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!


 

The Time to Laugh

"I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician."
-Charlie Chaplin

It is not fun when you are the subject of a joke, but a good joke does not only create great fun, it also provides therapy that makes light work of the misery of our living. Growing up in cosmopolitan Accra taught me never to hand ammunition over to a Tease who is bent on having his day at my expense. An unsympathetic Tease will only increase your misery when he has the slightest inkling that you're deeply hurt by his taunts. I don't know what Alhaji Muntaka Mohammed, the former minister for Youth and Sports wanted to achieve by not only bringing up his Kyikyinga Palava but also singling out Ato Kwamena Dadzie for 'praise' on the issue. He has only succeeded in bringing the issue back to the front page. He has just provided every political satirist in this country material to run a dozen programs at his expense before the year ends.

I learnt very early in life that no amount of tears will stop a Tease. I was barely five years old when my parents moved me from 'Kookoase Korase' (Village) to Accra to broaden my horizon. I was thrust into a nursery in Kotobabi called Providence where the Lord's Prayer was said in Ga. As if my language deficiency was not enough my Mum put my hair to the scissor to deal with lice in my hair (Thankfully, the kids don't even know what these bugs look like today). In those days only one man scraped all the hair off his head. He was and is still called Super OD. With every kid including my only friend who happened to be my next door neighbor taunting and screaming Super OOOOOD, I wasn't going to survive the walk home in one piece, and luckily a good Samaritan rescued me from my misery by keeping me in her home until the road between the school in Kotobabi and our residence in Nkansa Gyan was free of all the kids from the school. I have since learnt how to administer a good dose of tease myself and I can tell you for sure that a cry baby is the best target for a good tease, and that the best defense is to join the fun even at your own expense if you want to stop the joke in its infancy. One thing you never do is to run to your Mama crying 'maaa maaa maaa, Ato is calling me Mukyinga'.

 

I particularly do not understand why some Ghanaian politicians are so sensitive to trivialities. When I tune in to the Weekend City Show on Joy FM on a Saturday morning, I know it is the time to laugh; I therefore place everything that happens there in that context. I couldn't believe it when Mr. ET Mensah rushed to Joy FM to protest the use of a sound bite from a speech he made that sounded like "it is only a fool that does not change his wife". He could just have called into the program with his wife by him screaming 'Rudy, not this wife, not me-love Mercy, I love you Mercy', if he had nothing better to do with his time. Of course, humor doesn't come easily to all Men, but one politician who has it is Dr Charles Wereko Brobbey. In those days when he only wore a mustache (No pirate beard), I paid him a visit in the hideout President Kufuor created for him at the VRA. He had adorned the office with huge frames of different cartoons that had appeared in the media seeking to caricature him in not very palatable terms. If the then president Bush (II) had spent time chasing Daily show host Jon Stewart for making fun of everything he did , even his mannerisms, the economy of America would have been two times worse than he actually left it.

Admittedly some jokes can be very harsh on the recipients. With some people, no subject is off limit for a good laugh. Tribe, race, accent, disability, dentures, mistakes, handicaps, just anything is fair game. At an Observatory Night Special in the notorious Vandal City (Sorry V-Mates), I recall one ethnic sensitive one that I won't recount here. But away from extreme jokes, we must all have a place in our hearts to accommodate some laughter at our expense no matter who we are. Although I do not have any examples of such, I believe our tradition must make room for 'mocking' the King (in the days when they were Kings) without losing your head. My mother tells me that in the island where I trace my origin, it was customary to meet at the community centre and mock people in songs. The system they called 'Halo' allowed rival groups to make fun of each other through songs. I hear the songs could be downright insulting but no punches were thrown. Our politicians must stop playing God and realize that no matter how intelligent one is, a little stupidity slips through at times, and when that happens we all celebrate it with good laughter because it is time to laugh. Taking our laugh from us when the political landscape is dotted with so many jokers is like taking away our tongues when our lips are wet with honey. What do we do when a politician insists he is contracting a loan for Ghana and the lender's address is traced to a hair dressing saloon? What do we do when a man insists God told him he will win an election in which he barely makes 0.1 percent? What about the DCE who says he will close down all the secondary schools in Cape Coast because few Cape Coasters have access to the schools? Oh, and the party Chairman who declared cats as endangered species because his AG is losing too many cases?

In the case of politicians, it is not only the obviously funny acts that lend themselves to laughter, but also the mundane answers they provide when they are caught in their webs of deceit. Naturally we must feel very angry about such insults to our intelligence but really, what can we do about these situations? These are very powerful people who can get away with a slap on wrist for things that lesser mortals will be very hot for doing. There are people whose claim to fame is the ability to stay poor whiles managing the affairs of this country yet they managed to educate their wards in expensive foreign universities because they have friends who took care of the bill. There are those who had a baby with their American mistress and the bill was picked by their friends. Presidential jets were bought in this country that a succeeding government just couldn't find who sold the plane to us no matter how hard they tried. The wife of a head of State sets up an NGO and buys a divested state company and wants us to believe there was no conflict of interest. On the eve of an election plots of State land at prime spots in the city are sold to people very close to the incumbent administration at prices lower than what pertains on the market and we are told these are decent transaction. The ordinary Ghanaian hears and reads such things and knows that somewhere between those lines hides the poverty that consumes this country. He has only two options left – to cry or to laugh. The latter serves a better purpose. Laugh at the people who think they are fooling us because our laws are too short to reach them. Our laughter is a therapy that heals us from all the hardship they have put us through. We can only take them on in 'halo' where we will tell them what we really think about them.

Therefore when I hear Alhaji Muntaka - who sometime ago used his position to acquire a visa that was paid for by the State for a young woman to travel with him even though she wasn't qualified for that travel (an act that was described as 'error in judgment)-crying because we are laughing , I know it is a time to laugh again. Lol!

mail to: ogyakromian@gmail.com

Politically Speaking

On qualifications desirable for prospective politician, Winston Churchill said "The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year; and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen."



Politicians, it doesn't matter which party they belong to, have two remarkable characteristics- verbal diarrhea and selective amnesia. The former is very important to walk your way into power and the latter is a defense if and when you are asked to account for the byproduct of the former. The first President of the fifth French republic , Charles De Gaulle, is reported to have said, "Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him". When elections brood across the nation, it distributes gifts to all Parties and the politicians speak in political tongues. In those days if a political 'perspirant' ( a man or woman sweating to get elected) promises your community a bridge, don't bother to remind him that there is no river in town, if you do, he will promise you one, after all he was only politically speaking. Parties in opposition easily catch the verbal diarrhea and notoriously refuse a cure. When Edward Langley said "what this country needs are more unemployed politicians", I don't think he envisaged the situation in Ghana where they make radio stations parliament in exile and do three things only, talk, talk and talk. The talk itself is not the problem, but the irresponsible criticisms bordering on dishonesty and the avalanche of promises which they wish everyone forgets as soon as they get what they want-power. Through the magic of radio, the criticisms and promises drown all good judgment, but don't remind them of their speeches once they gain power, because amnesia is a remarkable attribute in politics.



After losing two elections on the trot a few years ago, the NDC propagandists had their work cut out for them. They had to get aggressive and they did get aggressive. When Kuffuor's NPP government presented proposals by the Ghana Air Force to augment the communication squadron with a couple of planes, the opportunity was presented to speak , politically. What we heard continuously was that the NPP had lost touch with the need s of the people. How could a government be thinking of luxury planes when the citizenry were hungry? We don't have good drinking water in the country. Two years after winning the election, the NDC government has taken delivery of a presidential jet and has promised getting a few more for the Ghana airforce. What happened to the hungry people in Ghana? Oh they starved to death under Kuffours regime, so it's okay to get a plane now. What about Water? No problem at all. For God so loved the president, that he provided great shades in the sky, so Ghanaians sweat less and as a result, they need less water than they did under Kuffuor. Ignore me, I was only politically speaking. But more importantly, the NDC communication machine has suddenly seen the importance of equipping the air force with their toys.



Today, the NDC communication machine is straining itself to let Ghanaians understand that the planes are for The Ghana Airforce, of course apart from the one presidential jet. I can swear I heard the NPP make the same argument about the airforce, but at the time that was not the emphasis the NDC propagandists were interested in, they were only politically speaking. Unfortunately for the NDC , they can't wish away the populist argument about hunger, water and electricity, yet the plane has been bought, a luxury jet for the president. I think the president needs the plane, Kuffuor was right in ordering the Jet, and Attah Mills was right in paying for it, and he deserves to use it. If only we had less of populist politics, he would fly it without political talk.



The biggest problem with politically speaking, is when it becomes a substitute for the real job. When you acquire the habit, there is the tendency to continue politically speaking even after you acquire the power you so perspired for. I've never understood why NPP converted three years SSS program to four years and changed the name of the program to SHS, at a time that our systems seemed to have adjusted to the three year program. When NDC decided to restore the status quo ante, they had almost two years to make it right. It was obvious we would need more classrooms whether we stuck to NPP's four years or we revert to the three year calendar. Somehow, this fact got lost on officialdom as we spent too much time talking about restoring the three year calendar to the detriment of implementing an action plan. Soon time caught up with us and it was obvious the schools were not ready to receive the next batch of JHS graduates. Important stake holders like CHASS asked for more time, but the politicians and their bureaucrats won't hear any of that, they asked the school heads to improvise. What they put on the political C.V is more important than the condition of living and studying in senior secondary schools. It didn't matter that the infrastructure was not ready to receive the extra numbers.



Faced with the real situations on the ground, some school Parent Teacher Associations (PTA) decided to impose levies to provide the conducive conditions to support the education of their Kids. The GES quickly renounced the actions of these schools and described the fees as illegal. Threats were even issued in certain instances. I admit that sometimes PTA becomes an overzealous instrument that wearies poor parents with all manner of levies. Asking parents to cough up four hundred extra cedis in two days as was the case in Achimota School, was insensitive to parents who are not so endowed. But the truth is , these PTAs only fill voids left by years of government neglect and political talk. The difference between the PTA and the political class is that, the PTA attempts to solve the problems while the politicians talk about them. What other option does the PTA have? Most of the members cannot afford to send their wards to London to educate them, neither do they have the luxury of owning friends who can cater for their fees abroad, so they have only one focus- fix the local school. After 53 years of independence, I'm waiting to hear our politicians pat themselves at the back that we have ingeniously solved this school headache by sending some kids to learn under trees and in garages, of course politically speaking.



In this age of pluralistic media where the Internet, Radio, TV, Newspapers, etc compete to be the first to deliver the political talk to the homes of every Ghanaian living everywhere, one phrase that will be heard several times in every home is "the President, John Attah Mills…" It is therefore not funny when a primary school pupil mentions the opposition presidential aspirant as the president of Ghana. The incident so infuriated the ruling party that the DCE of Atwima Nwabiagya in the Ashanti Region ordered all schools to display the president's portrait in the schools. This position was supported by the deputy minister of Local Government and the minister of communications. As is usual with our politicians, politically speaking is the solution. I want to believe the boy just got confused or his situation is an isolated case. I hope we are not overlooking the real question -what is the quality of education being offered at our public basic schools? Or perhaps, the boy is ahead of his peers in the game, he was only politically speaking.



Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.- George Orwell

Some cats are Sacred

Prov 30 ²¹ "Under three things the earth trembles,      under four it cannot bear up"



I love to draw inspiration from words of wisdom that have stood the test of time. The best place to find them is in the good old book. Proverbs 30 :21 says "Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up". I thought the fourth republic's scariest day would always be the day some people went into a radio station and called on NDC activists to match on the electoral commission building because they perceived NPP was about to rig the election of 2008. I kept praying that the hawkish elements in the NPP wouldn't join them on the streets around the EC because if they had, Ghana would have joined the African Hall of Shame for undemocratic practices in the 21^st century and perhaps we would have been hosting an African Union peace mission in the country today. But sadly, I have counted three panic-filled fear-stricken moments under which our democracy has trembled with great trepidation in the Prof's less than two year old administration. We do not need a fourth, because our democracy may not bear up.


The antics of the marauding NDC foot soldiers, relentless and irrepressible in seeking vigilante justice, are the ugly side of our democracy. In a misguided attempt to counter-balance acts of political patronage in the previous government, these political infantry brigades run amok, venting their spleen on anybody and everybody that does not wear the red, white, black and green NDC bandana. They takeover lorry parks and desecrate the unholy sanctum of human waste without shame. They lock out legally appointed public servants from their offices and "dis-appoint" DCEs appointed by the president. Some have the audacity to dare the police to uphold law and order. Some NDC loyalists can indulge themselves in sophistry, trying hard to justify this madness, but let the truth be told, it is a big sign that leadership is lacking in their party- perhaps this is the Prof's biggest failing.


 
No word, spoken or written, conjures images of fear and panic more than the law on causing fear and panic. Who said we have decriminalized speech in this country? When Ticolo got home with Yaa Beauty, the babe he had been hunting down for the past six months, he was full of expectation until the lady decided to make a quick dash out of the house for her own safety. Ticolo's next door neighbor, Kankama was in a more advanced stage with his own project, and the wooden wall dividing the two rooms did little to conceal the screams from the lady in Kankama's abode. Paralyzed by fear, Yaa panicked at the approaching trauma, a taste of which could be heard next door. She left immediately for her own safety. Ticolo is convinced that Kankama caused unnecessary fear and panic and is contemplating contacting the Ghana police. This law has assumed elastic properties stretching from fools who make wild allegations on radio to journalists who refuse to reveal their sources. It is scaring the hell out of our democracy.


 
Pictures of a slim macho man wearing an Aca P woven in the red, white, black and green, with an enema syringe in hand walking towards the Supreme Court is a nightmare that can force Auntie Georgina to abandon all thoughts of sleep for seven days. Knowing the antecedents of the NDC, threatening to purge the judiciary in the fourth republic is not the smartest "talk" that we expect from an NDC chairman, but when he decides to utter those words at a time when the Parties infantry brigade are on the loose, certainly not only Auntie Georgina, but all lovers of our democracy must be filled with fear, panic, trepidation and horror. Kwabena Adjei's speech of horror underscores one of two things. We either have a terrible judiciary that cannot be reformed using the normal processes or he belongs to a band of irresponsible politicians who talk before they think. Assuming without admitting that the former is the case, any discourse on the perceived bad judgment must focus on the shortcoming of the judgment. Without that, reasonable Ghanaians will struggle to associate with whatever course you want to pursue. Apart from hurling vituperation at the judiciary, Dr Adjei failed to tell us what was wrong with the judgment that necessitated the press conference.    Unless of course, there is no real problem with the judgment, and perhaps the judge is right after all; a case is a good as a lawyer's brief. Maybe the essence of the discourse is to execute a coup de grace to rescue the case on appeal by spreading fear and invoking memories of judicial martyrs, to strike panic. Some people may prefer this approach to appointing new judges to the superior courts to rescue a case. 


Dr. Kwabena Adjei has brought us to the point where no matter the ruling on the Ghana at 50 Case, there will be political meanings read. It will be " The judge has kowtowed to fear from the NDC" or "we said it, the judiciary is against the NDC" depending on which way the case goes. Recently, a judge in the United States discharged some young Somali men arrested in the gulf of Eden from charges of piracy because he disagreed with his country's prosecutors on the definition of piracy. If that happened in Ghana, Kwabena Adjei will call the judge a pirate. We have successfully politicized everything in Ghana including crime and justice. We do not seem to have values in this nation. Because our opinion on a matter is dictated by who is involved rather than the issue at stake, politicians easily find welcoming hideouts in our society to escape confronting the shame that accompanies acts of adult delinquency. With their penchant to have their way at all times, especially if they control power, these politicians care very little about the dangerous repercussions of their public tantrums. They simply have no shame. In support of Dr. Adjei, some NDC chairmen called for a debate on corruption in the judiciary. I wish to respectfully tell them that politicians are perceived to be more corrupt than judges. What will these Chairmen say, if a soldier, totally disillusioned with corruption and cronyism in our body politic calls a news conference and threatens to clean our politics? Does that remind you of our past? It may sound distant now, but if we encourage this kind of irresponsible attacks on the pillars of our democracy, this can be for real. Our democracy will struggle to bear any such attack.


Under three things our democracy has already trembled, perhaps if we all speak without looking at who is involved, we will have no cause to discuss the fourth. Yes, there are many ways of killing a cat. In the region where the cat is a great delicacy, nobody will touch the cat from the shrine. Kwabena, some cats are sacred, keep away your sack.   


 

 

 

 

 

 
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My Standards Board Mission

MTN's Charger sold with Nokia 2630

"When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him."-Isaiah 59:19b

Such scriptures give me the conviction that even the good old book will agree that Standards are a protection to a nation. Similarly, I harbor strong doubts that many will disagree with my assertion that the privileges of technological and market democratization must be tempered by strong regulatory regimes to protect nations from sub standard goods. Even with the knowledge that our markets are full of fake and sub-standard goods, several times have I failed to avoid paying for and picking the chaff home. I don't want to believe that I am the only one who scouts the market moving from one shop to another trying hard to convince myself that a gas regulator I want to buy will meet all safety requirements when used at home, or that the electric fan I'm about to pickup will not pack up before the first spin. Is this not why the Standards Board exists- To protect the ordinary man's exposure to such market derailments?


I admire the enterprise of many Ghanaians as they lay claim to their economic portion of the land by lining shops of different sizes with goods of all kinds from countries big and small once they can be located on the globe. Through these efforts, no matter how little, biblical miracle is recreated as bread is multiplied on the table to feed families too large for the spaces they occupy. I've always wondered how some of our kinsmen live on the petty trading that engage them. But poverty is no good excuse to innocently set our houses alight with substandard cables or to populate the intensive care unit of our hospitals with people burnt to several degrees because the wrong gas cylinders were sold. Our shops are filled with all manner of goods whose usages are not understood by the people who sell them. I hope I am not wrong in thinking that the Ghana Standards Board is the nation's armour bearer that must hold aloft the standards that protects us. This is what I was thinking when in early June 2010 I drove into their office in Accra to clear up a little matter.


I had purchased a Nokia 2630 from the MTN shop at the Accra Mall. That was my third time of buying a phone from that shop. The receipts usually bear the name Sell Phone even though the shop is MTN-branded. Three days after my purchase I realized that the charger included with the phone was a strange one I'd never seen. It has two plucks that look like an 'A' with the intersections removed. I took the phone back to the shop and wanted to know why they were selling phones in Ghana with strange plucks that will not fit into our electric sockets. The lady I spoke to didn't understand the fuss I was making since I could buy a converter in any electrical shop to help use that charger in Ghana. A gentleman stepped in to diffuse the argument by rendering an apology, and I left the shop angry. I can understand buying a phone outside Ghana and getting a converter to charge it, but for phones bought in bulk to be sold by a company like MTN, would that be right? Unfortunately, my many years of education both formal and informal in Ghana couldn't help me answer that simple question, and after making two calls to a Customs Officer and a lecturer who teaches electrical engineering in one of the nation's Polytechnic with the question still unanswered, I decided it was time to increase my knowledge with some basic fact that most Ghanaians should know by the time they go through high school. So I drove to the offices of the Ghana Standards Board not too far from the Mall.

When I posed the question to the first lady I was directed to see and showed her the plucks, she misunderstood it and thought I wanted to import phones that use that charger into the country. She was quick to advice that since that is not the nature of  sockets we use in Ghana, why import those chargers  into the country? Then I explained to her that I had just bought the phone and I needed to know if MTN had the right to be selling phones using those plucks, because if they didn't, I was ready to make a formal complaint to the GSB. Here again I couldn't get an answer to the question I thought was a simple one. In the thirty minutes that followed, I spoke to six other people , some at the engineering unit who claimed that was not their specialty and some people at Marketing where complains were to be made. The last person I spoke to has  a director (or deputy director) designation and his counsel was comforting in deed. He asked me "why not return the phone if you don't like the charger?" to which I smiled. Anyway, since the people who had answers to my question were all out of the office and could not be reached by phone, I was advised to leave and wait for a call. To be fair the last of three ladies that I spoke to actually tried hard to get somebody on phone that could speak to the issue but to no avail. She did call me again after a couple of days, I cannot recall her exact words but my question was yet to be answered because somebody wasn't available. It is almost eight weeks now since I went to the Standards Board with my question and it is still not answered. I still do not know if MTN had the right to import phones with the plucks pictured above, so I'm still not sure if I had any right to assert in that shop to ask for a change. If you know, would you be so kind to send me a response on ogyakromian@gmail.com. As for the Nokia 2630 I bought from the shop, I gave out in protest and know where not to buy a phone again.

The Plug

Moving away from my little question, I think our general attitude to standardization in this country leaves much to be desired. We have a huge informal sector oiling the wheels of our economy and daily lives, yet little effort is expended to encourage them to serve us with the right goods and services. The guys who build our houses, those that repair our cars, those that we entrust our hairs to, can we independently certify their knowledge levels and ensure that without the requisite certification they are kept away from the mistakes that spell doom for us? Can we ensure that the woman who sells tiles next door has the capability to advice on the usage of these tiles? We must get into the habit of driving mediocrity a small step away at a time from our culture by raising the standards. 


mail to: ogyakromian@gmail.com