I-CAN-GHANA

Why was Fauster Atta Mensah able to pull off and get away with one of the most hare-brained scams of our times?

The answer lies in ourselves, as Ghanaians. We are a people so enamoured with titles and positions of honour that even where none exist, we create them. Fauster knew this very well and laid out a deliberate scam to milk it to the fullest, for as long as it lasted.

Some two decades ago, as a poor, broke scholarship graduate student, my pastor invited me to dinner in his home. Over the dinner table, his wife of Jamaican origin stated that “every Ghanaian I have met is from a royal family. Are you also from a royal family?” Right there was my opportunity to claim undeserved gravitas. I could say that I was the great grandnephew of Yaa Asantewa, that I am of royal warrior blood, that… My fertile mind went into overdrive. But at the same time, in those same split seconds, I said to myself that I ought to be accepted and appreciated for who I was, even if that “who” was nothing. And so my answer was a simple, mousy, little “no.” And that was the truth. I am not from the Akyem Achiase royal family. In fact, I don’t think that the current chief even knows my name. Ah, yes, I have heard that my late dad was from the Biriwa royal family, but as an Akan, I know that no one in my family has any claims to that or any stool. We are just who we are, ordinary Ghanaians, working hard to put food on our tables, clothes on our backs, roofs over our heads and money in our pockets so that we can pay taxes for the government to misuse. We do not need any empty titles or fake claims to any positions of honour to be worth who we are.

Take a look around you. Listen to our radio stations. You give an interview to a radio station, and when it is being played back, you are described as a “legal luminary,” when you have not illuminated anything in your life. I once spoke at a seminar on the legal aspects of bird flu. The next day I was a “legal expert in medical law.” A man arrived in Accra from his village and decides that he needs access to the top end of society. And so he renames himself “Prince”. He returns home, brings all his brothers and sisters to Accra, and names them “Prince” and “Princess”, as the case may be. All his children will bear the title. The next thing, one of these “Princesses” will show up in America claiming to be “Queen.”

Our Parliamentarians, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, and even Assembly Members carry the title “Honourable.” Meanwhile, in Britain, from where we claim to have borrowed it, it is not a title. It is a description, as in “Paul Boateng, the Honourable Member of Parliament for…” Only the Speaker of Parliament bears the title “The Right Honourable…” But here, the “Honourable” has left the description end and has become a much-cherished title. If you like, don’t call the man “Honourable” and see. Empty and vacuous.

Look at our pastors, especially those of the Charismatic ilk. As soon as their churches begin to grow, someone will pop up at their doors “selling” doctorate titles from some corner of the US. In a couple of weeks “Pastor so-an-so” becomes “Reverend Doctor so-and-so,” arrives in church wearing an academic gown and hat, with the 3 stripes of a “Doctor”, to loud shouts of glee and acclamation. And it is really laughable. The man has no bachelors or masters degree. But here he is, rocking an academic gown with 3 bands, and the ignorant church members are beside themselves with joy and ecstasy. Ah, people who have not written a dissertation, let alone a thesis in their lives, who do not know what a thesis defence or viva looks like, are demanding that us lesser mortals should address them with the title “Doctor.” What is worse, in academia properly so-called, honorary degrees do not become part of one’s title. But not in Ghana. We love them.

Look at our chieftaincy institution. It was used to be just “Na” or “Nana” or “Togbe” or “Nene” etc. Then we started adding further honorific, descriptive titles, which I will not mention here, but they mostly begin with “O”. Notice how we are moving from the description “chief” to the title “King”? But what what takes the biscuit now is “His Royal Majesty.” So that a man who has absolutely no natural claim a even a kitchen stool, now, on account of being made some insignificant developmental sub-chief, struts around the world holding himself out as “King so-and-so” bearing the further, comical description “His Royal Majesty.” Similarly, a caucasian appears in some rural community and shells out $2,000 to dig a borehole, he is quickly wrapped in a kente cloth, and place on a wooden stool. He returns home proclaiming to be King of Ghana. And, oh, did we not read about and see pictures of some Ghanaian ‘king’, driving a taxi in some western country, in full regalia?

Fauster is smart. He knows his people very well. He taps into who we are, and has a huge laugh at our expense. It may be that ordinarily, all his achievements, if written 10 times over, will fill a quarter of a sheet of paper, with space to spare. But he looks at us and says to himself that if he can but learn photoshopping, he would go very far with us, and enjoy the ride till it ends. And so he spends about a year or two building a false myth about himself. But it is full of holes, so many huge and gaping holes that any ordinarily diligent person could, would, should see the joke from a mile away. I mean, since when did the UN award Nobel Prizes? Read the stuff the guy has written about himself. The English he uses is extremely poor. His claims do not make sense. What did he say he studied at Adisadel? The story is so patently false that one would have thought that only a dunderhead would fall for it. But guess what? We love titles. And so he pops up in Ghana. I am not sure of the exact sequence but he succeeds in conning the title-loving church into giving him some honour. He also gains some recognition from the Government, acting by no other ministry but the Ministry SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, supposed to be our science and technology gatekeepers!! He appears on national TV, GTV, with aplomb, where the hapless, clueless host showers him with accolades. It was only after these that he was found out.

And so we may laugh at Fauster as much as we may want to. He is trending on social media. But whenever you see his photoshopped pictures, including the rather incredulous one where he is wearing eyeglasses while in a spacesuit, you should see ourselves in him. Actually, I think Fauster has the last laugh… at our expense.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 24th, 2014 at 01:45 and is filed under Social Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.