Features
Gbomowo: the new phenom?
President Akufo-Addo
My Ga folks rounded off their annual Homowo festivities only recently. Homowo, in Ga, means ‘hooting at hunger. Having migrated from Ile-Ife in southwestern Nigeria and landed on the shores of their current abode, they planted corn, but had to endure hunger and starvation to await the time of harvest.
When they had a bumper harvest, it was then time to ‘hoot at hunger’. It was natural so to do. Therefore, Homowo has come to stay as a reminder of that epoch in their history.
I was involved with stage performances in secondary school, first as a chorister and again as an actor. I became a public speaker subsequently. I have come to learn that it is utterly important to know your audience and plan your delivery accordingly. It is also important to take the existing climate and factor that in.
So, it is vital to mount a stage, say the right thing at the right time. If you fail in this, your audience will boo you, hoot at you or clap you off the stage. This is what I call Gbomowo in Ga. Hooting at a person.
Just a couple of weeks ago, President Akufo-Addo was booed at the Independent Square where he carried his “Fellow Ghanaians…” thing to an African youth jamboree at that venue. Not in the mood for any “Fellow Ghanaians,” the youth were seen in a viral video booing the President.
I do not blame the organisers of the event, because how were they to know how participants would react to the Head of State? I blame the handlers of my President for not reading the climate of the youth. They were out to enjoy music and dance their hearts out, nothing more. Situate that with the trending frustration in the country over our economic hardship.
Put me in the shoes of a presidential handler. If the President had to be there, my strong advice would be that the President would mount the stage and begin to dance or boogie with the crowd. The youth would naturally respond in like manner, then would be minded to listen to Nana when he took the microphone. It is as simple as that, and none would be wiser.
The President is known to be a good dancer. He has been photographed dancing on stage and other events many times. Where I blame him also is that he did not read the mood right. Many politicians are smart enough to quickly read the mood at any event and change their script to suit the climate or put a prepared text aside and speak extemporaneously.
Personally, I felt embarrassed to see people boo a Head of State. Never have I seen this in Ghana. Unlike those who were quick to condemn the youth for their action, I would rather tread cautiously. But government commentators accusing the opposition of orchestrating the booing is as infantile as it is unconscionable.
No one can pretend to not know Ghanaians are frustrated over economic hardships in the country. Can we pretend that Ghanaians are not discerning enough to pit campaign promises against delivery? When people’s hopes are raised through the roof, what will their expectations be? Let us soberly avert our minds to the above questions.
Now, back to my Gbomowo. What happened at the Independence Square is a foretaste of things to come if no concrete action is taken to reverse the economic downturn.
The government must explain to the hungry and frustrated Ghanaian why we are in this in spite of shouting from the rooftops that they “have the men.” The COVID-19 and Ukraine mantra is clear. Even the World Bank and the IMF are saying the same thing. What the government must address is how other economies are faring better than us in the face of COVID and Ukraine.
In the absence of this, Gbomowo awaits our politicians when they mount political campaigns when that time comes. Everything our Members of Parliament do is under scrutiny and Ghanaians are waiting for them.
As I started drafting this write-up, videos flew in from Kumasi where traders were clearly seen hooting at the President an his 50-plus vehicular convoy. One fellow could be heard to have counted as many as 55 vehicles in the convoy. That our President would still travel this large in the face of high fuel prices and the frustrating situation in the nation defies understanding.
I can see through my crystal ball what our next political campaigns will be like. Gbomowo will, in all likelihood, be a part of our political campaign culture.
Situate this on the President brazenly stating that he cared less if people decided to vote the NDC into power in the next election. What does this statement do to people his party might field in the next election? How do we reconcile this with the man who, in seeking our votes, said, “Mo nsɔ me hwe?” This is clearly a slap in the face of the very people who voted him President. Not long after, the people of Akyem Akroso also hooted at the President’s convoy.
I have heard some commentators, in their condemnation of the youth booing our President, say that it is against our culture to boo adults. Be that as it may, who has given vent to so-called child-right groups that have made it near impossible to discipline children? Punishments that straightened our lives as we grew up have become human rights issues, to the extent that our children are more protected than their parents.
The children believe they have a right to do whatever pleases them and grow with that mindset into adulthood. What is the end result?
Not too long ago, one group of senior high school students or another was in the news for vandalising school property. Some even set school buildings on fire. Then the very parents who should not discipline their children are asked to bear the cost of this vandalism.
Should there be a national discourse on how we whip our children in line? Even teachers are not allowed to punish recalcitrant or incorrigible pupils appropriately. The cumulative effect is the lawlessness we see in the land. One can imagine a country being governed by these ‘protected’ children after they have grown into adults and politicians.
In the difficult days of the Acheampong era in the late seventies, when Ghanaians had to queue for every conceivable item christened “Essential Commodities,” our citizens did not feel as helpless as they are today. Even during the very early days of the 31st December Revolution, there was famine in Ghana. The rains had failed and crops withered. People’s collarbones jutted out of their skins and was christened “Rawlings Chain”, yet there was no despondency as there is today. What has gone wrong?
Instead of acting to save the situation, our politicians are playing politics with our very lives, putting every single issue in the laboratory of partisan politics. If the electorate offended you by giving you their votes, be prepared to be booed after they have learnt their lesson.
In my last meeting with the late Major Courage Kwashigah at the Beverly Hill Restaurant at Asylum Down before his death, he told me he feared Ghanaians might make a mistake and fight for independence all over again. I cannot give details here because he is not alive to confirm or deny what we discussed. How right was he…?
Gbomowo will be the new political phenomenon if things do not turn around for the better. Mark my word.
Writer’s email address: akofa45@yahoo.com
By Dr. Akofa K. Segbefia
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
