Features
Palaver of the past (1)
A national weekly newspaper does not often disappear from the news-stands. So when the Weekly Spectator was not seen on the stands for a couple of weeks, many probably thought the Editor had gone on a honeymoon.
If it had been a private newspaper, one would have guessed that the publisher had gone bankrupt after using the capital together with the profits to chase a beautiful fair-coloured girl.
In any case, the ‘Spectator’ is back on the stands, and as is customary of Sikaman Palava, a review of the past year must always precede current palaver. The past year was very interesting and political. There were some unpleasantries too when people were being roasted for being of a certain political breed.
Early in the year, however, news reaching the territory had it that punk youths were attacking refugee centres and black homes in Germany, meaning that Ghanaian hustlers were probably in some kind of trouble.
Sikaman Palava defined who a hustler is in an article headed HUSTLERS IN THE COLD.
“In Sikaman, if you are not lucky to be born into a well-to-do family, it means you are a hustler by birth. Right from the very onset, it becomes very difficult for your mum to feed you on Lactogen or Cerelac, to make you grow like a normal human being and not like a guinea-pig. So because she cannot afford it, you have to subsist on koko and use the breast-milk as dessert.
“Sooner than anyone would expect, your mother will start pushing banku into your tiny mouth ‘by force… Before you are six months of age, you’ve already started chewing hard plantain like a savage. With that as a major meal you are sure to develop kwashiorkor which means that you’ll have a well- defined pot-belly. So you become a small boy millionaire.”
This is how the hustling begins and one ends up in Germany washing plates to make money while being at the mercy of skin-heads who are armed with guns, knives, clubs and anything that can teach a black- man that Europe is not his ancestral home.
The political game began in earnest when my uncle Kofi Jogolo was about to be chosen as the presidential candidate of a newly-formed party. In fact they elected him because of his charismatic moustache and by the fact that he sneezes like Bill Clinton.
“No doubt that he was chosen to lead a very popular party. With such a piece of moustache, trimmed thrice a week by a Swedish barber who is paid in dollars, there was no way Jogolo could not have headed the party.”
There were many people aspiring to become the next president of the Republic of Ghana. “You’ll see them in many colours and shades. Some are called Sikaman natives, but they are not qualified to be called such because they’ve stayed abroad eating hotdogs, hamburger, pork sandwiches and American suya. And they are around town with smiling faces to contest the presidency.
Soon began the game of political nonsense. “The devil is a politician. It has always been the leader of the opposition against the Kingdom of God. The devil, known in private life as Mr James Lucifer, is the author of the Satanic Manifesto and the inventor of hunger in Somalia.”
PASTIME
The devil also tells lies. “According to Kwame Korkorti the Council Korti, every politician tells an average of 38 lies a day- …Lying in politics has become a hobby, indeed an enjoyable pastime. What about intrigues and treachery? I hear it is going to be a game of embarrassments using facts, figures and lies; and everybody is waiting for the honourable Flight Lieutenant to declare his intentions before the game can really start.”
And the game really did start. In my article head- lined THE PALAVER OF STONE THROWING, I wrote, “When all were in doubt, it was Kokotako who prophesied that the Flight Lieutenant will be the presidential candidate of NDC, and that someone freshman too will aim a large stone at his head and miss the target “He had by not less than 30 metres.
“True to the prophesy, an idiot did aim a stone that crashed into the side-glass of one of the vehicles in the convoy that was returning from Apam. Apparently the person who did the throwing was not a marksman because the head of His Excellency was longitudes away from where the stone landed… In any case, the attempt is a dastardly one that must be condemned in no uncertain terms…
“Professor Adu Boahen of Kukrudu fame, I hear, also had a little showdown with some school children at Akatsi or Anfoega in the Volta Region. In spite another of the fact that he had written history books for the kids to learn to gain knowledge, they apparently did not like the Kukrudu slogan and therefore sought to sack the history pundit from their territory. I think that area had already been colonised by the Akatamanso politicians, so it seemed to the children that Adu Boahen was trespassing…
“Perhaps, he did not pour libation to the gods of Eweland before embarking on the journey to go and preach to the people the political philosophy behind the word Kukrudu. But I must say that such reception to political campaigners is not commendable.”
I then cautioned with special reference to the stone-throwers, “To prevent violence, heads of political parties should undertake the task of admonishing their supporters to eschew violence, because when you throw a stone at somebody, next time someone will not throw a stone at you, but boulder. The person whose head you hit with a stone will continue to live, but when a boulder lands square on your head, it is most likely you’ll live to witness the handing over ceremony on January 7.
Because of the nature of the politics during those days, many homes witnessed turbulent times. Under the heading CALM AND THE BITTER LES- SONS, Sikaman Palaver revealed:
“Since the ban on politics was lifted, many homes have been on fire. Some men have even stopped giving chop money because they consider their wives as politically mad. If for instance the man tried to make the point that akatamanso will bring prosperity, the wife will insist that kukrudu is rather the way to heaven.
POLITICAL VISION
“…A man will growl at his wife like an underfed lion: “In the name of the elephant which has political vi- sion, I’ve placed a ban on the use of umbrellas in this house. I swear by my grandfather’s hernia that if you do not comply I’ll turn your neck’.”
People were not only concerned about politics during 1992. Accidents had occurred the previous year and there was the need to introduce road safety awareness throughout the country, a task which was undertaken by Meridian Tobacco Co. Ltd which organised a Safe Driver competition.
Sikaman Palava acknowledged their efforts. “Whenever I board a vehicle, the first thing I always want to look at is the driver’s head. If the head is un-kempt, it means he is a careless fellow. If he has normal haircut, finely combed, it means I’m quite safe. If he wears punk, it probably means that he doesn’t have a driving license and is therefore a potential killer.
“When the driver is, however, a sakora, then I’m always prepared for anything including death. The whole palaver is that when a sakora man is at the wheels and is driving at about 90 kilometres per hour, there is every likelihood that the breeze circumnavigating about his naked head will make him feel like having his siesta.”
For sure, when driving at top speed while taking siesta can be the most dangerous risk imaginable.
Meridian Tobacco Company identified the various reasons why road accidents were rampant. A safe driver competition in 1991 and 1992 has brought a great measure of safe driving awareness from which the country has benefited.
As the year 1992 gradually wore on, politicians entertained high hopes and wishes upon which Sikaman Palava commented in an article titled ‘POLITICAL HOPES AND WISHES.’
“The funny thing about elections is that no contestant ever believes he’d lose until the final results show that all is not well. And in such an event, the loser is likely to blame the Mallam who divined that it would be a landslide in his favour. Another loser will blame the local pastor who prayed for him, and at least one loser is likely to get angry with the tigari- man who gave him 101 per cent assurance.
“When you become a losing contestant, it becomes very difficult to go back home with a smiling face. You’re likely to go home quietly and make straight for bed without taking supper. And your wife is certain to ask you whether you are on hunger strike.”
It was from the time when the parties started holding congress and electing presidential candidates that many politicians started getting disappointed. After congress, many went back home trying to force a smile and were welcomed back from the ordeal by their young children.
“Dad, you look tired, but I understand. Politics is not a small thing,” your son would say. “I realised that the number of votes you had was nowhere near the top. In fact you were coming right from the bottom which means you are a good swimmer. Good swimmers normally come from behind, and I’ll advise you to start preparing for the next Olympics. As for politics, I’m not sure you’ll shine.”
The review of the past year
continues next week.
By Merari Alomele
THE journalist is a hunter. He goes after human rats and grasscutters personified, matters about whom he can salt and spice and present as news. The fatter and juicier the catch, the better, because sensation is essentially our cup of tea.
Our job is to sell news and sell it in grand style.
Because the journalist is a hunter and is created with a special kind of nose for sniffing out news, he is usually not welcome in many places. He is seen as someone who has been born to make people uncomfortable.
The problem is that some people don’t want things written about them even if it is promotional and favourable. When it entails publishing their pictures alongside the story, they are doubly scared.
“Please, don’t use my picture. People will think I’ve got money and come for loan,” someone told me.
Anyhow, journalists are seen as intruders, undesirables, born with plenty of okro in the mouth; maybe some also in the nose. Some of my friends are no longer too close because they fear I’d give them full coverage in the Sikaman Palava column. Ha ha ha! What a funny world!
Well, people like my Uncle, Sir Kofi Jogolo, my former classmate and born-mathematician, Kwame Korkorti, and ex-football star cum human-salamander Kofi Kokotako don’t mind featuring in the hilarious inches of this column. Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty is one personality who has to be mentioned in this palaver.
These are people who are going to live long, primarily because they see the world as one big ball of fun. When Kwame Korkorti was told that his dear mother was dead at home, he smiled and asked the bearer of the message whether his mother had cooked the afternoon meal before claiming she was dead. Until her death, Korkorti ate his lunch at his mother’s end.
When my Uncle Kofi Jogolo was picked and lost 1,500 dollars and a good amount of Sikaman currency, he didn’t lament the loss. Instead he was amused. In fact, he was almost glad about it, because he grinned from ear to ear, stroked his delicate moustache and congratulated the thief, adding that “He is smarter than I am.” Yeah, Jogolo is the man who employs a Swedish barber to trim his moustache.
And when Kofi Kokotako was unemployed and was nearly hit by an articulated truck, he called the driver a fool. “The idiot should have killed me,” he said to me. “Didn’t he know I was unemployed and suffering?”
Today, Kokotako is employed as a Reverend and is not doing badly at all. Thanks to the regular silver collection.
And what about Kofi Owuo, the celebrated poor man. His wife left him not because he was poor, but because he swore in front of her that he would never prosper.
The following dawn the wife packed bag and baggage and went back to her parents and told them all about her husband’s alliance with poverty. Her parents were bewildered and called the alliance unholy. They had no option than to send back Owuo’s drinks to end the marriage.
Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty did not contest the issue. He was more engrossed thinking about how to become poorer than to contest what he called a frivolous matter. The wife could go to hell, he said. These are people longevity smiles upon. Nothing worries them.
Getting back to talking about journalists. I’d say that anywhere there is journalism, the issue of press freedom is not too far away. Is the press free? That’s one question foreigners want answer to when they are on visit.
Well, journalists celebrate a yearly WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY to drum home the idea of press freedom as a very important thing in the practice of journalism.
This year’s was celebrated almost a fortnight ago but people didn’t see much of us because we are normally not good celebrants. We should have mounted a float to roam the entire capital, dancing asaboni to brass band music just like PTC did recently.
Although journalists are known to be very good dancers because they walk very much, on that day, they were all busy writing. It was the Minister of Information, Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi who saved the day by addressing a forum organised to mark the day.
He is a man I’ve always admired since his radical university days. He spoke much on press freedom, cautioning the press not to abuse the freedom granted by the Fourth Republican constitution, but to use it for the progress of society.
Well, press freedom has been defined by many journalists as the freedom to ‘write nonsense’. This definition is not quite accurate. I asked one staff reporter to define press freedom. It took him fifteen minutes to put up something.
“Press freedom is the freedom that is enjoyed by the press that enables journalists to publish or broadcast any kind of material so long as it is absolutely true, is not libelous and slanderous, and is not against the national interest.”
I gave him eight out of 10, a straight A. I guess every journalist is old enough to know that certain things he or she writes is for or against the national interest. We certainly must guard against writing against the national interest; that is very important.
There is also the question of criticising government. The government can be criticized, so long as the criticisms are genuine and the President and his ministers are not insulted and called names. Let us criticize, but let us do it decently so that the journalistic profession can be revered, and its nobility acknowledged. We are not war mongers, are we?
One area in which journalists are not spoken well of is the complaint that they misquote people. Journalists sometimes misquote people, but in four out of five complaints it turns out that nobody is misquoted after all.
When we interview people they say things unreservedly and we publish unreservedly. When the publication is out and their friends or superiors read it and accuse them of having said too much to the press, then they start claiming they were misquoted.
We have encountered these ‘misquotation palaver’ every now and then and reporters are usually accused of this transgression. However, when they bring out their note-books or recorders, it is realised that they wrote nothing out of the way. “Book no lie”.
My advice to people who deal with the press is that if they do not want anything written, they shouldn’t say it. What they want to say is OFF-RECORD, then of course, there is no reason to say it. When you say it, you’re taking a risk. In that instance, you can’t also claim to have been misquoted or words put into your mouth.
And it isn’t every journalist who would be circumspect in matters that are supposed to be off-record, because journalists often want to be as sensational as possible to make their stories saleable. So say just what you want to see published and you won’t later regret it and claim you were misquoted.
Well, I’m not holding brief for journalists, because a few of us are notorious for colouring our reports sometimes sand-papering the words so much that they look very bright in front of readers.
As I once said, when the police tells one such notorious pressman that the thief stole a brown goat, the pressman would want to know whether the goat was bearded. Of course, the police would say ‘Yes’.
However, in the press report, it appears, “A gang of notorious goat-thieves were apprehended in the early hours of yesterday. In the car in which they were riding was a brownish-red goat having a long beard. Upon further examination, it was realised that the goat also had a greyish moustache.”
When the story appears, the police are naturally disturbed. A single thief turns out to be a gang of thieves. The goat also becomes a chameleon and changes colour to brownish-red. And a moustacheless goat overnight wears a greyish moustache whether you like it or not. Luckily the journalist does not add that the moustache was trimmed by a Swedish barber.
Yes, we have a few of such mischief-creating, chronically notorious journalists. But they are one in a hundred. In any case, we make the world. And we shall always do our best to make it a happy place to live in.
This article was first publish on Saturday, May, 20, 1995
When I hear of people who are of the opinion that they cannot make it in life unless they travel abroad, l become sad.
Whenever I see on TV, news of people, that is migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, while attempting to cross to Europe, l become filled with sadness and then anger.
The underlying factor is desperation born out of loss of hope, in life. When an individual tends to believe that his only hope of making it in life is to travel abroad, the risk of dying at sea, does not deter him or her.
The role of some pastors on shaping the mindset of people, especially the youth, leaves much to be desired. You hear them declaring on various media platforms how they can pray for you to get a visa to travel abroad, instead of encouraging them to find something to do to improve their lives as the Bible teaches that God will bless the work of their hands.
The GREATER WORKS CONFERENCE is geared towards renewing the minds of people with a specific focus on people of African descent to rid themselves of the negative perception of lack of capacity to excel in life.
Pastor Mensa Otabil believes that every human being, no matter the skin colour, was created in the exact image of God and therefore has the capacity to do exploits.
The whiteman was not created in the image of God while the Blackman was created in the image of something other than God. The Black person therefore can achieve whatever the whiteman can achieve.
The development in terms of industrialisation that is lacking which has generated unemployment for the youth, is due to lack of effective leadership. The lack of moral integrity in society, is what is causing the lack of job opportunities, which is as a result of corrupt acts which drive away private investment.
A culture of inferiority complex exists which needs to be dealt with, so the African can develop the self worth necessary for personal development which can then result in capacity deployment to avhieve personal goals.
Success in life begins with the individual’s recognition that he or she is capable of achieving the dreams he or she has conceived in his or her mind. The Bible teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding according to Proverbs 9:10.
Christianity was the driving force behind the development of Europe because no society can sustain development without high moral values. GREATER WORKS therefore is a deliberate project to shape the minds of people, especially the youth, who will become the leaders of our future, to prioritise morality in their daily lives.
This is the only way to see a massive transformation in every aspect of our lives as Ghanaians and Africans in Ghana and the rest of the continent.
Since the inception of the GREATOR WORKS CONFERENCE, it has made a lot of impact in the lives of many people from the youth up to the senior citizens level. I recall the testimony of a church member who was motivated and pursued higher education and became one of the youngest Chartered Accountants in this country. Year after year, the impact of the conference has been enormous and lives in Ghana and across the continent, are being transformed.
Black people have started regaining their self confidence and the youth have started getting into areas that previously were considered out of bounds. At a personal level, certain ideas that some years ago, l would have not dreamt about suddenly has become realistic dreams.
The Christian lifestyle has impacted on my children and those close to me. Mindset change starts with one individual, then another and then gradually it spreads like a viral infection until a critical mass is attained and them a massive impact. There is hope for the future.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
