COLUMNS
Esther A. Armah writes essays and features on Emotional Justice; her global project exploring the legacy of untreated trauma due to our shared global history that features brutality and injustice against people of color. Esther is a columnist with one of Ghana’s leading newspapers; Business and Financial Times. Every Thursday, her weekly column is published in print and uploaded online. Esther’s critically analytical pieces explore themes of leadership, policy, race, gender, power, sex, women, masculinity and connecting national issues to global realities.
Esther is a columnist with one of Ghana’s leading newspapers; Business and Financial Times. Every Thursday, her weekly column is published in print and uploaded online. Esther’s critically analytical pieces explore themes of leadership, policy, race, gender, power, sex, women, masculinity and connecting national issues to global realities.
BUSINESS & FINANCIAL TIMES
Weekly Column: a selection
JUNE 2019
Ghanaian women deliver……their president does not #WeAreThe52percent
https://thebftonline.com/2019/features/ghanaian-women-deliver-their-president-does-not/
The 48%.....failed promises, failing constituents – June 2019
https://thebftonline.com/2019/features/the-48-failed-promises-failing-constituents-1ofthe48/
JANUARY 2019
Risk and Reputation
https://thebftonline.com/2019/features/risk-and-reputation/
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MAY 2018
May 31 2018
ANAS: ethics, entrapment and entrepreneurship
A new investigation. A fresh controversy. A high profile official caught on camera in the midst of corruption – allegedly...
May 10 2018
Mother’s Day: oxygen & oxymoron
Hajia Fati: press, power & politics
Media’s ire is focused on the slap meted out by NPP party faithful Hajia Fati to Adom FM journalist Sakyiwaa Ahwenepa as she was reporting at NPP party headquarters.
Hajia Fati would then go on air; admit she had slapped the journalist, claim she had mistaken her for an onion seller. She has now apologized – hardly an apology though – she is claiming the slap was a “mistake”. This is nonsense and should not be accepted. Fati did not ‘mistakenly slap’ a journalist, she did so deliberately, recklessly and believing there would be no consequence to her action...
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MOTHER’S DAY
oxygen & oxymorons
Mother’s Day is Sunday. All over Ghana and across America, hotels will be sold out as special brunches will be served honoring and thanking mothers for the invaluable ways they shape and influence our lives. Thousands of flowers will be delivered, gifts bought and dedications made. In Ghana, we will rock our finery, snap pictures, kiss mothers’ cheeks and speechify. At Churches, sermons will be delivered offering verbal praise songs to the impact and importance of mothers...
May 3 2018
World Press Freedom Day
World Press Freedom Day is 3rd May. This year’s theme is ‘Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and The Rule of Law’. It’s being celebrated here in Accra, Ghana. That makes it a good time to explore the themes and how they interconnect locally here in Ghana and globally in other media capitals...
APRIL 2018
April 26 2018
Power & presidents: know your term limits
Term limits. That’s a phrase alien to fifteen out of 54 African heads of state each of whom has held power for more than 20 years. The issue is back on our radar after Gabon’s end of term limits this year effectively allowed President Ali Bongo Ondimba to rule for life...
April 19 2018
Moesha Boduong: Mayhem, Morality, Hypocrisy
Moesha Boduong. One Ghanaian woman. One minute four second interview on CNN. One international award winning journalist, Christiane Amanpour. One outraged and disgusted nation...
April 12 2018
Presidential Communications101
Finally. The President’s silence was broken. He addressed the Nation. He stepped into the furor that had gripped millions. The Nation got a presidential statement regarding the US military Agreement – or rather the DCA (Defence Co-operation Agreement)...
Winnie Madikizela Mandela. 81 years old. Gone, grieved, honoured, glorified and demonized. Remembering icons of Black liberation struggles against white supremacist power structures is a wade through contested territory of terrifying histories...
MARCH 2018
March 29 2018
The Issue not The Individual; on Deflection & Distraction
The 2018 US military Agreement with Ghana. Ratified by this government. Source of ire, protest and party political recklessness. On Wednesday, Ghana was in a state of anger and turmoil after NDC Deputy General Secretary, Mr. Koku Anyidoho issued threats that have landed him in jail and charged with treason...
March 22 2018
Skin Bleaching: The Self Hatred Billion Dollar Business
Skin Bleaching products. They’re a global multi-billion dollar business. In Ghana, recent headlines of pregnant women swallowing pills in a bid to create lighter skinned babies ignited fresh horror, outrage and grave concern plus a campaign from Ghana’s FDA...
March 15 2018
Shaping Our Future: Women In Media
Women in media. Turn on your television, tune in to the radio, check out newspapers and online and you will watch, hear and read more women in Ghana’s media. This presence is the result of pioneers and trailblazers whose graft was great and who met the challenges of a male dominated profession by breaking boundaries and making a path for all those who followed...
March 8 2018
Press for Progress: Framing Our Future
International Women’s Day is March 8th. It is a day named by the United Nations. All over the world, organizations, governments, corporations and universities celebrate women with a variety of programs. Each year has a theme...
March 1 2018
Time’s Up! No Playground For Pedophile Teachers
Teachers. Every day thousands and thousands of teachers in Ghana walk into classrooms where they hold young minds in their hands to nurture, develop and build. Some teachers in Ghana have turned playgrounds into pedophile hunting grounds, They use their position, authority, power to sexually harass, extort sex for grades or school fees and sexually abuse mostly girls but also boys...
FEBRUARY 2018
February 22 2018
Wonder Women: Opportunity vs Opportunism
Women entrepreneurs. They are a crucial part of Ghana’s economic backbone. They are job creators. Their blood, sweat and tears turn initiative into employment. That initiative is not always born of vision or passion. Sometimes it is born of necessity, hunger, lack of opportunity and a need to support families...
February 8 2018
Strong Men, Weak Institutions
Domelevo, Amidu and Despite. Three strong men navigating weak institutions. The first is an Auditor General seeking prosecutorial power to reinvigorate the state purse; the second is a Special Prosecutor with a reputation for integrity; and the third is a gender award winning businessman putting some of his fortune into better health with a children’s ward at 37 hospital...
February 1 2018
Reckless Raila: Leadership, Lessons & Losses
Raila Odinga. The People’s President of Kenya? I watched a video where Mr. Odinga inaugurated himself as a President of a nation that had already elected President Uhuru Kenyatta...
February 1 2018
Sex on tape: the position, the principal and the pupil. The viral video of an 18 year old SHS student on her knees on a stool having ‘sex’ with her principal has been the focus of much discussion. There has been ridicule, back and forth about consent and multiple versions about what happened. Ghanaians took to social media and posted images of stools. It became a trending topic on social media...
JANUARY 2018
January 25 2018
Incurable Disease: Ghana’s Hierarchy Of Healthcare Horrors
Health-care and our hospitals. Two issues on Ghana’s mind this week. Our Vice-President Dr. Bauwmia was flown to London to seek emergency medical treatment. That news ignited a flurry of headlines, social media engagement and a series of discussions and disturbing revelations about the state of our health systems...
January 11 2018
2018 begins! fake news, fake jobs, fake courts
What a beginning! A republic’s anniversary, an immigration service professing medical expertise while practicing discrimination and a media house DG declaring new courts of prosecution.
DECEMBER 2017
December 21 2017
Jesus Justice & Juju: an unholy trinity
What would Jesus say to these Bantama boys? What words would He articulate had He watched that video?...
December 14 2017
HeForShe: The Silence Breakers
Time magazine’s PERSON of THE YEAR was given to ‘The Silence Breakers’, a group of American women who had broken their silence regarding sexual harassment, sexual violence and rape by powerful men. It was called the #MeToo movement, started by African American organizer and activist, Tarana Burke, seeking solidarity and community as she worked with women of colour survivors of sexual violence in the US...
December 7 2017
Poverty Pipeline: dangerous waters
“I was sold”. Chilling words from a Ghanaian migrant, back on home soil after a treacherous journey in dangerous waters, where his body became property...
NOVEMBER 2017
November 30 2017
Am I Not a Citizen?
Affirmative Action. Women’s Empowerment. These are two cornerstones of nation building in 21st Century Ghana. Indeed, globally. And yet, we are a nation that continues to debate the merit or danger of the former and offers rhetoric about the latter...
November 9 2017
CHIEFS: the beauty & the beast
Chiefs and Chieftaincy. Our traditional rulers. Their power, their history, their role, their challenges. In President Akufo-Addo’s recent speech at the National House of Chiefs, he spoke about modernization, ending discrimination, galamsey and not treating sexual violence as ‘family matters’...
November 2 2017
Gender Galamsey: from the margins to the mainstream
#Justice4Her. A rallying cry in pursuit of justice for a 4 year old little girl. The cry chastised the police, urged the arrest of her alleged rapist, demanded action of a President, criticized inaction from a Ministry and petitioned Parliament to become more involved...
OCTOBER 2017
October 5 2017
Cocoa Calling! A birthday and a game changer
70 years old. It’s the CocoBod’s birthday. And it’s been a tumultuous 70 years. The Jubilee Park, Kumasi celebration saw our President caution this body against repeating its past of financial malfeasance, corruption and other mismanagement accusations. And he celebrated the history of a sector on whose back Ghana’s economic prosperity grew.