Contempt of Toilet in Ghana

Some subjects cannot be broached without profuse apologies. As we say in Ghana Taflatse seven times for my Sakalogue on something so smelly.

I was driving on the motorway one morning when a woman declared on Joy FM in impeccable fante inter-laced with the queen's English, "yede contempt atu tiefi nudu" to wit she has placed contempt on toilet. I received half a dozen calls from friends in the next couple of minutes asking if I was listening to Joy FM. Truth be told, the government and the people of Ghana have been treating this important byproduct of the digestive system with great contempt . We understand that to keep the body alive we need to expel the stuff (it will come out any way if you refuse to), and when out, storage is very important if we want to avoid an over-charitable distribution of disease causing parasites in our society. However, symptomatic of our failure in resolving our problem as a nation, we have done a bad job of collecting and storing away those lumps from the stomach.

Huge deposits of the substance have been scattered in all manner of places that have nothing to do with the stuff. The gods of the sea have not signed a toilet pact with Ogyakromians but the beaches are popular with people seeking quick stomach downloads. Open gutters, rivers, forest reserves, backyards ('efitsire') are popular with many stomach surfers in Ogyakrom. The men, women and children who desecrate the beautiful beaches are not savages- simply put, there are no decent toilets at their places of abode. Where available, they're either over-used or not worth the name, or both. District and metropolitan assemblies have failed to enforce their own laws that make it mandatory for landlords to provide toilets in their houses. In certain parts of the capital, Accra, many landlords converted their pan-latrine toilets into extra rooms and asked the tenants to use public places of convenience. To live successfully in one of these houses, you must have total control of your bowels under the most turbulent stomach conditions. If you don't, your opprobrium is beyond salvage. Apart from having to hold it in until you get to the public toilet that can be any distance away from your house, you have to contend with a long queue of surfers, some holding soap dishes half filled with enema in one hand and enema syringe ("bentua") in the other, all waiting their turn to download. Unfortunately for you, there are no emergency procedures to take care of your circumstances. Under such circumstances, your best bet is to look for any place more convenient than this place of convenience, this could be anywhere- the beach, the bush, behind that house, a carrier bag in your bedroom if you live alone- alas, you've joined the savages.

Why do we call these public toilets places of convenience? You can actually walk in with your father-in-law-in-waiting and finish negotiating the bride price for your fiancée, whiles at it. The stench emanating from the place can have devastating consequences on the nerves that control smell if exposure is not minimized. In fact, a couple of these toilets imploded under its own methane (or whatever gas it is) a decade or so ago. Some chaps in Kumasi attempted to improve these toilets by inventing the KVIP- Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pit Latrine. I never understood why these chaps invented the KVIP at a time we had been used to WCs for decades. I was even more baffled by the way politicians loved to inaugurate these toilets. If you have ever used the so called improved pit latrine you realize it is no technology at all. However, after an encounter with a mobile toilet in the middle of London, I revised my notes on the technology.

Whiles shopping on the high streets in London in February 1998, I felt a strong call of nature. Incidentally it was on that trip that I adopted the name Ogyakromian. Luckily I located a mobile toilet right there in the middle of everywhere. As soon as the door moved to close position and Ogyakromian prepared to dialogue with nature, I saw a note on the closed door advising users of the system that the door is programmed to open AUTOMATICALLY after 15 minutes. What? "What if the system mistimed my session and flings open after 2 minutes?" "I wasn't wearing a watch, what if I misjudge 15 minutes?" As these thoughts flushed through my mind, I decided that was it, I wasn't going expose myself to an opprobrium of this magnitude, I was out of the place before you could cross the last 't' in the word toilet. I don't know who put an upper limit of 15 minutes on a session with nature, but with the KVIP system, the owners of the toilet didn't have to worry about such issues, you will only stay in that room if you have to be there, the stench will kick you out, no electronics required.

Sometimes I do wonder why people in certain areas in Accra queue to vote for politicians who cannot even guarantee them a decent place to exercise one of the most private rights of a citizen. The approach to solving this problem has always been half-hearted. For instance, in the heat of Rawlings' revolution, he is reported to have said that people with two WCs in their homes must transfer one to the people of Nima. Brilliant Solution: It is more difficult to bring dignity to the millions who need it by providing them with toilets, why not strip dignity off the few who have it by taking toilets away from them to create equality at the baseline. Other solutions have been capitalist in nature. Long before the Internet was invented, toilet hotspots were
created in
densely populated areas to serve the needs of the populace. This approach has served politicians in more ways than one. Some of these toilets are out sourced to party faithful who have been promised jobs. This is so important that daggers are drawn when governments are changed without change in the management of the toilets. It is one of such incidents that prompted the woman to call for "contempt on the toilet". Secondly, with the pressure for politicians to show evidence of development, why not keep building these public KVIPs? A toilet here, a toilet there, and your votes are banked! If every home has its own toilet, what will the politician do for development? Roads? That is hellishly expensive.

Dr. Charles Wereko Brobbey and his Ghana at 50 attempted to solve some of our toilet worries. Though good intentioned, the celebration ended with no visible toilets on our highways, what a shame. Even if it had been successful, his project will not solve the real problem with our toilet or lack of it. Our people really understand the importance of toilets in the affairs of men but we simply have failed to address the matters arising. In the Anlo tribe for example, a man on the way to visit the toilet is exempted from greeting anyone along the way. Of course, with the greetings are exchanged, asking after every object in the house in turn, if you insist on greeting, there shall be a performance. So we recognize the fact that toilets must be accessible without impedance, not even cultural impedance is good enough. So why have we for many years watched queues buildup at these toilet hotspots that have become business ventures and have refused to insist on a simple rule- every house and its own toilet(s)?

Let's face it; in the court of the toilet judge, we're in Contempt!

Bayie Kɔɔɔɔɔ (II) - The Witches Congregate

"The witch cried yesterday and the child died today, who does not know that it was the witch that cried yesterday that killed the child who died today" Yoruba proverb. (http://www.iheu.org/node/2856)



Brutus, My brother from another mother, what will you do if you see a temple in the middle of the forest, and you are told that it is hosting the annual conference of global witches at that moment? Coming from Europe, you may be tempted to draw near the building to see for yourself. But if this happens anywhere in Africa, don't attempt to access anything from that temple using any of your five senses, flee immediately. In my earlier Sakalogue on the activities of the witches of Ghana, I told you these chaps are not friendly, they are deadly. The people of Hyiawu-Besease in the Bosomtwe Kwanwoma District of the Ashanti Region of Ghana are dead worried because the Association of Witches in West Africa (AWWA) has scheduled its annual conference for the town. The chief and people of the town are doing everything under the sun to scuttle these eerie creatures even before the meeting begins.



Dormant prayer warriors have suddenly found the fuel to energize their wheels. A day of prayer and fasting was declared at which the people came together and called on Jehovah to send down warrior angels to scatter the heretic breed. Some intellectuals in the adjoining towns have contacted celebrated mathematicians to calculate the "gyratik radius" – the furthest distance at which you can feel the influence of a gyrating witch. They plan to be outside the "africamotive field" of influence (determined by the gyratic radius) of the conference as a safety measure. Dan Blocker, the chairman of Hyiawu Besease Macho Men (HBMM) has organized his boys to show courage in a way that has annoyed many animal rights activists. The Macho men will take turns in keeping vigil in the forests of the town. Any owl that is seen in the forest must be kicked, crashed, shot or stoned to death. Conspicuously missing in these activities is a libation ceremony to invoke the protection of the ancestors. Our elders are very smart people in Africa. Why invoke the spirit of the ancestors against the witches when every ancestor including my 79 year old grandfather was killed by a witch? They will be no match for the witches.



As I mentioned in my first Sakalogue on witches, the easiest way to identify a witch in a village is to look for a defenseless woman whose face is battered by want, leaving little beauty to be cherished. It is believed that a witches spiritually fly out of their body frames taking the form of  owls as they hounds their prey. They leave their human body in a coma-like state without the ability to respond to stimulus. Based on this knowledge, witch-hunters all over Ghana will pay nocturnal visits to identified suspected witches, whoever fails to respond to loud bangs on the door will be moved from the suspect-list to a list of certified witches and will be dealt with according to the law of the village.



The question on the lips of the people of Hyiawu Besease is "why this town?" In fact, this is the second time in two years that a conference of witches has been scheduled for a town in the Ashanti region. Nobody really knows what happened to the first conference. There is a deity in the Ashanti region called Antoa Nyama, I'm surprised nobody has asked it to make the conference 'nyamaaa'. The problem is we can't tell if the meetings happen or not because nobody knows the form the meetings will take- Physical or spiritual. More interesting is the fact that seemingly, this organization has neither a spokesman nor any identifiable human executive. Their address, both globally and locally, remains unknown, yet their meeting and the agenda has been widely circulated beyond the wildest dreams of any advertising organization for nothing- such a feat can only be chalked by principalities and powers beyond this realm- these must be witches of Africa for sure.



Brutus, you can feel the trepidation in the air. The people of Hyiawu-Besease have already seen some signs. A middle aged woman died shortly after brushing her teeth. A seven bedroom house collapsed and burnt to ashes- I know what you're thinking, shouldn't we withdraw the license of the contractor that put up the building for doing a shoddy job? Hmmm, you see, this one, it is not his fault. It can't be. At a time that witches of unknown origin and indeterminate address have promised the loss of almost a million lives in an operation dubbed "blood galore", every death must be consigned to their account.



I have some personal challenges in my family and some colleagues have advised that it could be attributed to the things I say and write about these awe inspiring creatures but "tofiakwa" with a finger-snap over my head. As Balaam said of Israel to Balak, Numbers 23:23; "There is no enchantment against Ogyakromian, neither is there divination against my family".



Sometimes my bones quiver with great trepidation at these things. No, not of the witches or what they do or do not do, but of the thousands of Ghanaians who do what they shouldn't do, and do not do what they should because of such unsubstantiated stories- opportunities lost!



Yours truly,



Ogyakromian

WHY PRESIDENT MILLS MUST FIRE THE UPPER EAST REGIONAL MINISTER

If I had the President’s ear, I will advise him to fire Mr. Mark Wayongo the Upper East Regional Minister with immediate effect. This gentleman has proven, by comments he made after video evidence emerged showing the extent to which military offices tortured and dehumanized suspects in Bawku, that he is not cut for that important position. In an earlier article, I criticized the action of the soldiers who stripped two suspects naked and paraded them in the street of Bawku. At the time, the soldiers had attempted to rationalize their action in a most uncanny way, albeit unsuccessfully. The video provided proof that the soldiers lied through their teeth when they claimed they didn’t molest anybody. Faced with this evidence, the President’s representative in the region, Mark Wayongo  is asking Ghanaians not to “over-flog” the issue for the following reasons:

i.              The soldiers will feel unwanted and disillusioned. They will take a back stage when things are going wrong leading to serious consequences.

ii.            Stripping the men  naked is “better” than attempting to kill people (the crime the two men have been accused of)

iii.           The treatment is justified in Bawku because of the “abnormal” situation in the town. It would have been un acceptable in Accra

iv.           Criticizing the soldiers will prolong the conflict.

Mr. Wayongo has demonstrated that he doesn’t understand what constitutional rule is about. Perhaps he was one of the people who enjoyed the “good old days” under military rule and is relishing the prospects of a return to the lawlessness that characterized those periods of our history. 

It may be pardonable if ordinary citizens call into radio stations and suggest that it is ok to abuse the rights of people in conflict zones, but it is totally unacceptable when a minister of state tows that line. Mr . Wayongo and anybody else who thinks like him must understand that you cannot teach the soldiers one way to behave in Bawku and another way to behave in Accra, no matter the circumstances. Perhaps he will understand my point if he pictures a hypothetical scenario where soldiers take up arms and usurp political power (as they did in 1981) and they decide that that parading ministers of state like Mark Wayongo naked on the streets will restore discipline in the country. He should just picture himself being paraded naked in his home town for whatever reason, and rethink his stance. I do not have to remind him that the soldiers actually stripped women naked in Accra during the so called revolution.

I will be quick to stress that like any decent Ghanaian, I want the Bawku crisis solved pronto. In fact I made the point strongly in an earlier article, Bawku’s Bunkers and Baulkers. But in our attempt to get rid of impunity up north, it makes no sense to encourage a more dangerous kind of impunity in which the military are made to feel they can take the law into their own hands when they deem fit and get away with it.

Mr. Wayongo should also understand that a suspect is not a criminal. What will he say if a court of competent jurisdiction looks into this case and realizes that the suspects have had been wrongfully accused? Does he know of any way to restore their dignity in Bawku?

 Mr. Wayongo asserts that soldiers will get disillusioned if we insist they behave right in a conflict zone. I wish to remind him that it is such trail of thought that has kept the murderers of Issah Mobilla out of jail till this time, a situation the minister’s party made campaign capital out of. Let me also remind him that American servicemen in Iraq haven’t remained aloof because some of their colleagues are serving time for abusing prisoners’ rights in Abu Ghraib prison. When we deploy our soldiers anywhere, the least we expect of them is professionalism and discipline that upholds our constitution and international law. The soldiers only abdicate these values because they know their commanders and politicians like Mark Wayongo will come to their rescue. If the message is sent throughout our society that we abhor such barbarism as took place in Bawku, the soldiers will behave. Why do you think our soldiers earn all those accolades when working under UN instructions on peace keeping duties? They only follow the standards. Do our soldiers live up to their international reputation when working in Ghana? I think no. And this is because our society makes apologies for unprofessionalism of the kind exhibited by the soldiers in this instant.

Does the regional minister actually believe that the impunity in Bawku will be curtailed by further impunity? Sending soldiers and policemen to Bawku to “discipline” suspects before a competent court of law has an opportunity to assess their guilt will only draw the military into the fracas in the north. They will lose support of innocent citizens who should be strong allies in stopping the conflict. Winning hearts and minds is key to the to a resolution. Encouraging military brutality will only entrench the conflict. If President Mills wants to solve the protracted conflict in Bawku, he must get rid of this man, he lacks the skills to bring peace to the town.

I am not a fan of Spio Gabrah, but he was spot on when he said some of these ministers should never have made it to the substitute bench.  Mr. Mark Wayongo has demonstrated that he is one of such. He has flaunted the opportunity to prove that he is belongs to Team A.

The military is a very important institution in Ghana’s development. We love them and we want to be proud of them at all times. Therefore when such infractions occur, we expect the leadership to come out and assure us that as an institution, they haven’t given up our shared values, and that they will rein in the deviants in their fold

The ilk of Wayongo must understand that human rights are universal non-negotiable rights that differentiate us from animals. That is what guarantees each of us the sanity we enjoy in Ghana. If we contrive to give it away as we have done in the past, we will live to regret it. For a minister of State, he must understand the constitutional position on such things. That is why Mr. President must get rid of Mark Wayongo from his government to show that we care about our own rights.

Chukwudi, How old are you?

"Cast your years on the coaster that rolls behind you and after many football seasons they will overtake you" - Ogyakromian

One of the questions we are taught to answer very early in life is “How old are you?” Therefore when you see an adult struggling to answer this simple question then you know that “matter don come”.  This was the situation Fortune Chukwudi , the captain of the Nigerian under 17 team, found himself in when a journalist asked him, Chukwudi How old are you? A brief background will be helpful.

A few weeks to the commencement of the 2009 edition of FIFA’s under 17 world cup  competition,  Team Nigeria had been thrown into confusion when they were forced to drop fifteen players after MRI scans indicated they were over-aged . In a move reminiscent of what happened to team Ghana before Korea 2007 when Ghana dropped six players after FIFA promised scans to weed out age cheats, Nigeria preempted FIFA’s big stick by carrying out its own scans. This action notwithstanding, during the tournament itself,  Adokiye Amiesimaka, a nations cup winner with Nigeria in 1980 and lawyer decided to use his column in the Guardian to attack the age cheats when all eyes were on Nigeria.  According to Adokiye Amiesimaka, he once ran a football club somewhere in Nigeria and he recruited a footballer who claimed he was eighteen years in the year 2002. Today in 2009, this young man by name Fortune Chukwudi  is the captain of Nigeria’s under 17 team . Assuming he used his correct age in 2002, Chukwudi must be twenty-five now. How did he make it into the under-seventeen team that had been pruned by Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) . In the storm that followed his publication, Adokiye Amiesimaka the man who stood for truth was subjected to all kind of vilifications for being ‘too-known’. This is the bane of Africa’s under development.  But let’s leave that for another day.

After Nigeria deservedly lost the final match to Switzerland, a team that really looked under 17, the captain of the Nigerian team was asked a simple question by curious journalists - Chukwudi, How old are you? The young man’s answer was, “I have put all these issues behind me”.  Many people missed the revelation in Chukwudi’s answer. Remember when Christ was tempted by the devil three times? He told the devil after the third attempt, “get thee behind me Satan”.  The sermon is clear - when you face obstacles in your path to stardom, put the obstacle behind you. Like many more before him, Chukwudi had the opportunity to play for a national team, get a contract in Europe and bye-bye poverty. But one thing stood against him- Age. What did he do? He took the extra eight years or so that ensnared him and put them behind him, only then did he become 17.  If the journalist had asked “how many years are behind you?”  Maybe he would have told us.

Fortune Chukwudi is not the only player with a few years behind him.  I lost interest in FIFA’s aged competitions years ago when I came to the conclusion that the competition has been over-abused particularly by countries in Africa led by Ghana and Nigeria.   As far back as the eighties I wrote a letter, that wasn’t published, to the editor of Graphic Sports , a Ghanaian sports weekly on this subject . My letter said Ghana was cheating and I cited examples of some players. I have since decided not to celebrate any star from these tournaments; I’d rather wait and celebrate them when they become real stars at the senior level. For these players, excelling in these tournaments is a once in a life time opportunity to be seen by scouts of European teams. A contract in Europe translates many from the dominion of poverty to the glory of riches. The stakes are therefore very high for them; it doesn’t matter if they have to cheat to be in a squad. But for sports officials who condone and connive with these guys to put as many as eight to ten years behind them, I don’t know what motivates them. It is no secret that ages on passports and birth certificates in Africa are what we say they are, but we all know what a 16 year old looks like in our community and it is very easy to verify these ages if we want to. Most of these players would have played for various teams from the colt (real under 17) league to the premier division. The football associations have these records and can easily make a good guess of a player’s age from his history. Most of them were once enrolled in schools where age records are kept.  Getting such data on 98% of these footballers is a no brainer, therefore for an FA official to suggest that we go ask the parents of these footballers to confirm their ages , is to say the least , ridiculous.

 In my early teens, Yaw Preko was my favourite player in the colt league in Accra. He played for Kotobabi Power lines. At the time (Around ’84), some competing teams felt he was above the 16 year limit for the league.  In 1991, Yaw Preko played for the Ghana under-17 team for the second time at age 16. After giving a good account of themselves at their maiden world cup appearance, the senior national team of Ghana will be carrying the expectations of Ghanaians into another world cup in South Africa. Judging from their ages in 2006, the Black stars team is expected to peak around 2010. However, the high expectations of Ghanaians is being tempered by one difficult question- How many years do they have behind them?  Recurring injuries to any of our heroes is viewed with suspicion in Ghana- Could that be the sign that the years have overtaken him from behind?  The fitness of Laryea Kingston, John Mensah, and Stephen Appiah still gives me the shivers. I made a sign of the cross when Michael  Essien recovered from that knee injury in less than six months and came back firing on all cylinders. I don’t believe he is 26 years but he must be close to that (less than four years from the fact).  I still pray that Asamoah Gyan’s current form continues and the injuries that plagued his career last year remain behind him too. Is he 24?

When I realized that Julius Agahowa’s back flicks that characterized his goal celebrations have abandoned him at age 24, I knew the pace forward have finally been out paced by those years behind him.  Does anybody in Nigeria remember Nwanko Kanu’s  educational history? When measured against his football age of 33 what does it say? That Kanu  was 2 years old in what class? I hear his team mate David James, the England goal keeper, has challenged the assertion that at 37, he is the oldest player in the team. He reserves that honour for 33 year old Kanu. His former coach Harry Rednapp thinks Kanu is 47.

If the age cheating phenomenon was bringing benefits to Africa, few people will lose sleep over it. But apart from making a few players and their families rich, it has no other benefit. If winning under 17 trophies does not translate to winning the real world cup, of what benefit is it? However, if we feature true under-17s and true under-20s in these age competitions, the scouts will still find the talents from Africa. These true youths will benefit from the youth training system in the European clubs, they become better players, our chances of winning the senior world cup are brighter and guess what, they will earn lots of money for many years to come and lift the family yoke of poverty. Every age cheat just steals the opportunity of this true talent. Africa is the loser.

Chukwudi, whose place did you steal in the national under 17 team? Chukwudi, How many years did you cast behind you? Chukwudi , How old are you?

WHEN THE LIES FALL FLAT

"Truth is the safest Lie"

There are times when lies are simply not helpful and insisting on your lines make you look silly. Many a time, governments’ PR machines get chided for doing a bad job of defending their government when in reality, the actions taken by their employers are simply indefensible. In such circumstances, intelligent men and women are made to look like over-indulged adolescents who are just oblivious to reason. Our security institutions get caught up in this situation a lot when they exceed their powers. They claw at any scrap they can find, for example, to explain why a suspect in police custody is swollen-eyed even though he was not manhandled.


The military detachment in Bawku took custody of two guys, teachers by profession, for allegedly shooting indiscriminately in the highly charged town. The veracity of this allegation will soon be determined in a competent court of law. However, reports that the soldiers stripped the teachers to their birthday suite and paraded them stark naked in the Bawku Township, totally demystifying all trajectories protruding from the groins, cannot be taken lightly. Thanks to the actions of these soldiers, the mother-in-laws of these two chaps do not have to imagine the measure of trauma their daughters bear in carrying out wifely duties; they have seen it ‘fiili fiili’, they can even make comparisons to their own crosses. If these two guys ever make it back to the classroom, they will not dare ask the pupils to write an essay describing their teacher. In these days of technological proliferations, these guys could one day walk into an adult theatre and get shocked to the realization that they are the key actors in the latest porn movie .

Of course, the military has vehemently denied stripping the guys and parading them in the streets. According to Captain Frank Abrokwa, the commander of the military detachmentt, one guy was already half naked (without a shirt) when they attempted to arrest him, and in his attempt to resist arrest the trousers shriveled into nothingness. When asked what happened to the suspect’s under wear, he struggled to suggest that the suspect, who had just returned from a shooting spree, was walking around “anti-pe” (no under pants). He further explained that they had to walk the naked suspect from his home to the waiting military vehicle which was some distance away creating the impression that the suspect was paraded naked.

I believe that in typical Ghanaian military style, the soldiers stripped the guys naked and paraded them in the streets of Bawku to serve as a deterrent. I also believe that Captain Abrokwa’s version of what took place is far from the truth, in fact he is a bad liar . The Captain’s story falls out in the face of two facts:

i. It doesn’t convincingly explain how the second suspect also got naked.
ii. Being that they arrested one suspect in his own home, they could have clothed him before walking 10 km to their car if they did not intend to parade him naked.

I have heard many people call into radio programs to support the action of the military in Bawku because they believe such high handedness is required to stop the people of Bawku from annihilating each other in a stupid ethnic conflict. I have similarly heard many Ghanaians castigate human rights activists for speaking for the rights of armed robbery suspects. Such people speak out of ignorance. When people demand rights for suspects, they do so to protect innocent citizens who will be caught up at the wrong place at the wrong time, not criminals. The human rights groups are fighting for the rights of the people who ignorantly castigate them on air. If any of these guys find themselves at the other end of the stick, they will learn the hard way to appreciate what the concept of human rights is all about.

Growing up in Rawlings’ Ghana in the eighties, I saw and heard enough of military style justice in this country to say that no civilized nation needs it. Through fear, it chalks some successes in instilling discipline, but the excesses far outweigh any benefit. Women stripped naked, loss of innocent life, torture of ordinary citizens, arbitrary justice is too high a price to pay for discipline. We have cheaper options in staying loyal to the rule of law.

It is important to note that even prisoners of war are entitled to rights. When some American soldiers conscripted prisoners in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to act porn movies similar to what Captain Abrokwa and his men produced, it generated uproar in the world. Some soldiers were discharged from the army and others are currently serving jail sentences for those actions. We appreciate the sacrifices of our Men in uniform, but they must understand the times. The days of the banana republic are gone. In this dispensation, there is a soldier and his role, and there is a judge and his role, let none usurp the role of the other.