Features
Quaffing beer in another
Joseph Kwame Korkorti started hating imposters the day a set of beautiful identical twin dames began playing pseudo-love and dangerous financial games with him. He had met one of the dazzling chocolate-coloured twins and wasted no time in proposing love to her. She was not interested.
The next time Korkorti met the broad, he thought she was an angel. Her face shown of a certain bright-ness and Korkorti’s heart melted. Oh, what celestial beauty! What glory on a human face! Should he sing in her honour or pour forth his love in poetic stanza?
He approached her and they had a chat and Korkorti thought he was in truly heaven. “I love you, I adore you,” he heard himself confessing again. The coy little angel with melting eyes was touched by Korkorti’s show of love and affection. She agreed to the proposal this time. Korkorti never knew it was the other twin.
However, it was not long before he realised he was dealing with two different angels. Unable to tell which his true lover was, both started playing games with him now, one impersonating the other sometimes. When he thought he was giving a gift to his lover, the recipient turned out to be the one who rejected his love. He just couldn’t differentiate between the two. What confusion!
Korkorti thought over the matter for some time and decided he was not born with foolishness in his bones. Moreover he was not the kind of guy who washes his face upwards every morning! He called it quits.
When Korkorti told me about it I was sorry for him. At the time, he was only a little teenager and had little experience in matters of the heart. If it were today, it would have been a different palaver. He would have seduced both of them, said a big thank you, and ran away to take financial cover.
I have always wished that the twins had rather encountered my good friend Lama. The Lama today is an international businessman with the kind of acumen and oratorical genius any politician would envy. I see him as a political philosopher, a man of deeper thoughts. Some see him as a realist, others as an idealist. At best he is both, at worst he is none.
He has several university degrees and diplomas hanging all over him. In those days when we were young, he was a delight of the ladies and the twins would certainly have been in for what they never dreamt of.
Well, impersonating in Sikaman or elsewhere has turned out not to be too difficult. White people coming to Africa for the first time see all blacks as having the same kind of face the same broad forehead, thick lips, and powerful nose, whatever.
So you can show your uncle’s passport to a white immigration officer and he’d immediately see your face in the picture. Even when you alert him to the fact that your nose is broader than the one in the picture, he’d pat you on the shoulder, “Sonny, that’s your nose alright. The dimension is clean. It couldn’t be wider. Have a nice stay in the US.”
It is the same way blacks see whites and the yellow-skinned. I personally find it extremely difficult to distinguish one Korean from another or even a Korean from a Chinese. They have the same style of walking, dancing, snoring, etc.
FULL-TIME
Impersonation has become a full time job for some people in Sikaman. That is how they live, feed their families, pay bills and even sponsor the beauty of their girlfriends.
Not all who go around claiming they are Castle officials have ever seen even the Castle gate before. But they have very beautiful Castle ID cards, several forged documents that are properly stamped and they have the kind of tongue that can deceive even the devil. Fraud is their speciality.
I wasn’t surprised to learn that even ladies are in the con business so soon after Beijing. One is seriously presenting herself as having connections with the First Lady’s and living fat on it.
I have always said that ladies can be better con artists and impostors because no one really equates a woman with lies especially in matters bordering on fraud. She may not even need an ID card. She’d only have to say she is the special assistant to the First Lady and she is believed just because she is well-dressed and smiles like the First Lady.
As for the President, people have used his name to over-feed themselves. Sometimes they only have to recount falsely how they were J.J’s playmate and how their friendship has developed to the extent that the President has made them Special Castle agents. They’ve never met the President anywhere, anyway.
“J.J. doesn’t play with me at all,” they’d swear. “Even today today, I eat with him from the same plate. I do very special jobs for him. I even shape his moustache for him. Bring ¢600,000 and I’ll solve your problem for you. Add $50,000 for transportation and incidentals.” You’ve been duped clean.
Impersonation is not only at the highest level of the social or political ladder. Midway, you can experience it and often crooks have impersonated journalists.
Sometime past, someone went around the capital claiming to be the writer of the evergreen Baafuor column of the Weekly Spectator. People were buying him beer left and right and his stomach turned out to be a living brewery.
It was not long before he was found out by his benefactors. And he was given the kind of slap that probably made him feel dizzy for two weeks. Next time he thinks about beer and Baafuor, he’d remember he once felt dizzy non-stop for a fortnight.
I was in the office one Monday when I had a call.
“Yes, Merari, speaking.”
“Merari, thanks very much. I received the papers.”
“What papers?”
“The newspapers you sent this morning. I liked the story.”
“I am not getting you, sir,” I said.” I never sent you any paper this morning.”
“Perhaps, you’ve forgotten. A certain man came and said Merari Alomele asked him to send the papers to me. I gave him $2,000 for transport.”
“Then you’ve mean conned,” I told him laughing.
On three other occasions I received similar calls. I don’t know whether people are also drinking beer in my name. But the day I get someone quaffing in my name, I believe the slap would be quite terrific. The person would have to go in for tetanus injection to abate the effect.
This article was first published on Saturday, August 24, 1996
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
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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’
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