Republic of Uncommon Sense Chronicles

"In Ghana, truth is treated like a mosquito: annoying, unwelcome, yet strangely necessary."

There was a time, my friends, when truth was cheap. Now it costs your peace of mind, your job, and sometimes your windscreen. These days, anyone who dares to speak it is treated like a buzzing mosquito — everyone wants you dead, but everyone needs the bite.

Ghana loves truth the way some men love salad: as decoration beside the jollof. We clap for prophets who shout “Fire!” in church, but hiss at journalists who shout “Corruption!” on TV. Hypocrisy, my countrymen, is now a patriotic duty.

Take Manasseh Azure Awuni, the nation’s most persistent troublemaker. He digs through filth like a man who believes heaven is hidden under a dustbin. When he published The Contract for Sale, half the nation fainted; the other half asked, “Who sent him?” Instead of thanking him for unclogging the national drain, politicians accused him of bathing in it.

Then there’s Erastus Asare Donkor, the reporter who filmed Ghana’s rivers crying for help. The galamsey boys, bless their biceps, mistook him for a punching bag. They beat him for showing us what we refused to see—that we’ve turned our water into mercury cocktails and called it ‘mineral water.’

And Ken Ashigbey? The man has lungs built for protest. If rivers could vote, he’d be president by now. He has marched, preached, and shouted himself hoarse trying to rescue our rivers. But in Ghana, speaking sense is a high-risk hobby. One chief reportedly warned him, “My son, let the river die in peace.” Imagine that—funeral rites for water!

Meanwhile, the airwaves are crawling with a new species: Homo Serialcallerius Politicus. They survive on mobile credit and misplaced confidence. You’ll know them by their mating call—“Good morning, my brother, let me land!”—usually followed by a crash landing in ignorance.

Our radio stations have become Parliament without rules and with more shouting. By the time the host cries, “We’ll be right back after this commercial break,” the truth is already in the morgue. If Plato were Ghanaian, he’d have written The Republic of Noise.

But the real tragedy is not the noise itself—it’s our addiction to it. We treat the serial caller as national entertainer and the truth-teller as national nuisance. We hand microphones to parrots and handcuffs to prophets. Meanwhile, the rivers choke, the forests weep, and our conscience is on life support.

The elders warned us long ago: “If you hide your sore, the flies will educate you.” Ghana has hidden her sores under party colours, and now the flies are running evening classes in corruption. We call galamsey a political argument, when it’s really the obituary of our rivers.

Ken still shouts. Manasseh still writes. Erastus still films. And the serial callers? They still call. Same noise, new ringtone. The stage sinks, but the drama continues.

So here’s your weekend prescription from The Republic of Uncommon Sense:
Take one tablet of Common Sense with a full glass of Truth, three times daily. Side effects include honesty, accountability, and uncontrollable urges to shut up.

And before you call that radio station tomorrow morning to defend your party, ask yourself: When the last river dries up, will your party card fetch you water?

Jimmy Aglah is a media executive, author and satirist behind The Republic of Uncommon Sense chronicles.

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