A fool, his noose and thoughts

They say you only know the essence of tact when a fly ever settles on your testicles. In as much as this assertion is flawed because it precludes women from the fray of those who might need tact to go about their everyday lives which really is not my focus for now, I am of the view that this adage or maxim is for those who have everything to lose. I don’t know if the seriousness of this issue has been downplayed because it is a housefly that has been used to portray the imagery which gives people the luxury to think that tact is what it should take, but imagine a tsetsefly settling on your testicles and you are now reading a manual or instructions on how to unsettle it from its new home. Not me. I will just slap it outright altogether with the balls and allow the chips fall where they may. Let me kill the tsetsefly and have my pains to deal with.

 I am sure that Mr. Alban Kingsford Sumani Bagbin, a supposedly National Democratic Congress (NDC) Party stalwart is at an all time low since it is becoming apparent that he has found himself taunted by a tsetsefly for a long time such that being tired to further contain the impudence on his testicles, has picked a sledge hammer to hit it on his own balls thereby bursting it in the process.

Why do people think that they can only make reforms or gain capital by denigrating others or passing disparaging remarks about others to make their points sink in?

With Alban Bagbin’s status as he seeks to profess to us as though it has ever mattered, he could have convened a meeting to table his problems or findings on why the NDC party lost in the 2016 General Elections but he decided to sear and punch holes in the party’s mast and drown everyone with him. It is alright to wash your dirty linen in public but it is also prudent to note that the kind of linen you seek to wash would turn out blinding white and clean. You do not come washing rags in public without minding the fact that you would offend the sensibilities of observers.

In Mr. Bagbin’s quest to becoming the flag bearer of the largest opposition party and eventually becoming the President; the Father of the nation, it was unwise of him to call the ability of the disabled or handicapped into focus. I personally think that it would pass as one of his all time lowest in his political career and so do most people. He should have known that no one tests bullets they have collected for battle on themselves just to ascertain its potency. It’s suicidal to go on that tangent especially in public because some things can only be contextual. Even the infamous bank heist or closing and consolidating of 7 banks is being held in camera, let alone questioning the ability of the handicapped?

Whereas some observers think that his quest to lead the party is far-fetched simply because of his dwindling electoral fortunes at his constituency which was nothing worth writing home about, hence would not be a match to unseat a sitting President who trounced an incumbent to become the number one Gentleman of the nation, I think that its beside the point. What matters is, he has to retract his words and if they were not passed to spite people with disability, then he should explain his stance to make us understand him, for Ghanaians have always been tolerant with Politicians.

Writer tweets @vilejah

Terms and Conditions apply!

The need to write this piece was borne after one of my numerous encounters with one of the customer service personnel of Mobile Telecommunications Network (MTN) who practically gave me the impression as though she was doing me a favor.

“Hello and welcome to MTN, your call will be recorded for training purposes. For Twi, press one, for Ga, press two, bla, bla, bla….” And the pre-recorded voice trails off unless otherwise, but I doubt if they do retrieve and playback those back-up tapes for the said training or they just are learning other things I’m not privy to.

Undoubtedly, MTN is one of the biggest Telecommunication Companies who has fallen sub-par the giant status they carry about and as the best when it comes to provision of Telecommunication services. It’s rightfully so, because it looks like, they have shifted their focus from their core objective of up-time and reliable provision of services to sponsoring of programmes and provision of corporate social responsibilities. 

The lady in question made me look stupid for subscribing to their network. Her actions, depicted by the way she interacted with me also gave me the impression that I could stop subscribing to their network if I like and still there would be millions of Ghanaians who will patronize them. And, all I could ask myself after that dead-end call for help was to ask myself why I was still hooked on to their grid. I felt the need to stop using any services that had to do with telecom services, but, you know what that meant. I was going to severe ties with friends and family since there would be no form of communication, neither would I be able to publish this post. I would be perpetually out of coverage area and you can imagine how I would fare.

While pondering over the series of the appalling services these Telcos provide us, I came to the conclusion that we as a clientele base contributes to the shambolic services these service providers in tend provides us. We don’t take our part of the various contracts seriously, which is why these companies always have a field day. 

Modern dispensation has made it imperative for us as a people to continually go into contracts we are not even aware of, which unfortunately have legal bindings on us. These contracts if explored to the letter and the clauses thereof can get us into serious troubles our families cannot even redeem us from.

If you have a presence on social media, be it Twitter, Whatsapp, Facebook, Picasa, Tumblr, Foursquare, Instagram and what have you, then chances are that, you have entered into a contract with a third party application provider just by installing the application, which is usually free of charge.  As to if there are embedded costs and how this companies fare, would be another topic for later discussion.

How many of us take our time to actually read the License Agreements that comes with these soft wares? How do you know your rights and responsibilities that come with installation of these applications? How do you know your responsibilities with regards to the liabilities therein, should something happen?  How can you even sue these companies when all you did was to just click ‘next’, ‘next’ and then ‘finish’ to get your application running?

Somewhere in 2004, I managed to read the License Agreement that comes with Microsoft Windows operating systems, specifically that of Windows98 during one of my installation sessions to the very end, even though it was not making sense. I had to because I figured it was not there for its own sake. It’s purpose-driven and for a reason. 

Usually, these contracts state at the bottom of the License Agreements that “You are now aware of your rights. Click next to continue” and I ask, are we not allowing ourselves to be led to the slaughter house by just consenting to these agreements without knowing what they entail?

All these contracts and transactions have terms and conditions applying to them and it is what we should be looking out for, to see for ourselves what will be in stock for us should we validate such contracts to full blown statuses. 

Our ignorance about these terms and conditions that applies also accounts for the reason why some people win raffles but are not able to redeem their prizes. These companies know most of us will not have the time to read this supposed ‘chaff’ and this only plays advantageously to their gallery. They sure know that you will be found wanting when the day of reckoning comes, so beware.

We have to take some of these things seriously so that customer service personnel of service provider companies should not feel like they are doing us a favor since they would have known that we have actually read and understood the terms and conditions that applies, thus our rights!