The ‘dumsor’ vigil- a success or a failure?

The controversial ‘dumsor’ vigil finally came off and thousands of people including the celebrities turned up to peacefully express their displeasure at the ongoing energy crisis in the country.

I have been following with keen interest the pre and post dumsor vigil comments and analysis that is going on in the media. One interesting school of thought on this issue is that “ the dumsor/power outages has not stopped anyway and that is to suggest that the exercise was a waste of time, effort and energy and did not achieve the desired purpose”. This is a rather unfortunate thought and I totally disagree with this notion.

Over the years, our politicians have fed us and still continue to feed us with a potent mixture of carefully selected ingredients ( lies, greed, selfishness, tribalism, hatred etc) expertly brewed to a perfect mixture which is very addictive and difficult to resist once you are hooked on. Some Ghanaians are soo intoxicated with this mixture to the extent that it has corrupted their minds and clouded their sense of judgment and patriotism. This energy crisis is affecting almost everyone in this country adversely. Day in day out, Businesses are collapsing, workers are being laid off, output is declining, the barbers, hairdressers and other small scale enterprises who use electricity for their businesses are now out of work, a couple were ignorantly chocked to death from generator fumes all because of this energy crisis and perhaps the worst hit by this crisis is the ordinary members of the society who cannot afford other alternative sources of power.

Despite the enormity of this crisis, the government, instead of focusing its energy on resolving the crisis, is rather quick to attack, intimidate or more deceptively, brand anyone who comes out to criticize them as a sympathizer of the opposition political party and the worst victims of this strategy are those celebrities who organized this dumsor vigil. The government wants us to believe that those who joined the demonstration were either politically motivated or were bribed to do so and this I find to be very ridiculous. is the government saying all the  celebrities who turned up for the event were paid to do so? Even if they were, how about the other non-celebrities who turned up in their numbers, were they also paid? This demonstration was a major success to me and I agree with Sarkodie that history has indeed been made. For the first time in this country, celebrities have openly organized and embarked on a demonstration on a sensitive national issue and that makes it special to me.

So I come back to the all important question, did the dumsor end after the vigil? No it did not, but it sent out a far more important message; that the seed of fear and oppression the politicians have sewed in us is not bearing fruits any longer and the effects of the mixture they have fed us with for so long is gradually waning off and they can no longer takes us for granted.

To the celebrities, who despite the verbal assaults, threats and abuses, put their reputations on the line to hold this vigil, I say well done to you and I congratulate you all as well as the thousands who turned up in their numbers for the event.

This is my personal opinion on this matter and opinions as they say varies and everyone has his /her own so you are welcome to share yours on this platform as well. Long live Ghana and thank you for reading

source:

Samuel Nyarko Addo/ghanashowbiz.com

ghshowbiztv@gmail.com