

In Curitiba, Brazil, citizens made drainage, transport and zoning civic obsessions. They scrutinised flood maps & pushed neighbourhood drills. In Taiwan, citizen groups have forced environmental review and industrial-siting questions into public politics. Officials hold public sessions & folks video proceedings for social media.

That is the katanomic remedy: critical policy audiences.

[Glen @gsnorg]

Miles and miles of concrete= luxurious in Ghana and Nigeria. Jokes!

[Somto Okonkwo @General_Somto]

“This House Belongs to a Serving Senator in Nigeria. It’s Even Bigger And More Luxurious Than the Government House And The White House In DC.” ~ Isaac Fayose👀

[Glen @gsnorg]

Ban single use plastics! Provide substitutes for plastic bottles and tax the use of plastics heavily. That sanitation levy really should be billed to plastics mostly

[KSS @ksheldonstudios]

KSS Speaks to the Marketing Manager of Laboma Beach on the Refuse situation.

[Glen @gsnorg]

@KKmarfo Turns out this should have been part of an early warning system funded by the world bank. Yet here we are

[Glen @gsnorg]

I have one question. Did the Ghana Met issue a flood warning before yesterday’s rains? Surely they had some indication of this record rainfall event, did they warn anyone and what actions were taken? Because it looks like people were taken completely unawares

[Glen @gsnorg]

@adamdnathan @Wazz1y @nfreak10 @TheJamie Sir Sir Sir… let it go, your idea has more holes than cartoon cheese.

[Glen @gsnorg]

Yes, where is it?

[Alfred @CallmeAlfredo]

On paper, there is an operational flood early warning system under the $350 million World Bank loan for addressing floods in the Greater Accra Region. This early warning system is supposed to provide advance notice to people living in flood-prone areas so they can relocate. Where’s that system that’s supposed to be in operation?

[Alfred @CallmeAlfredo]

On paper, there is an operational flood early warning system under the $350 million World Bank loan for addressing floods in the Greater Accra Region. This early warning system is supposed to provide advance notice to people living in flood-prone areas so they can relocate. Where’s that system that’s supposed to be in operation?