Bawumia and his Tilapia

pal,

so the resource wasting and indeed foolish petition by Bawumia and his Akuffo Addo and their Jake on the 2012 prez election in Ghana is ongoing at the court with full blast live telecast.

assuming I was some stranger in Ghana who did not know what went on during the 2012 elections as some people are making themselves out to be, even though they voted (and christo! they voted!), for me, the court case should have been called closed last Wednesday 24th April the 6th day of proceedings as Bawumia under oath agreed with the suggestion from Mahama's counsel Tony Lithur that Mahama did not steal and that Mahama won resoundingly; with Bawumia only adding, albeit, that 'with irregularities'. This record at the court proceedings answers the two-state issue the Supreme Court laid out to be determined: 1. whether there were irregularities and 2. whether the irregularities affects the results. Bawumia dug his own grave right there and that should have ended his stupid litigation.

but yehowa save our souls from being foolish. under cross-examination, after Bawumia made all sorts of allegations, he claimed that if your Tilapia was stolen while your watchman was asleep; that your watchman failed to do his job does not rob you of your right to ownership of that Tilapia and hence the right to seek repossession of same.

this was after it was suggested to him that he could not have a case to complain after agents he and his Akuffo Addo and their Jake sent out to monitor the conduct of the elections did not submit any complain but rather endorsed the proceedings to be satisfactory.

and they call that Tilapia tale an analogy?

Ok. if Bawumia was just an innocent man walking down the street or in some bush, minding his own business and he suddenly shouted this Tilapia tale of his in relation to nothing in particular, then I'd have called him intelligent. Then of course it would be a general truth in itself and by itself (in relation to no particular). An aphorism, even, thus!

But why? why again? we are in court as a nation over a very foolish matter brought upon us by Bawumia and his Akuffo Addo and their Jake; a case of election results, a case of electoral CONTEST, where all interested parties have equal right to position themselves for the ultimate prize - victory!

So how in the name of yehowa does such a situation merit likening to the ownership of Tilapia, let alone that that Tilapia would be said to have been stolen for which reason the case must be made for the return of the Tilapia to the owner? how? How did Bawumia come to own this Tilapia of his? was it by inheritance? his late father willed it to him or what? or he bought this Tilapia at the Accra Mall? or his wife gave it to him as a gift for being a loving husband? so how did Bawumia come to have the 2012 prez election victory as his property for us to be disturbed with his irritating bleats that he must be made to have his property back? how?

If Bawumia cannot show us how the 2012 presidential election victory became his property then we better tell him to stop telling such foolish tales that only fudge the issue at hand further. That tale from Bawumia cannot by sanity be held as an intelligent analogy. analogies don't exist in vacuums. analogies must be applicable to situations under consideration. And there's no logical relation between owning a Tilapia that gets stolen on one hand and electing oneself to contest with others for a prize on an equal platform on the other hand.

again, pal, may yehowa save our souls from such foolishness as Bawumia brings to us.

which tv in which Ghana court?

Pal,

Sometimes I just think people willingly use their nether to think and then let out all manner of fart into the atmosphere for us to consume.

Kenya allowed live TV cameras into the hearing of Odinga's nonsensical case and so Ghana must do same for Nana's even more-than-nonsensical election petition?

No problem. But who are those calling for it and what reasons are they giving for their call?

As a child I always wondered why news broadcasts of court proceedings on TV did not include showing the courtroom with the judge in his wig presiding over arguments. What I got and still get are faces and commentary of the wig wearing lawyers; mostly flamboyant arrant nonsense outside the court. The best picture I get are those by artists in newspapers: artist's impressions!

So I wondered why all the mystification of the law if the law is to serve society really? I recently got to know that Ghanaians decided to copy the donning of those wigs by their colonial masters so that the judges could not be identified in public for fear of being beating well well or maimed or killed by aggrieved persons who don't accept their judgements to the extent of unleashing their own on the judges. Ah well... so they say, but really, it's neither here nor there. We are in Ghana now where there's the very ripe recent history of some of these very disguised judges being kidnapped and murdered into a national scar. If the wigs helped them to escape such death those judges would not have died there way they did. So what's the point hanging on to that useless reason?

So there must be reasons for positions/decisions and the reasons, most importantly, must breathe sanity.

So what is the reason being given for the demand of TV cameras to transmit live audiovisuals into homes, ghettos, the streets, offices, akpeteshie kiosks, etc.? The proponents led by Nana's associates claim that the case in court has heightened tension and so live broadcast would help bring down the tension. I say to them: foolish. very foolish. Who took this very animal case to the courts for the taxpayer's money to be expended on it in the first place? Are they not the ones? Since when did they realize such a case by it's mere nature, and not by their 'all die be die' animal talk, is what would bring tension and what proof of this have they got to show us? What tension if you don't go inciting your people to use catapults or bombs or whatever they can find to kill or cause damage in the name of this animal case?

Pal, we were in Ghana when Afari-Djan the EC boss declared the results of the presidential elections on LIVE TV for all who have eyes and ears to see and hear. Indeed, before Afari-Djan mounted his seat to do his constitutionally mandated duty, we had votes counted in the full glare of the public at polling stations with the public participating. The media with their radio and tv carried these things across the nation for all to experience and we all saw the direction of the results which made Afari-Djan's announcement a telling of what was already known. 

Yet after all these Nana and his associates decided to tell us they disagreed with the results. And not just so, they instigated supporters to pour on the streets, visiting mayhem on fellow citizens so that all the LIVE RADIO AND LIVE TV broadcasts did nothing to these Nana's animal band of nonsensical lot led by Nana himself with his charges of "win at all cost" and "all die be die". Indeed, they have formed a so called 'Let My Vote Count' sidekick to this whole animal petition drama and they mount theatres where members scream out that they want to use bombs to show the world how serious they are already. They tell us of one of them who so slapped a fellow citizen in Kumasi leaving the observer in wonder! Such Things! So how the hell they come telling us live broadcast of the court proceedings is what would reduce or remove tension? What the hell? What the bloody hell!

Having realized long ago that those wigs the judges wear does not give them any extra-protection from lunatics after their taxpayer-assigned bodyguards, I have been wanting real still pictures, even, and not artists' impressions alone from courtrooms. So I want tv in all the court rooms at any time all over the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. But I want tv for sense and not nonsense. If the tv would not make me learn then I don't want.

Pal, I don't like those Spanish or Mexican soap operas shown on television in Ghana. They only pollute the heads of our people with those. I hardly watch TV. Put a TV in front of me and I could have my eyes fixed on to it alright to your delight but my brain would be searching myriads of territories faraway even beyond the subconscious. So if you want me to watch TV then it better be something I'd learn from: news, discussions on science, theories on humanities, the arts, etc. Else let it be some football match I find important enough for amusement in the absence of akpeteshie.

Pal, I don't see how Nana being cross-examined in court would teach me anything useful. That man does not speak sense. He speaks too much non-sense and this particular petition of his is nothing but an animal whining that at best must be thrown out with retrospective effect to save the taxpayer's money or else he must be charged for all the expenses made.

Pal, I know some people have argued that Nana's case would help us advance our democracy but I vehemently disagree with that position. This petition is a dehumanizing petition. It is an animal petition. Ghana has been on the path of electoral reforms since, at least, 1992: From opaque ballot boxes to transparent ones, etc. Indeed, all those CIs introduced in 2012 were for electoral reforms with intentions for the better. So we don't need any champion Nana from anywhere to take a foolish case to court before we know we ought to have electoral reforms. As we speak the Electoral Commission is going round the country meeting stake holders to learn from the 2012 elections for betterment. So Nana cannot be THE (capital letters) champion of Ghana's electoral reforms. The challenges experienced with the biometric system introduced for the first time in 2012 must be well documented to learn from. That is the way forward. Not this idiotic court case.

Pal, let it be clear that it is no favour Nana is doing us. Our taxpayer's money is being expended on his adventure. So let us have sense. If Nana was minded by sanity or 'no tension', he'd have done the honourable thing of conceding defeat and congratulating the winner on LIVE TV for all to see the very night Afari-Djan declared the results on LIVE TV.

Pal, enough said for now.

Sena Dagadu

Pal I wrote the following for Sena Dagadu whose music I find completed by her vocal prowess!
well, hers is the kind of stuff I call music really. I have seen her perform without instruments and I have seen her perform with instruments too and I have always seen her demonstrate total control over her vocal delivery. Am I making noise? well, I think there are too many pretenders (like Becca, hehe! :-p) on the Ghana music scene that a good music bird like Sena should be trumpeted to reach every grain of sand on the land. Anyway, enough plenty talk. Enjoy her album, Lots of Trees here

Sena Dagadu
--------------
it was in the bar
a joint near Kotoka
with a bottle and a tot
peanuts in between.
and poetry at the microphone.
brothers and sisters had the flow
but she took the place by a sudden storm
"wow! is she from these parts? she doesn't sound..."
"hush hush... didn't you hear the announcer mention her name?"
it was one hell of a vocal storm
"can you feel me now?" she sang
in a mix of afropop, soul and a ting of rock
but it was not a question meant to be answered
you just felt her.
your feet moved and if it didn't move your shoulders moved
your waist would move
and it wasn't just the song
her voice was intensity
her voice was power!
Sena.
pass on a song to her
yeah, pass it on
and you'd feel her tongue
wrapped around the rhythm like she brought it from the womb
the pitch was in the right measure
the lyrics were forever caressing
---

looking deeper into the nana joke

ah! pal, it's a joke!

That Nana Addo and Bawumia and their Jake's petition in court would be said to be valid and so Nana is the one who was elected as president when Ghanaians went to vote last December is a just a joke.

But what joke haven't we seen in this world manifest? Forget that the Nana's petition is nothing but foolish. Just forget even if you can't forget. I say, pal, forgettttttttt...! So I want to look at what could happen should the Supreme Court which I have no respect for decide to rule in favour of Nana.

1. Does Bawumia become the vice president?
oh yes! that's how vice presidents are made. the constitution says the running mate to the one elected as prez is deemed to be elected vice prez. That's easy right? but wait. That statement that the vice is elected alone presents a trick. Again, let me repeat, the constitution says the vice is deemed to be ELECTED. not appointed. not ordained....

So you see? the vice prez is deemed elected in his own right. Now Pal, Ghana has been near this junction of confusion before. Remember the case of JJ Rawlings being said to have given his first vice, the late Ackaah some kick or shove at a cabinet meeting? or the famous presidential fight could not result in JJ Rawlings sacking his vice. not at all. If it was a case of the prez being said by the constitution to have appointed the vice then JJ Rawlings could have easily taken advantage of that to sack Ackaah and appoint someone else. But the constitution is not a joking matter. It locked the hands of JJ and he had to bear with having his sudden enemy Ackaah firmly rooted at post as vice prez much to his dislike.

So that's a historical record to learn from. I don't see any automatic occupation for Bawumia as vice then should Nana be said by the supreme court that I don't respect to be the elected president. Current veep Amissah-Arthur could easily raise the aforementioned argument of having been elected separately and that would present another battle.

2. Does Nana become president?
Then there is the case in the constitution of what happens when a prez is removed from office. The constitution says, when a prez is removed from office, his vice shall take over as prez. Simple as that. Remove the president and his vice takes over as prez. No 'if'. No 'but'. So you can argue that 'but' in this case it is the legitimacy of the prez election that was challenged and you can even hit your head against the concrete at Akosombo to break the dam into a Noah's time flood as in the Bible and still that your 'but' would have no placement in the constitution.

So this one even makes it more tricky. It means when the prez is removed following Nana's petitions, Nana is not the one to take over. So Nana is not even assured of automatic occupation as prez in this case let alone that Bawumia would become veep. All it takes is for the current veep to first argue that he was elected in his own right to be veep per the constitution and per the same constitution he is to take over from the prez when the prez is removed from office. simple and short.

Aside all that, even the ministers appointed by the prez are as a result of a legitimate exercise of authority by the prez by the constitution. Hence the fact the prez is removed does not mean automatic removal of the ministers he appointed. To remove any of those ministers must follow action by the new president and not by the mere wish of people. So assuming all the ministers decide to stay at post even when Nana is made prez (irrespective of the above stated arguments) then Nana would have to officially sack every single one of these guys if that is what he wants. He can't wish them away. no.

So pal, I laugh when all I hear around me is that bogus 'transient' argument by npp apologists for their so called boycott of activities by the prez because they are challenging his legitimacy. The constitution of Ghana certainly is not something to toy with. These arguments I've raised have not come up for dissection in the mainstream media but I won't be surprised if we end up here come any bogus ruling that Nana is to be made prez by the supreme court that I have no respect for. But of course, I appreciate the fact that Nana is going to have a tough time having that bogus petition of his ruled to be right even by the very supreme court that I have no respect for, let alone by any institution that I have respect for.

So pal, the debate continues...

govt fuel subsidy; to subsidize or not?

Pal,

After all the jargons….after all the plenty talk…after all the making of faces:  knotted frowns and pretentious smiles. After all is said and done… the simple fact that remains is that ‘money goes around’, with control by those who have the power.

The last time Nigerians copied that WallStreet delusion by staging OcupyNigeria or whatever in reaction to the Nigerian government’s decision to remove subsidies from fuel as dictated or directed or suggested by the Briton Woods, my reaction was simple: instead of demanding for the stay of subsidy, let the people ask for working transportation, good roads, vehicles (bicycles, motor-cycles, trains, boats, aircrafts, etc). Let the people demand good supply of energy to their business centres and homes, etc. This is be a simple exchange. So govt takes subsidy away and the people get their basic needs. nice bargain.

It's a matter of opportunity cost:

Why would I shift the matter there? It’s simple. Just a cursory moment of thought shows the beating of the word subsidy is just another erection of the nebulous. What a man needs is what it takes to survive and function as he wants or as is expected of him, as the case may be, in his society. So whether the means of providing that need is called subsidy or grand-daddy is irrelevant. See pal, the whole idea of economics needs a rethink in these days as it has become abundantly clear that so far the human society is less served, if not robbed, by all the convoluted talk of theories. They are not working. They have not worked. And I dare say they’d never work.

The resource in the world is finite. That is the basic block that should show that when a man is made into a star as being a millionaire or a billionaire, what it means is that someone has suffered for that one man to accumulate all that for himself. The tragedy for me is when the very robbed person is the one who is so deluded to look on in amazement of the billionaire.

I cringed to the marrow when upon the announcement of Ghana finding oil by my dear Kufused and his lot, the then vice prez the late Alhaji Aliu Mahama stuck his neck out proudly to claim that it meant Ghana was also now going to make millionaires. Such glorification of idiocy hit me to the core! For the religious and the traditionalists stuck in dogma! I’m sorry I don’t observe so called respect for the dead in trade for sanity. So observe your so called respect by claiming you don’t speak evil of the dead when I even know it’s just a farce you put up as and when it suits you. Anyway… so that was Alhaji and his idiocy! the same person who swore oath to ensure the welfare of all Ghana-ians.

So the govt of Ghana says it wants to remove fuel subsidies to pave way for the enjoyment of the poor since as the arrangement is now, according to govt officials, the poor do not benefit. Ayoooo! I say Ayoooo! For me I don’t care whether you keep subsidies or throw them into the deep blue sea. It is neither here nor there. What I care about is, if I set out to take trotro from Osu to La, I should be able to afford it and that means govt must make it possible for me to afford. It is the job of govt. Else govt must cease to exist.

The govt worker who goes to sit at the ministry serving officials needs adequate financial base to afford food, clothing, education, transportation, etc, every single day of his life and for a meaningful estimate of his dependents (spouse, children, etc. China says one child per family else fine). This is what all those economic theories must be solving. Else what’s their use? And to such a man, what does it matter whether you keep subsidy on fuel or not when he still cannot afford in any of the two circumstances because his salary is inhuman to say the least?

Ghana has been down this road of removal of subsidy. That is what the Kufour govt did. They claimed Rawlings govt had so rundown the economy with subsidy that they needed to do full cost recovery. Kufour even had the guts to tell folks to tighten their belts while we all saw him gleefully not only loosening his own but adding more yards to cater for extra regions his waist expanded to with conquest’s jubilation. They said they needed to make the consumer so pay that the cost would be recovered to keep the supply running. So it was done. But in the end the Tema Oil Refinery which was used as a decoy ended up with more debt. That must have been the making of witches and wizards that prevented Kufour and his gang from achieving their pontifical dreams. Alas they had nothing or little to lose. They’d not be countered amongst the poor when the cries are being head.

So I say Ayooooo to current Mahama and his team on their subsidy removal expedition. It’s not impossible to pursue the agenda as claimed by them. Oh no! once you don’t have any witches and wizards disturbing you like they did to Kufour and his gang. So the poor might just benefit more this time. But I say Ayooooo!

What I find funny is how suddenly many current govt appointees started talking about subsidy not being helpful to the poor: Fiifi Kwetey, Fred Tekper, etc. They all sounded too mechanical to my hearing. It was as if they had rehearsed their responses to the subject matter. But again I say Ayooooo! I don't agree that we should all pay the same rates for fuel when we're not all consuming at the same rate and when we're not all earning the same from the same govt purse. It should be a simple matter that those who take more from govt must be made to pay more for what they consume. But we're doing little to address such disparities.

So for now, the usual cycle continues, fuel prices are increased, workers would demand increase in minimum wage and hence increase in salary while strikes hit the headlines with all kinds of nonsensical claims jumbled with the sensible claims.

Let us see what the removal of subsidies would allow to flow from pipeline.

Pal, I say Ayoooooo!

oh what a Nana Addo shock

Pal,
another day is come!

So yesterday I got the shock promised by the goons in the NPP who would not let us have some minimum sense but are about making all manner of illogical and plain stupid claims under the guise of democracy or deepening democracy!

I don't know about you pal. I went to the polling station on December 7 at my own sweet time, after 3pm, even though I heard alarms of how some folks had queued up from evening the previous day for an event that was supposed to start 7am (Ghanaians love their politics in a funny way with all manner of pretenses too). No hussle for me. I got me through the voting process with a feel-good air after which I hit some joint with pals for enough to drink to keep me alert for the long hours of following the work of journalists who claimed to be mounting all kinds of stages for monitoring the count of votes on radio and tv.

I love drama. So I listen intently to both sense and nonsense and note them down respectively. and yeah o yeah! there was 'lot--a' npp crap propaganda in the air especially on joy fm as to how they had already won the elections even though it was announced that over a 100 constituencies (out of 275) had problems and so would be voting the following day. I have since 2008 not taken joyfm as sensible radio station for journalism anymore. The likes of Adjoa Yeboah (and where the hell is that load of beauty now?) and Kormla Dumor made me listen some when I was a kid. Since 2008 I got to know where to get more reliable facts on elections: Radio Gold 90.5FM albeit tainted with NDC propaganda too (but and so what? I campaigned for JM but I did so based on facts without hiding under any pillow. Point is simple, give me facts and give me logic even if it's tainted with whatever propaganda. Just make sure you don't churn out lies like joyfm does.

I have no idea whether my particular vote for Mahama as president was countered or thrown into some dustbin. I wish I had the opportunity to be shown evidence of my vote being added to the lot. With the illogical claims by the NPP thus far, I might as well claim to be deepening democracy by hitting the courts to demand that my particular ballot be proved to have been added and countered all the way to the desk of the EC boss before he declared the winner. Don't ask me how. There must be unique identifiers on all ballots.

So if I can't have evidence that my particular vote was countered and it's the same for everybody then why the heck is Nana Addo and his assistants disturbing everyone with the claim that he's so much of a democrat and that he wants every vote to be countered? What the hell! Too many people have sat down quiet to allow this sham of a hype to be disturbing our ears for too long.

So the Nana finally filed their so called 'evidence petition' in court yesterday. So what case is Nana Addo and NPP making now after so called knowledge of evidence of 'systematic' rigging of the election by the EC, the media and Mahama? What the NPP has given us in the public domain are claims of IRREGULARITIES. That's all. There's not a shred of even a claim of rigging on the part of Mahama or the EC or the media (in fact the media is totally cut out now). So this is the basic issue at hand. We were told some people rigged the election and that there's evidence for that. Now the 'evidence', if we can even call it that, brought to us is only about IRREGULARITIES! not rigging. where is the logic? That is the crux of the matter.

Pal, as always when you insult me that I'm a fool who does not think I only find it apt to reply kindly. The display of the Nana Addo and Co is nothing short of that. I'd reply them in same measure. So that is the issue at hand. the NPP is calling me a fool, especially so that Nana Addo opened his mouth and claimed he filed that very foolish petition on my behalf. What the hell! You don't have my permission to file that foolish stuff and yet you have the audacity to claim you're doing it on my behalf! what the hell again! This is the same Nana Addo who just before the elections again opened his mouth and declared that Nana Konadu had endorsed him and had asked all her NDP folks to vote for him only for us to be told it was not true from the office of Nana Konadu. This Nana Addo man is certainly not correct.

Meanwhile the particulars of their filed claims are at best stupid. How can Nana Addo and his bunch of goons pray the Supreme Court to declare himself as the president elect because by their foolish claims Mahama was not electected? First of all, Ghana's constitution does not give any locus to the Supreme Court to declare the winner of the presidential or parliamentary elections. That function is a reserve of the Electoral Commission of Ghana. So clearly Nana Addo who makes a lot of noise about being a lawyer is seeking that the judiciary usurp the powers of the EC. What a charlatan!

That aside pal, There's no automatic rule that once the election of a candidate is ruled to be null and void it means the second placed candidate must be made president elect or just one candidate should be chosen from the lot and declared president. Absolutely No. But you know pal, I'm not surprised at this illogical claim from Nana Addo. Remember the 2007 NPP primaries where he was MADE (note that I say made) the prez candidate of the NPP? The guy was not elected. simple as that. he wasn't elected. Somehow by some azzaaa and patapaaa move he got some folks to rally around him to birth him or create him or mold him or declare him or whatever they did but certainly not elect him the NPP prez candidate for the 2008 elections. So Nana and his actions are well documented. It is the same kind of nonsense he wants to happen to him in the name of Ghana.

And come to think of it. This was the same Nana Addo who just before the elections was demonizing Lauren Gbagbo as somebody whose actions must not be replicated in Ghana regarding elections. Yet what did Gbagbo do? What Gbagbo did was to get the mandated Constitutional Court of Cote d'Ivoire to declare him winner of the 2010 elections in that country. Now Nana is doing a similar thing and yet does not come back to us to tell us he was wrong about Gbagbo and that we should actually make an award for Gbagbo! What a sham character called Nana Addo. What is more? As I pointed out, Ghana's Supreme Court unlike the Constitutional Court of Cote d'Ivoire does not have the mandate to declare winner. So is it not even clear that Gbagbo asked the court to do a job they were mandated to do while Nana Addo is asking the court to do what they're not mandated to do? Who is more of a democrat hence? Such a sham hyped in Ghana like a balloon with that fraudulent free shs proportion.

Pal I don't want to spend to much time on the bogus petition of the NPP which does nothing but insult me. Nonsense!

Pal, I understand that anyone would rather for convenience of not inviting wrath from the goons in NPP set up Ayariga to laugh at instead of Nana Addo. But me I'd do no such thing. Ayariga spoke far more sense than Nana Addo and I proved that in a blog recently about their IEA encounter. And I want to end on a simple stuff from Ayariga: he said if you peddle what you know not to be true as truth then you're corrupt. And thus his definition of corruption went beyond just bribery and that was a lot of sense there. Nana Addo spoke no such sense.

Pal, Ghana's 2012 elections by all standards is the best Ghana has ever had so far in terms of participation (about 80% turnout), transparency (party agents, biometric registration and verification) and prompt declaration of results, etc. Indeed it's an election that can rival many in the world in terms of credibility if it's not the best in the world. Indeed I know of no better electoral system in the world now. We can still make improvements to aim at perfection which would never have as humans (we're not gods or God) but let Nana Addo and his NPP goons aided by Bawumiah (who claims single digit inflation cannot mean rise in price of stuff) not visit nonsense on the system in Ghana.

On that note it can only be clear that what Nana Addo and the NPP are doing is nothing to help our democracy but rather a broad daylight bastardization of the processes we have. Indeed I find it insulting that anyone would claim these fraud being peddled is to help our democracy! please keep such foolishness to yourself pal. don't bring it to me. I won't take it for even free let alone at a cost.

Let us meet again. the drink last night was good. I was so drunk I couldn't sleep. yes. miracle.

the idiocy called 50% + 1 votes

Pal,

I wrote about this idiocy a long time ago and I don't even remember the year. It's all got to do with the constitutional rule of Ghana that says for a prez candidate to be declared winner s/he must have "more than 50%" of total valid votes.

But I want to write about it again because some folks who claim to know Engineering Maths etc are preaching total BS. They claim it makes sense to say out of a population (designated as 100%), you can say 50% + 1 of that same population can be countered. So they tell us that the constittutional rule of "more than 50%" is the same is saying "50% + 1".

To be frank Pal, I don't know where this thing came from into the Ghanaian space. If you ask me I'd say I suspect Kweku Baako as the source. He's one person who has had a lot of BS accepted in the society such as saying "let me land" (to mean let me finish my statement) and "let us interrogate the issue". He says such things on radio and every Tom, Dick and Havi (small pig in Ewe language) picks it up and repeats it as if it was sensible to say.

MATHEMATICS:

Pal, there's no Mathematical principle in this world that supports the addition of a percentage expression and a natural number like 50% + 1. It is the same way you CANNOT have 50°C + 1. These are entities in different mathematical realms and so it's ILLOGICAL, in capital letters, to attempt adding them.

STATISTICS:

That aside, imagine pal that it was all cool and nice to do that illogical stuff. So how would you then do the counting when I come to tell you that out of the total population of Ghana when you take 50% and then you add 1 person to it (50% + 1) you'd get the proportion of the population that are female. How would you make such a count when our pal Tenance tells you the total population is 10? How would you do it.

However, in comes the Engineering Math NOISE by a pal called Tenance whose twitter handle is @kwakutii. He says what you get in the case of 10 as total is 5 + 1 = 6, since 5 is 50% of the total 10. If you're an idiot you'd be foolishly swayed to accept his claim. What he fails to tell you is where from that 1 he's adding to the 50% or the 5. He tells you the origin of his 5 but doesn't tell you the origin of his 1. why? ask your dear self: is it from space?

ok. Assuming all is alright so far. So I ask Tenance what about if the total population is 11? In similar fashion he says for this case 50% of 11 is 5.5 hence 50% + 1 = 5.5 + 1 = 6.5. Pal, an aside, let me warn you with the reminder that no sensible person would do this and call it math. You can call this UFO language if you want. Else at best you'd want to say 50% + 1 is EQUIVALENT (not equal) to 5.5 + 1 in this particular case. But that's an aside. Let's get back to the BS being claimed to be powered by Engineering Math tutoring. But even before then, how a human would be said to be half and hence we have a 0.5 human to add to 5 humans is a lot of Bull Shit to point out at this stage. Ask Tenance and he'd tell you it's an approximation. An approximation that leaves a human as 0.5 or half-human on earth! and Tenance finds it sane enough to even back with Engineering Math. I prefer to be insane, pal. Everyone's vote is countered as one vote in Ghana and never a fraction of one. Indeed there's nobody's vote that is reserved as a special one vote to be given to anyone who obtains 50% or whatever.

Let's go on. The 'simple and short' of the matter is that percentages of a population are always taken out of a total of 100%. Hence when you say 50% out of a population is female, what that means is that the remaining 50% (thus 100% - 50%) are either males or hemaphrodites (if they exist) or a combination of both male and hermaphrodite, but definitely non-female. You can't say 50% of a population are female while there's 1 (one) female left to be countered or added. Else then how did you get your 50% in the first place? Did you get your 50% from a sample of the population and not the whole population? ask yourself with a frown! So to say you've calculated 50% of a population to be female and still have 1 female to add must mean the following:

a) Your 50% calculation did not include all female in the first place and hence what you called 50% is actually not true. OR

b) You now want to take 1 person from the remaining male and or hermaphrodite population to add to the female population which would be nothing but Baloney!

Now. Just bring the foregoing statistical analysis to the situation of valid votes countered in an election and let's see something: If candidate A has 50% of valid votes then what that means is that the remaining 50% (100% - 50%) is for the other candidate(s). So after a candidate has obtained 50% of total valid votes countered there can't be any 1 vote left anywhere that should belong to him for us to attempt adding that 1 vote to his 50%. In any case assumming we found that there exists some 1 vote that was not originally added to candidate A's account what that would mean is that we'd have to recalculate his percentage out of the total 100% and hence it can't be said he got 50% therefore since that one vote added to his account must be coming from the accounts of the other candidates and not from outside the total 100%.

So to say in the case where the total valid votes is 10 a candidate can be said to have got 50% + 1 and that means 5 + 1 = 6 is total absurdity bordering on the entrance to INSANITY. Candidate A can't have 50% calculated for him from the total 100% and still have 1 vote left. Where's he getting it from? This is where Tenance introduces another absurdity he calls the 1 being encapsulated in percentage. Whatever he means by this I don't even want to bother. But pal if you're calculating the percentage of votes a candidate gets from the total you don't calculate some 50% before adding some 10% from the same total 100%. No. Absolutely No. What you do is to take the total count for the candidate as a fraction of the total valid votes and multiply that fraction by 100. That gives you the percentage of the candidate. Not 50% + 10% as if you divided the population of votes into different chunks.

So Pal, let Ghanaians respect their constitution and stop peddling Bull Shit. It's indeed a violation of the constitutional provision to say the winner of a prez election is determined by that illogical 50% + 1. So pal this matter is clear: constitutionally, mathematically and indeed statistically it's just plain stupidity to say someone has 50% + 1 of votes or 50% + 1 of mangoes or 50% + 1 of devils. just baloney!

At best you can say the 50% + 1 is a figure of speech. In that realm it could be accepted, else don't go saying this anywhere.

Pal, enjoy your life.