The Acts of the finger-thirsty Cavemen from Sarbah Hall

I haven't seen the video that made the rounds last week showing Students of Mensah Sarbah hall in the ONLY University of Ghana in a mad frenzy to poke their fingers between the thighs of an alleged female thief, neither am I interested in seeing it. If you have it, please keep it, don't send it to me. Just listening to, and reading the description of how our future leaders in a reputable university scrambled to get access to the holy of holies of a strange woman they knew not from Adam with their fingers, cameras and anything was repulsive ,repugnant, revolting and nauseous enough without the benefit of the pictures. The fact that the senseless act took place in the open and was not deterred by the presence of phone cameras and videos at the scene, says a lot about the IQ of our supposed best brains. This is another good reason to believe that our educational system is not producing the informed intelligent manpower required to operate in a knowledge society. You would expect that students at that level will recognize that what they were doing was a crime, and the cameras will only serve as evidence for the state against them.

The eagerness of the male specie to seek comfort in the holy passage that delivered humanity has long been recognized as potentially abusive to the female specie. Society has since made rules to obtain legitimate access, this fact must be known to every JSS student. What the finger-happy boys from Sarbah hall did is a throwback to the days of the pre-historic man who had yet to come to terms with the fact that he lived in a plane higher than the abode of the animals he shared the jungle with. I have heard arguments that what happened was instant justice rather than a crime against 'womanity', but the truth is, it was more of the latter. Was a single woman part of dishing out that senseless (in)justice? If a thief is polite enough to ask me to choose between losing my laptop and a one man attack , similar to what the lady suffered, on any female member of my family, I will deliver the laptop to his hideout with a tithe offering. The cavemen committed a bigger crime than the lady. The act of the Sarbah cavemen is indefensible, no matter how hard you try. The whole act is reminiscent of the early days of Chairman Rawlings's revolution, when stories that soldiers did not only strip market women naked in the streets but forced men to inspect what was in between their thighs, in the name of instilling discipline, were common. We have been hoping that those events will never recur in our society. But the appearance of computer savvy cavemen in Sarbah hall is a sharp reminder that we seem not be learning from our history. Back in the Vandal city in the days of yore, the boys from Sarbah were described as something police (I haven't learned to repeat the refrain without a prick on my conscience), it seems the Vandals were right after all. With all the faults of Vandals, such acts would be regarded as an abomination that causes desolation, and the perpetrators would pay with their 'blood' at 'Gono' where they will face all the three rudiments of shaboro- face up, face down and sub-marine.

The shameful act and the attempts to justify it by explaining that the lady at the receiving end is a repeated thief who has jumped bail, throws light on two evils in the Ghanaian society, namely , the penchant for instant justice and an overly casual attitude towards sexual violence.

Too many Ghanaians will join a beating party before asking what the chap did wrong. Not too long ago, innocent men were lynched because somebody said they caused their manhood to vanish. There were no attempts to verify that the manhood was gone. We saw people literally razing down a house occupied by a certain Dr. Beckley because the crowd believed he was an occultist who sacrificed children. A man appeared on TV claiming that a child was tied to a tree in the house and an angel came and untied her. The child was never seen, the parents were never known, and the angel refused to appear and testify against Beckley.  Yet people were ready to maim Beckley. Even though these people were shown on TV, not a single attempt was made to arrest and prosecute anybody. Many years ago at Legon, we chased a thief from Commonwealth and apprehended him in front of Legon hall. As we attempted to march him to the Legon police station, the crowd grew thicker with every step we took, and so did the beating. Yours truly attempted to stop the beating, but the few lashes that were thrown my way adequately exorcised my foolishness. I approached a security man at the gate for help but he was too smart to fall into such a stupid trap, he blatantly refused. In equal measure, he blatantly denied he spoke to me when I reported him to the university. As for the thief, he was left half dead at the gate, even though the police came for him, I don't think they got anywhere with a prosecution because society failed to help them. 'Enlightened students from Legon chose to exact justice the way of the caveman, instead of respecting institutions of civilization. If the police don't get into the habit of prosecuting the apostles and disciples of vigilante culture, they will never go away.

We trivialize sexual violence. Consciously or unconsciously, it does happen. In my teenage years in secondary school, I noted how conversations about 'gala' (gang rape) were well patronized. If young people get used to making fun out of such barbaric practices, they will do the Sarbah when they get to Sarbah hall. Remember Gyedu Blay Ambulley's song? 'Woman behind, something dey there, wey tin dey there,………' He successfully got ex President Rawlings to sing it at a show. Such lyrics can only serve to blunt the mind about the seriousness of sexual harassment. I hear that my fellow Vandals from Commonwealth hall are focusing the 53^rd hall week celebration on promoting women empowerment. Bravo! My V-mates. Please focus some of your effort on getting rid of all songs from your repertoire that degrade womanhood. That will be a practical demonstration of your good intention beyond the talk. Such songs do not help the course of 'womanity'. The guys in the colonies do not understand the mystery behind your lyrics; it will only spur on guys in Okponglo to get in touch with their animalistic instincts. As always, Truth Stands!

As for all my good friends from sarbah hall, it's time to go back home and talk some sense to those boys. Patrick Adjei (Mr. president '94/95), Patrick de Souza, Barbados, and Elvies Afriyie Ankrah, boys Chaaaarge . To all of us in the larger society, we need to get it into the heads of our sons, nephews and brothers that the residual remains of Oedipus complex will always take boys back to where they came from, but guys, there are rules of engagement, Respect!

 

The Tragedy of undiagnosed Madness

On the Campuses of Legon sometime in the 90s, the student body was excited by the appearance of a claimant to the SRC presidency. Even though the election was a semester away and most students were struggling to come to terms with the newly introduced grade point system which had already classified many students as average performers, news spread quickly of a midget whose pre-occupation was to let everybody know, he was the SRC president in waiting. He underlined his presidential credentials by formally adding the official title and name of a former European leader to his beautiful Ghanaian name. The student body thought he was eccentric or funny, few really gave him a dog's chance of winning an election in Legon , but as we approached election period proper, the final year students thought it would be cute to vote him into office and throw the university into chaos and they made this known especially at the observatory of the Vandal city. Even though he didn't win the election, he gave a good measure of scare to the other aspirants (ask one of President Mill's deputy's) and came a respectful second.



About a decade later, a UK based University in which the young man had gone to further his study had him checked into an institution because he was mentally sick, a claim the young man still strenuously contests. Since the claims were first published in a Ghanaian newspaper, I have wondered if the young man was a sick man begging the system for help through those unorthodox antics on campus, a situation we took for comic relief as we cheered him on to entertain us with his unimpressive additions to the English language. If that was the case, then the system failed him massively.



It is unfortunate that in Ghana and many African countries, mental illness is ignored or trivialized until the sick man strips and takes to the street in protest. Even then, you will only see the consulting room of Dr. Allotey if your family thinks the family name is worth protecting by throwing you out of public view or if you threaten the rest of society with mortal danger. The situation is no different from the way children with learning disabilities are thrown in together with the others in the same classroom with one verdict from our society- 'wa bong' or 'e sha' (he is a dunce ). But unlike their colleagues with learning disabilities, people with undiagnosed and ignored mental diseases who don't make it to the streets have an equal chance as anybody to be successful in our society with the problems intact and locked in the brain. In the past few weeks I have been convinced that if we run the rule on some African leaders , we will find one or two who belong this group.

How else can one explain the sickening craze with which guys like, Yoweri Musevini (Uganda), Teodoro Mbasogo (Equitorial Guinea), Paul Biya (Cameroun), Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Fasso), and Yahya Jammeh (Gambia) try to outdo the longevity of monarchs in their executive offices? Why does Lauren Gbagbo think his personal ambition overrides the safety and unity of Ivory Coast? Ghanaians have for many years put up with the incoherent ramblings of a revolutionary leader who pretends he is God's gift to Ghana. He seems totally oblivious of his own bloody past as he constantly accuses others of human rights violation and calls for justice. How does the octogenarian Mugabe manage to comfortably live in the past totally oblivious to present day realities? Even when he is voted out of power, he craves relevance through violence on his own people whiles pointing fingers at Britain.

When I watched the ex Egyptian president in his last address to the state, I wondered if he is one of those guys who escaped the attention of a psychiatrist. It was clear to every observer that Egyptians had had enough of this guy who had monopolized power for three decades. He couldn't stop the internal revolt by sending security forces to murder some of the protestors. When he had the chance to make a graceful exit in his last broadcast as president, he read out his CV to the people, reminded them that he was their grandfather, recounted war stories that were four decades old, and promised to deal with the people, who he had sent in the first place, who murdered the protestors. He even tried to convince the people who had massed up in the now famous Tahrir Square that they were being manipulated by foreign elements. The impudence of a dying cockroach! Ex president Mubarak was the only one who believed his address and the people made that very clear to him as he was seen off to Sharm El-Sheikh to live with his personal demons out of the public eye.



Muammar Gaddafi is another guy that never ceases to amaze me. After sponsoring revolutionaries in West African countries including Ghana, he embarked on two parallel projects to extend his dynasty. He attempted to revive Nkrumah's dream of a united Africa with him as the champion, and then he had himself crowned King of Kings of Africa by traditional rulers. Not long after, Gaddafi called for the division of Nigeria into Christian and Moslem States . I struggle to understand how a champion of African Unity can be professing for a split of one of the States he wants united. At the time of writing this piece, he has been busily killing unarmed demonstrators in the hundreds for embarking on an Egypt styled revolution to bring an end to his dynasty. Amazingly, he came out to blame Osama Bin Laden for the turmoil in Libya. Is he so naïve to believe that he can court the sympathy of the West and the rest of the world my invoking 'Osama'? Or it is the case of the demons in his head toying with him? May the Almighty strengthen the people of Libya to throw off this yoke of madness that has festered for more than four decades, Insha Allah.



Maybe Africa could be saved from leaders who operate on the fringes of lunacy by improving the mental health delivery system.

Why okada will not go

Four hundred bikers under the umbrella of Ghana private motorbike operators union (GPMOU) paid a courtesy call to members of Ghana's parliament on the 1^st of February 2011. They had a simple message. They know very well that the laws of Ghana prohibit the use of motorbikes for commercial transport, but that is exactly what they have been doing. Listening to the leader justify their trade on radio, I'm convinced he could easily have read the following speech to the parliamentarians:



Let Parliament the citadel of Ghana's law live forever. Please be informed that we are law breakers, but due to extenuating circumstances we do not intend to repent. We are here to petition you, and therefore be petitioned, to remove our offense from the law, extricating us from our consciences that we may indulge, in peace. We appreciate the fact that we are a nuisance to most of you on the road, but we're sure you and Ogyakromians, who you represent, prefer this small menace on the road to armed robbery the other appealing option prohibited by the law. Okada provides us with employment and acceptability in society. We can also pay tithes when we go to church, we can do Zakat, the girlfriends can introduce us to potential mother-in-laws without shame, some can take second wives, and after a hard day's work, we can buy a bottle of overtaxed beer. On the subject of taxes, please remember that if you legalize our trade, our taxes will increase the money in the national kitty, and you will have less hassle approving 200% increase in your own salaries. It is worth mentioning that there are thousands of unemployed youth in Ghana who will gladly join GPMOU, and these are all voters. Be reminded of this important fact when you debate our petition, because we will be listening. Lastly, kindly tell the over-zealous MTTU to back off as you consider our petition.



I have never been a fan of Okada for a number of reasons. Firstly, motor bikes were not created for commercial transport. For safety reasons, the rider and the passenger on a bike are required to wear crash helmets. But this is almost impractical in the commercial arena as few people will want to share a helmet worn by thousands for obvious reasons. Neither is it practical to sling a personal helmet on your shoulder, next to your beautiful Gucci hand bag in anticipation of your Okada hops on your journey. The only realistic option is to avoid a helmet with its consequences. I can jump on any public transport without worrying about what I choose to wear on a day, but with Okada, a skirt or kaba slit may create balancing problems that will precipitate the crash, not to talk of the revelations and visions underneath that shall be savored by guys nearby when you attempt the jump that puts you in the passenger seat. Secondly, motorbike accidents break more limbs and kill more people per unit distance than cars. Put a thousand Okadas on street and surely you would have created lots of jobs, not only for the riders but also for the carpenters that will make the coffins. A study in the USA some years ago showed that for every one hundred thousand registered riders, almost seventy will end up in fatal crashes, compared to fifteen automobile crashes for the same number of registered drivers. It is unfortunate that in Africa, useful statistics are difficult to come by, but I will bet my last cedi that the statistic for bikes in commercial transport will be worse. The people who cite Benz 207 accidents to push the case for okada should have a rethink, because Okada will beat those accident rates hands down. Maybe find out from our Nigerian brothers why some hospital wards are called Okada wards.



I do not believe that any Okada association can regulate the activities of their members not be a bother to the rest of society. We shouldn't fool ourselves; Ghanaians are not the best example of order and discipline. We may be doing better than some neighboring West African countries, but these are bad bench marks. Okada will jump red light at will, squeeze into cracks too small for their size in regular traffic, get many decent road users to frequent the parish to confess to swearing and the dozens of expletives they are forced to utter in disgust. Okada will just make tro-tro and taxi drivers look like the long lost Saints of Ghana highways. One Okada will carry an entire family, the father, the son, the daughter and mother with baby at the back, basket on the head. Their union will only serve one purpose- a rallying point for them to gang up and beat up any driver who accidently knocks down an out of control Okada rider, just as they do in Lagos.



With all the 'wahala' okada conjures in any society, why is there no shortage of willing commuters ready to hop on? The answer is simple- Okada is simply goosing into a huge void created by the lack of decent public transport system. Our roads are so congested that, it is not fun commuting to and from the office on any day. Many are forced to leave home at 5 a.m. or earlier, to get to the office on time. The situation is not helped by our un-planned development that has forced residences to be located far from the business district without a public transport system to aid travel. If you attempt a tro-tro ride during off-peak hours, you may have to endure a long wait till the bus is full. The other option is a more expensive taxi ride. What do rational people do in such circumstances? If okada can drastically cut down the hours on the road, why not, and that is the value proposition of Okada. Don't mind the risk, we are very religious, God will take care of that. I have just returned from a funeral in the Volta region. When you mention transport, the first response is 'zémidjan', another name for okada borrowed from our Togolese neighbors. They are doing some 'wonderful' work moving people from homes, to hospitals, markets, schools, and even moving corpses to their final resting place. Many in the population they serve have no other form of commercial transport. In fact there are no access roads to many of the villages they serve. Thanks to technology Okada is a phone call away. Stop Okada, and the villagers will have to walk long distances to access services we take for granted in the city. Okada is simply a common sense reaction to a real problem. In other words, the growth of okada in Ghana is being fueled by demand. Attacking the supply may not get us the result we want.


I hate the idea of using motorbikes for commercial transportation of humans. I will never support legalization of the system, but by leaving such a yawning gap in our transportation system, we are giving a tacit approval to the okada business. Okada is not addictive, if people have better alternatives okada will be out of the news. We need a comfortable mass transportation system that our Ministers and MPs will have no problems using to get to parliament. We must be getting rid of the rickety tro-tros and uncouth drivers' mates and be replacing them with trains and buses whose calls at bus stops are timely and predictable. Under more professional guidance, these same drivers, mates and okada riders could be trained to be the backbone of a decent transport system, a system that makes okada unattractive and at the same time provides jobs. In the absence of this, Mr. Awuni, the MTTU boss, can read the riot's act seven times to all the three hundred okada riders that visited parliament, but it will be an effort in futility. Even the politicians will not back his efforts. For years, I commuted between my Accra New Town home and Burma Camp primary in a mummy truck (bone shaker) we called Agege. As better alternatives appeared on the Ghanaian market, the bone shakers receded into the background. There was no strenuous campaign to get rid of them in Accra.



Yes, I know the Vice President recently cut the sod for a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Accra, but the name of the game is result not intention. Even If a successful public transport system is the only legacy Egya Atta presidency will bequeath to Ghana, posterity will gladly borrow the words of the Adisadel College ode and say 'Atta Mills has labored and we share the glory, ours to do exploits and add to his gain….'. Until then, we may have to brace ourselves for a bumpy ride, because there is an okada near you that is goosing into space given up by common sense and good governance.


 

Actuarial Signs and the Wonders in tow

One lesson Egya Atta might have learnt midway through his presidential tenure is not to make promises by heart on the campaign trail. But for another lesson yet to be learnt, politicians would have taken this caution seriously. The Ghanaian electorate is yet to learn to take electoral promises uttered by politicians with a pinch of salt. Knowing the mindset of the people they represent, the Ghanaian politician has grown into a false prophet specializing in two types of miracles- Signs and Wonders. Let me explain.



Before the scientific method emerged as the de facto standard of testing knowledge, our understanding of the physical universe was consigned to 'Signists' who came in various shapes and guises. The wise men of the day were the Astrologers, Seers, Magicians and the ilk who could decipher the signs of the times. Thankfully, that era was upstaged by the appearance of the likes of Isaac Newton. The poet Alexander Pope aptly captured the moment in this heroic couplet;

"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light."



Somehow, Newton's light failed to illuminate our body politic resulting in over reliance on signs rather than science. There is no better example than Rojo Mettle Nunoo's debacle in Parliament. The NDC made a promise to Ghanaians to implement a one-time premium policy for the NHIS. In March 2010, Mr. Nunoo, the deputy minister of health, told parliament that each Ghanaian will have to pay about GHC600 premium to crystallize this promise. This he said was based on actuarial reports. Subsequently, Dr Kumbour, the substantive minister, apologized for what he described as misleading information given by his deputy. He explained that his deputy only read one of a number of options the party was considering. Determination of insurance premiums is guided by a well defined body of knowledge called Actuarial Science. One would have thought that such a bold campaign promise would have been the outcome of a rigorous scientific study using all the iterations known to the field of study. The deputy minister's assertion and the minister's subsequent explanation, only underscore the fact that the promise was first made, and they are only now scratching their heads looking for feasibility scenarios. If they don't find one, they will make a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea- either implement a bad choice or renege on the promise and blame it on the bad policies of the Kuffuor government and face the people's thumb.


 
Few people will deny that George Bush bequeathed a paralyzed economy to the succeeding Obama administration, but when the hard questions were asked less than two years on, Obama didn't blame the Bush administration for the slow recovery because he understood that he was elected to fix what was broken, not to pay tribute to his predecessor. As a result of the underperforming economy, Obama's Democratic Party received a thumping in midterm elections. In Ghana, the usual refrain from our politicians is 'we didn't know the past government had run down the economy to this extent when we made the promise'. Yeah, right! You didn't want to know. Any political party with intentions of governing the country, who cannot boast of a vibrant research unit that keeps track of the economy, is not worth its name. The fact is opposition Parties have mastered the act of winning power from a less than critical electorate. Look out for the Signs of dissatisfaction and keep shouting, keep matching, and keep promising, soon you will be in government by default. The problem with wrenching power by 'Actuarial Signs' rather than the Science is that, soon the electorate presents the cheque of promises but solutions are scarce to find in the vault. At this point, many politicians attempt a full re-incarnation of the prophet Joel as quoted in Acts 2:19:

"I will show wonders in the heavens above
   and signs on the earth below,"

Having identified the Signs on earth that won them the elections, the revelation is to protect your government with heavenly Wonders. This is the point at which they create solutions that are neither innovative nor found in any text book. In those days, don't be surprised if sometime, somewhere, someplace when you least expect it, a deputy minister steps up to you and says " we have created 1.6million jobs". Don't seek explanation for why you and all other unemployed foot soldiers are still without jobs, you must accept it by faith, it is a wonder from heaven. If they get more disingenuous, they will create National Youth Employment Program - the biggest Sign that the youth is unemployed and at the same time a Wonder solution to provide jobs. So this is the political rule of thumb; in opposition, gather all Signs of discontent among the populace, package them and have your propaganda outfits run riot with them; when in power, seek Wonders that can protect you from every irresponsible promise uttered  while in opposition and from the new "Actuarial Signists" in opposition. The winner is produced by the next line in the scripture- the party that produces more smoke to blur the truth.



I find it annoying that an important matter like Fuel is a favorite object of the Signists and Wonderers. The contradictory posturing of politicians depending on whether they are in power or opposition is robbing this country of rationally evolving a policy on how to deal with the ever fluctuating fuel economy. Recklessly claiming that we do not need taxes on fuel when in opposition, and acting contrary to that indication when in government, is a shameful legacy to bequeath to future generations. Blaming your predecessor for your vacillations only demonstrates ineptitude to say the least.



The lack of scientific depth in our political discourse is the bane to our development. I have always struggled to understand why our parliamentarians are asked to approve very complex deals like STX and Sale of Ghana Telecom, which take sitting governments months to finalize, in a matter of days. Not too long ago parliament was almost fooled to approve a 'loan' from a hair dressing saloon in London. Such embarrassments can be avoided if we respect the need for due diligence and arm our parliamentarians with credible research offices.



I yearn for the day when our political parties will invest resources and time into scientific research before they come out with their promises and leave the Signs and Wonders for Priests. But that will never happen until Ghanaians send the message to our politicians that every vote must be earned. A Party in opposition is not worth the seat of government because it replays our problems to us and castigates the incumbent. We must begin to demand evidence that critics who want the seat have a better plan. As for Egya Atta, he will have to account for the promises. Even his Chief foot soldier, the enigmatic former President Rawlings believed them. He expects all politicians who served in the NPP government to be in jail. He expects that Yaa Naa's killers would be found and justice served. Don't bore him with stories about evidence. He is not a law professor, he is a Soldier. He was shown the 'Signs' and as a faithful foot soldier he ran with it. Mr. President, produce the Wonder. 

Bayie Kɔɔɔɔ IV- I saw My Mother Glow

"I am no more a witch than you are a wizard. If you take my life away, God will give you blood to drink."- SARAH GOOD



Dear Brutus my brother from another mother,



At times like this, the folly of trying to understand the Ghanaian 'Bayiee-sphere' (world of witches) dawns on me. I had to fly thousands of miles to South Africa to escape the "gyratik radius" – the furthest distance at which you can feel the influence of a gyrating witch- of these wicked creatures of unliberated human thought, to compose this mail. I have heard that witches will not chase you when you move southward across the ocean for inexplicable reasons. However, to the extent that these creatures heavily dominate the mindset of the average Ogyakromian no matter how scholarly; my foolishness is excusable. In Ogyakrom, the fact that the widow next door has powers to transform herself into a fireball that glows and lights –up the skyline exterminating any evidence of darkness in deep forests, feeding on neighbours in their sleep, is ebbed into your psyche before you are six, and in many instances stays with you for life. You are given the perfect alibi to refuse to help the frail woman cart her firewood home when you are told she caused your best friend's death.



Like many Ogyakromians, my feelings towards my mother are special. This is borne out of years of sharing the challenges that growing up in Africa throws at you rather than residual ambers of libidinal feelings they call Oedipus complex. How can we forget the love that makes a woman sacrifice her beauty at the prime of her life so we will get educated? The earnings from petty trading were too meager to sustain the demands of modern education. As a result, the gold that has been handed over to daughters for three generations was not spared; neither were the Dumas cloths, the remnant of the bridal price that our late father paid for her hand. 


When famine struck the land, many times she will sacrifice her portion so that we have enough to eat; I don't know how she made it through those nights. When I was admitted into high school, she vowed to get the money to put me through. My heart was broken when I saw her on her knees in the night, the bible in one hand and my admission letter in the other. She knelt by the candle and wept to God. She had asked for a loan from Opanyin Jones, a respected member of the community, but he will only give her the loan if she agrees to sleep with him. Of course, she declined the offer, but in three days my admission will lapse. Why is God pushing her towards prostitution? She asked in prayer. She recounted to the Omnipotent all the promises in the good old book, and asked, 'why have you forsaken me to be confronted by failure on one hand if my son's education is cut short, and dishonor on the other hand, if I sell my body to pay his way to school?' I wept throughout the night and she was shocked to see my swollen red eyes the next morning. Her instant reaction was to assure me I would go to school; 'no mama I have given up dreams of higher education'
was my response. She was shell-shocked. What has happened to obliterate all those big dreams in one night? 'We were still dreaming of the greatness that will follow high education only the night before, did you have a night mare?' She wanted to know. In an attempt to assure me there were still opportunities of getting the money on time, she mentioned Opanyin Jones, 'no you won't take the money from that filth' I blurted out. She was stunned into silence with a half opened gape, she suddenly understood why. 'Did you hear me praying in the night?' she asked tearfully. I nodded my head as the tears freely rolled down my cheeks. We sobbed together in each other's arms as she assured me she will get me to school without selling her dignity. 


 The next day, we went to see the headmaster. She prostrated before him pleading for time to find the money. The man took a second look at my result slip and shook his head. "Just like you, I almost missed out on education because of poverty and no one told me I was qualified for a scholarship" he said as he handed over the application form for a scholarship. Since that day, anytime I see a prostitute I think of a woman heavily disappointed and failed by society, but that story is for another day.



Brutus, you can imagine the emotions that welled up inside my body when I met this Prophet who told me my mother eats up all the children in my wife's womb hence our inability to have babies after five years of marriage. He gave me a handkerchief doused in anointing oil and asked me to rub it on my wife's tummy as he recited prayers in strange languages. He urged me to say the first name that comes to mind. He kept shouting, 'you can see her, you can see her, name her', that is when it happened in a flash, I saw a picture of my mother, there was some kind of fire around her, and instinctively I said Mama? 'Yes she is the one' he quipped. 'She is what?' I asked? 'Tell me what you saw', the Prophet said. 'My mother, there was fire around her', I answered. 'Yes, she is glowing, my brother this is bayie Kɔɔɔɔ , she eats up the children in the womb'. I told him my mother won't do such a thing and he reminded me that I saw her glow. He warned that if I don't bring her to the prayer camp to be exorcised, she will eat me next when the children are finished in the womb. I saw other witches at the camp, they had been shaven clean and chained to trees with no protection from the sun. Old defenseless women, if they are witches why don't they just fly away, I thought to myself. I was confused, angry and sad at the same time. 


Against my wife's advice, I travelled to the village and confronted my mother with what I have seen and heard. She  denied any knowledge of those creatures and wept so bitterly, I didn't know what to do. I don't think my mother is a witch, but I saw what I saw. I tried to assure her I didn't believe any of it but it was important to hear it from her. On my way back to Accra I made a detour to see the retired catechist in the adjoining town. We used to say he was boring and not as hot as the new pastors and prophets who could 'see things'. At this point in time, he was the only one who came to mind. When I narrated my encounters with the prophet and my mother, he asked; "Son, between you and the Prophet, who knows your mother better?" "I know her better than any living soul". "Then only you will know if she is a witch', the catechist said. 'But why did I see her glow?' I was pleading for an answer. My son, did you and the prophet understand the vision you saw? As I left him, he said, 'remember what I used to tell you, believe the word of God more than you believe any man of God'.



The next couple of weeks were the most tormenting of my life. I couldn't shake off images of my mum glowing in the night sky and feeding on innocent and unborn babies. But why will she attack my babies? The prophet kept harassing us to bring my mother for exorcism. Then I remembered the catechist's advice and reached for my bible. I remembered Paul's exhortation in Ephesians 6:12 'For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.' Where are the witches located? I asked myself. From the description our society paints of witches, they must belong to spiritual wickedness. Then I remembered that the Prophet Samuel accused Saul of witchcraft in I Sam 15:23, 'For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft….' Rebellion, idolatry, wickedness; I know Mama, she won't fit into any of these. Then it dawned on me. Our people describe witchcraft as spiritual. How dare any mortal maltreat another mortal over contentious issues of the spirit? Spirit must answer to spirit. How does chaining a widow, banishing poor women and denying them of their economic and other rights, resolve a spiritual dispute? The prescription to deal with spiritual wickedness was there, there was no physical confrontation. Then I saw II Cor 10:4 " The weapons of our warfare are not canal…" , So what is the position of the cane in driving witchcraft out of people? If these Pastors and Prophets get their prescriptions wrong, can we trust their diagnosis? No. I can't trust them. Suddenly it appeared again. Mama's picture! I could see clearly now, Mama kneeling by the candle with the bible and my admission letter. That is the picture that was played back to me. Oh yes, she is glowing in the lighted candle. Out of the overflow of love in her heart for me she was wrestling with God himself. But why should I have a playback of that incident that occurred many years ago whiles the prophet prayed? It was as if an unseen hand was leading me back one step at a time explaining what happened at the prayer camp. The talk before the prayer was about women and how they influence our lives positively and negatively. The Prophet touched on females; wives, mothers, sisters, rivals, etc, he was leading me on to a conclusion he wanted. Mind games!


I couldn't wait to get back to the village to put things right with my mum. Mama I know it, you're not a witch!, I said excitedly as I burst into her room. She looked emaciated and sick, and I knew the cause. She saw the sincerity in my eyes as I pleaded for forgiveness. Who else can forgive such betrayal? Only Mama, full of love. We both shed tears just like years ago, when she promised I would have my education with her dignity intact, in that same room. I have heard of Christ's love for me, and I have faith in him to save me, but the greatest testament of love I have seen on this earth is my mother, why did I ever doubt her? The love for me in her heart radiates on her face and she glows brighter than any prophet I have known. My next point of call was the residence of the old catechist. "Catechist, thank you for helping me identify witches", I said, "Mama is not one of them", I added almost immediately. "So, who is a witch", he asked? "They are the pastors, the prophets, the herbalists, the juju men, the traditional rulers, the fetish priests, and all others who weigh others down emotionally and torment them physically by proclaiming them to be witches". "Why are they witches?" he asked. "They destroy beautiful relationships of love which perhaps they never had". "That is wickedness of a spiritual order". I continued, "Unfortunately, I cannot deal with that prophet because it is a spiritual matter requiring spiritual remedy". "One day the spirit will answer to the spirit".



God is love, and I know Mama is love, she must be very close to God and far from witches. My wife had a baby two years after this incident without exorcism.



Brutus, Sadly though, I write to inform you that we have just arrested some witches in Ghana. A supposed Evangelist and his cohorts who set ablaze another defenseless old woman who lost her way trying to locate her son in the city. When the graphic reported that her son has disputed claims that his mother was a witch, my heart went out to Madam Ama Hemmah, the victim and Stephen Kwame Ofosu Yeboah, her son. Our society has again failed to protect one of the weak ones. I pray that the laws of Ghana will deal with the arrested witches, be it ever so severely, not for practicing witchcraft, but for being accomplished murderers.



Brutus something eerie happened as I finished the first paragraph of this letter. I had left a web request in my browser to run while I continued to write. A voice suddenly popped out of my computer "hi I am amber, What's your name?" I felt chills down my spine. Do I have a direct response from the witches? I went back to my browser and couldn't find the source of the sound. "Our witches have been credited with many achievements, but none related to technology, this cannot be, a witch can't take over a computer", I tried to allay my fears. I repeated the web request this time with my eyes and ears focused on the browser, then I saw her literally glowing. It is a popup of a beautiful dame asking me for a chat. This witch I know how to deal with. Now I can hear another sound out of the window, is that a bird or a goat? How can the two be confused? The chills have returned. Is that the real response from the witches? Brutus, believe me I am not making this up. I am still an African, when I hear hoots (cry of an owl) at three o'clock in the morning, I can only think of one thing. I have to stop writing.


 
Soo Long

Ogyakromian


 
P.S. This is a tribute to Madam Ama Hemmah and the many other supposed witches including the defenseless women and children locked up in witches camps and prayer camps. Their human rights have been and are still being abused because we lack the courage and political will to confront beliefs that should have been buried with the tenth generation before ours. We do not want to upset the sensibilities of those who think they have divine rights to appoint witches into camps. The government can cause the closure of these barbaric camps handing back liberty to the oppressed. That will send a strong message to all and sundry that an era has lapsed and we need to find new reasons for the unfortunate things that happen to us. But I do not expect that it will be done anytime soon. Shame on us all!