Gabby writes: Is Anas entertaining and winning?

This piece runs the risk of being misunderstood but I think it is important to ask these questions, anyway. In sum, based on what we know so far, we must seriously examine the work of Anas and his Tiger Eye investigations, specifically on corruption, by asking the provocative question whether or not it is achieving anything remarkable beyond (1) “destroying” the few “unlucky” people who get caught by his trap and (2) offering us great occasional entertainment.

His videos are sensational, especially the promos. We go to the theatre to watch them like how the Romans would get enthralled watching the Gladiators butcher each other. Are these blockbusters really helping us in the fight against corruption? Historically, has government used the “shocking” revelations from Anas’ videos to reprimand enough the individuals culpable and reform enough the institutions involved? I ask these questions with the hope that we will look back critically to help us move forward better.

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for naming and shaming. In fact, I am one of Anas’ biggest fans. I was also one of Anas’ first ‘victims’ by the way. Yes, as way back as 2002, he threw his searchlight, which was then on low battery, on me quite mischievously. I was a newspaper editor and he a reporter and also a student at the University of Ghana, who had a satirical column in the Crusading Guide. He once accused me FALSELY (with all the emphasis I can conjure) in his column of regularly joyriding (after Saturday football on Legon campus) predatorily in my small VW convertible around Volta Hall, presumably hunting for a beautiful prey. Of course, we laughed over it as friends. Those days, he was just a normal, ambitious, handsome young man, who did not need a mask and could be seen more easily and often by the Volta Hall ladies.

Jokes aside, I have ten questions to ask about our society and the impact of the “Anas Principle” and I will proceed to explain, where necessary, why the question.

1. First, can Anas share with us his success rate in all his attempts to entrap bad nuts?
Why: In other words, of all the people he has targeted, as an agent provocateur, he must tell us how many Ghanaians were able to resist the lure of the “free cash” he determinedly threw at them. It is obvious that he sets out determined to trap those he targets. If the success rate is extremely high, then one can argue that it is not just the individuals who are bad but that it is the society itself that is rotten to the core.

2. Is it not fundamentally the case that patronage and gift-giving are very much acceptable customs in our society in general and that it is this custom that has been misapplied under contemporary settings?

Why: It seems that in our transition from traditional authority through colonial authority and beyond to this day, we effortlessly and conveniently migrated the custom of taking gifts to the chief’s palace, to the office of the modern day public servant. One leader who sought to consciously preach against this wrong cultural cooption but didn’t hang around long enough to have the required impact was the anthropologist prime minister, Dr K. A. Busia. According to Busia, the normal situation under traditional setting was that a “Chief was wealthy in terms of the services he received, but he could not accumulate capital for his own personal use.” R S Rattray also details the various sanctions that could be applied against officials and chiefs who abused their office. It seems, therefore, that the custom of gift-taking was migrated into the post-traditional setting without the accompanying sanctions. Military rule could not destroy the distorted custom. Successive governments have been unable to curb it. Press freedom appears to be doing more in sensationalising it. In downplaying this critical distorted cultural overhang throughout the generations, gift offering, as either an incentive or a show of gratitude, has become very much the norm in the eyes and minds of, ironically, the very society that would show anger and disgust from watching cash changing hands in Anas’ videos.

Columnist: Gabby Otchere-Darko