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SAME TRAIN
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‘‘Same Train carry mother,
‘’Same Train; same Train;
‘’Same Train carry my father;
‘’Same Train carry my brother;
‘’Same Train carry my sister;
‘’Same Train;
‘’Same Train.’’
We were taught to sing ‘’Same Train’’. We learned it is called a ‘’Negro Spiritual.’’ And we did so with gusto at the Kindergarten. The lyrics had no immediate implication for us. So we innocently did not recognize the painful nostalgia which prompted them, unlike the cry in Lamentations Chapter Five particularly. Then we later during the late 30s learned of the ‘’Slave Trade’’. We also learned that some of ancestors participated to get rich. In retrospect, I make it five phases in our Continental history, there had been five phases of becoming wealthy outside of formal trade in whatever else: [i] conquests-loot ; [ii] colonial favors in return for collaboration—scholarships for Kids, relatives and appointments which facilitated the purloining of our treasures, ingrained bribery via largess, creating class; [iii] a culture [actually kulturkampf] of cheating through the paucity of professional know-howers; [iv] pre-independence miseading of ‘winner takes all’; and [v] ‘’Wabenzy’’ the Mercedes Benz signaling political graft progressed into apparently what we have presently. Independence did not initiate a renaissance of back to roots to nurture adopting to adapt systemically. It has been pile on, undergirded by partisanship. Talk and protest about racism hardly discern that it is here. Anyway, let’s freeze my peroration momentarily because the puzzle, if that is, would explain itself away eventually.
Problem is I have always thought that something very significant link up was missing after the abolition of Slave Trade 1865. The phases I have previously sketched were deemed honorable and the best route to achieve, from distinction through influence to confident. Those were also felt as the honest means to earn deserved respect. The key- note which labels it INTEGRITY in private and public. The goals today are said ostensibly to motivate a re-writing of history such as the World is witnessing in the revolt of the ‘colored race’ presently.
The wave of demonstrations against racism and policing spreads and intensifies. For all of its forms, there is only one character common; and this ‘’ANGER’’ which dates back 1918, the end of World War I—slavery had been abolished in the preceding top half of the prior century and the European Colonialists begun a gradual-forced to wrap up and decolonize. Hiccups occurred and the momentum went into stutters dragged into post-World War –II. It is to be noted that the US had not been in that League all that while. Its imperialism consisted of territorial conquests for place to settle, slavery was its adjunct for construction into wealth. But that had officially been abrogated.
It meant the free slaves could live side by side, making life according to ‘work-for-yourself’ without impeded and not treated as down-trodden, yet to be completed for centuries now. European decolonization and evidence of the counter-part ‘’Free Colored’’ into sovereign National States lit the possibility for the Negroes to push their rights in the ‘’New World’’ as it was called. After years of principled dialogues, from marches, often raucous and with the full support of newly independent Africa and Asia at the UN [1945-1975] and the half-shut-mind agreement of the European principal former Colonialists led by Britain, shifted American intransigence to juggle basic racists misconducts to accommodate equality from where eventually, the ‘’Negro’’ became ‘’Afro-American.’’ And its failure represents the street pitched-battles, a running global news headlines.
All of these have a single loss practically, because it obscures the goal and indeed plays into the hands of Resistors. The mini-uprisings have given White America a nightmare whose reaction is to resist into current hostile xenophobia as the ‘’Afros’’ press their case. Then here we are at the junction of a hell-threatening stalemate in a very discordant world as if there is no other solution than flying bricks, tiles, Molotov cocktails, burning-tyres road blocks, take the knee and get responses in knee-choker, tear gas and live shots on killing spree, because ‘they are black, it is said and believed conclusively because there is no other tangible excuse to contradicted.
The attacks and counter would have to taper off and the questions are: what did we achieve and is the circus of violence and protests over?. The whole game seems to me to be that each side strides into cessation with pyrrhic trophies. That leaves the ‘’Trojan Horse’’ to re-open by another incendiary—not George Floyd. I think without waiting for that, it is time for quiet reflection bringing back memory lane’s experiences and lessons to foster the new approach to gain the goal—if you don’t mind the hype, the ‘golden fleece’ to shut down a filthy era. The re-call dwells in the mid-fifties struggles in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean [Windies] for independence. It combined wars and heinous brutalities.
At a juncture similar to today’s crises across the world for color-equality, WHITEE had to reach out to negotiating, more than less in the knowledge that it is best for peace against the carnage, cost and enlarging global outrage. Talks about talks brought settlements however long they took like Southern Rhodesia, Ceylon, Cyprus and Vietnam where America lost the war to Ho Chi-Mihn to unify the then two Vietnams. That veiled compulsion from sheer fatigue and essentially the global reproach for the senselessness of apartheid South Africa for instance collectively made gigantic contribution for the dust to simmer and of course after the independence euphoria throughout, the Recipients today have themselves to blame for the variety of botches, looking intractable but they are working at them with glimmer of hope and huge disappointments in let downs.
That perhaps epitomizes Dr Nkrumah’s ‘’we prefer self-government with or in danger to servitude in tranquility.’’ The days are far gone with that. The current eruption needs a different definition target for pursuit, which is what the renaissance is about. However, in its nature historically between Church and State as in politics, it moves only to live with the old order, satisfied that the Establishment has understood the quakes. In deliberate reference to such posthumous discovery, the driving point is to encourage-propose set about re-thinking basic attitudes towards history of the African or indeed the
Our own revered John Kofi Mensah Sarbah urged the following once and I find it pertinent: ‘’Let us therefore formally acknowledge our own limitations, not with an intention to rest and be thankful, but to make good our defects and press on to a higher level of usefulness.’’ Most American Writers are describing this torrid time as Phase-II of Decolonization saying inter alia, ‘’if colonialism made the modern world, decolonization cannot be complete until the world –including Europe—is remade.’’(Adom Getachew; NY Times 27 July 2020).
None in all of the pieces for or against goings-on specify significant departures from the present old style campaigning of hell creation. There is a commonly approved assumption for examples that the hauling down of colonial Statues, scrawling graffiti and destroying both slavery and colonial landmarks necessarily are good tools to change the innate color-hatreds, empirically and ultimately. I doubt and differ. The dangerous consequences are the reversal of what wants correction in terms of where is the story ?. Erasure of that evidence leaves no one with a history. And received wisdom stipulates that a country [people] without a history does not exist.
Such defaults apart from the vacuum for any chercher du temps perdu, are caused by anger; and or hatred probably bound in envy of sort. Neither does good nor pleases posterity for both pride and shame. For a quick list, the Afghan Taliban bombed giant Statues, the Russians removed Joseph Stalin for reburial elsewhere, the Chinese don’t remember Mao Tse Tung, Trump disdains Dr Martin Luther King [Obama? Sacrilege for Trump]and replaces his portrait with Sir Winston Churchill’s.
But history hides this fact that the man was reportedly a racist, the general British type – not crude ‘Enoch Powellite’; but seemingly benign to most patronizing, irrespective of moot. That is an unwanted sensitivity to state. In any case it reconnects, writing-wise, the cauldron back home in the US where no one knows it leads. For sure, we are not going sing ‘’Hello Dolly’’ yet; but we can expect to feel like ‘’What a wonderful world’’—
‘’The colors of the rainbow
‘’So pretty in the skies
‘’I see friends shaking hands
‘’Say: How do you do?
‘’They really saying
‘’I love you…’’
I mean we can achieve this in another way. It was mainly the coloured nascent countries which swelled the UN in numbers but weight and huge meaning –51 to 144 between 1945 and 75. That outnumbering, despite the East-West misuse of the ‘’veto powers’’ which they instituted for themselves, itself a blatant discrimination, the new entrants lost it by wrongly walking out. It seems to me on short r eflection back to the 80s, this error was realized and the evidence was UNCTAD at Cancun, when the group stood up ‘’poor’’ against the unscrupulous ‘’rich’’ and rattled them well. The lot fell back got smug and not until again, the Anglo-US to clobber others into supporting the invasion of Iraq. At least the AU unanimously rejected the bid at the Summit in Paris to persuade a summersault and failed. By the close before each Head of State arrived back home, the US declared to accord 35 of them ‘’most favored state status’’ plus cash.
It is irrelevant raking mud to ask for accounting of that money if that was received at all because it could be sadly typical of us, gone. The more profitable wisdom deriving but constantly ignored for whatever reason(s) is that after’’ push’’ against not only WHITEE as in this case specifically, the ‘’shove’’ leads to sit down to talk. It is a natural sequitur outside of continuous or contentious bellicose, which has solved nothing to date. The only alternative is ‘’dispute resolution’’. Remember the Brits called in a Canadian military officer to snatch peace after long years of the IRA. In the US it might be argued immediately that the Dr Martin Luther-King March struck a deal. Better bitter truth regrettably is that we did not follow up through to logical conclusions meant. Consider that we failed everywhere to cultivated pursue the goals. The time to go for it, couldn’t be better than today, if we all mean’’ life matters’’—black or white. Sincerely.
©Prof nana essilfie-conduah.
“A woman who abandons her baby in a dustbin at Kasoa Lorry Station is not always a wicked woman. Sometimes, she is a wounded woman whose mind has broken, whose family has rejected her, and whose society has left her with only one terrible option: disappear or be disgraced.”
That is the hard truth Ghana must hear.
In the last 10 days alone, our nation has been confronted with the same painful headline, twice.
Case 1 – Kasoa Main Lorry Station, Central Region: A newborn baby girl was found abandoned inside a dustbin at the public toilet of the Kasoa Main Station. A woman who went to use the facility discovered the infant and raised an alarm. Commercial drivers and bystanders quickly retrieved the baby and rushed her to the Kasoa Polyclinic for emergency medical care.
Case 2 – Asante Bekwai, Ashanti Region: On Thursday morning, August 20, 2026, a two-week-old neonate was reportedly abandoned by an unknown nursing mother at Bekwai in the Ashanti Region. Residents who came across the child raised the alarm. The baby was admitted to the Bekwai Government Hospital as police commenced investigations.
Let me be clear from the start: Newborn abandonment is wrong. It is dangerous. It is criminal. And it can kill. This article does not excuse it. But if we only arrest and shame, we will never stop it. We must treat the root, not just punish the fruit.
What exactly is newborn abandonment? – The two definitions
The Legal Definition: Under Ghana’s Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), Section 96, and the Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560), abandonment of a child under 12 years is a criminal offence. It is classified as exposure and abandonment, punishable as a misdemeanor or felony. The law sees the mother as a perpetrator.
The Psychological definition: In clinical textbooks, newborn abandonment is defined as the intentional, permanent relinquishment of all parental rights, care, and responsibilities over an infant within the first 28 days of life without making formal, legal arrangements for care.
To understand this crisis properly, we must not confuse it with child abandonment. Newborn abandonment happens within 0-28 days of life, often driven by acute panic, denial of pregnancy, or postpartum psychosis where the attachment bond never formed. Child abandonment, on the other hand, involves toddlers to teenagers where a bond existed but collapsed over time due to chronic poverty, family breakdown, or parental burnout. One is an acute crisis of the first month; the other is a chronic breakdown over years. Both are harmful, but they need different interventions.
Psychologically, newborn abandonment is the ultimate rupture of the primary attachment bond. Think of a 19-year-old university student who secretly gives birth alone in her hostel room, wraps the crying baby in a polythene bag, and drops it at a refuse dump at midnight. That is not just a crime scene; it is a scene of extreme panic and psychological dissociation.
Why would a mother carry a baby for 9 months and then abandon it?
This is the question every Ghanaian asks. If you wanted to abandon it, why not abort? The answer is deeply psychological:
1. The psychodynamics of denial of pregnancy: This is a profound defense mechanism, not a lie. The mother’s subconscious mind completely rejects the reality of the pregnancy. She does not gain weight normally, feels no kicks, does not seek antenatal care, and genuinely convinces herself she is not pregnant until sudden, shocking labour pains take her by surprise in a toilet or bedroom.
2. Fantasy of a dissolving problem: This is called cognitive avoidance. She believes “my boyfriend will come back,” “my mother will forgive me,” or “something miraculous will happen before birth.” So she waits, paralyzed, until the baby is here.
3. Barriers to safe abortion: Deep religious guilt, moral anxiety, fear of dying from a back-alley abortion, lack of money for a safe procedure, and family laws force her to carry to term even when she feels incapable.
4. The shock of reality and acute panic: Upon delivery, the physical presence and crying of the newborn shatters all denial. Confronted with immediate exposure, shame, and reality, her brain enters a trauma response — “fight, flight, or freeze.” For many, it becomes “flight” — physically escape the threat of exposure to survive socially. That is why babies are left in places where others will find them -lorry stations, churches, hospitals.
Source:
Counselor Prince Offei, CPAC’s founder, is a leading Mental Health Professional, Marriage Counsellor, Author, ADR Expert/Arbitrator, and Spectator Newspaper Columnist. He writes on relationships, marriage, parenting, special needs support, and their connection to mental health. For therapy, counselling, or enquiries, contact Counselor Prince & Associates Consult (CPAC) in Accra on 0559850604 / 0551428486.
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Features
Environmental stewardship is an act of worship: The Islamic response to climate change, environmental degradation (Part 4)
The environmental consequences of illegal mining have reached alarming levels in Ghana. Several major rivers, including the Pra, Ankobra, Offin, Birim and Tano, have experienced significant pollution from illegal mining activities, increasing the cost and complexity of water treatment while threatening the availability of potable water for millions of citizens (Water Resources Commission, 2024; Ghana Water Limited, 2024). These developments underscore the urgent need for stronger environmental governance and collective action.
Islam equally emphasises accountability in governance. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught that every leader is responsible for those under his or her authority (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 7138; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1829). This principle extends to public officials entrusted with environmental regulation, traditional authorities responsible for communal lands, mining companies, local assemblies, and community leaders. Environmental protection cannot succeed
where accountability is absent.
At the same time, addressing galamsey requires more than law enforcement. Sustainable solutions must tackle the underlying socio-economic realities that drive individuals into illegal mining. Many young people are motivated by unemployment, poverty, and limited economic opportunities. Islamic principles of social justice therefore call for the creation of alternative livelihoods through sustainable agriculture, vocational training, responsible small-scale mining under strict environmental standards, entrepreneurship, and skills development. Environmental protection and economic empowerment should not be viewed as competing priorities but as complementary goals that promote human dignity and national development.
Faith communities also have an indispensable role to play. Mosques, churches, schools, traditional councils, and civil society organisations possess significant influence in shaping public attitudes and behaviours. Imams, in particular, should consistently remind congregations that wealth acquired through actions that destroy communities and Allah’s creation cannot be regarded as a blessing. Religious education should cultivate environmental ethics alongside spiritual devotion, reinforcing the understanding that protecting rivers, forests, and farmlands is an expression of gratitude to Allah and a fulfilment of the trust of Khalifah.
Ultimately, the struggle against galamsey is more than a campaign to protect natural resources; it is a struggle to uphold justice, preserve human dignity, and honour the trust that Allah has placed upon humanity. Lasting solutions will require strong governance, responsible citizenship, sustainable economic opportunities, and renewed moral leadership. Only when these elements
work together can Ghana safeguard its natural heritage for present and future generations.
Water conservation, waste management and sustainable development: Practical expressions of Islamic stewardship
Religious education should cultivate environmental ethics alongside spiritual devotion, reinforcing the understanding that protecting rivers, forests, and farmlands is an expression of gratitude to Allah and a fulfilment of the trust of Khalifah.
Ultimately, the struggle against galamsey is more than a campaign to protect natural resources; it is a struggle to uphold justice, preserve human dignity, and honour the trust that Allah has placed upon humanity. Lasting solutions will require strong governance, responsible citizenship, sustainable economic opportunities, and renewed moral leadership. Only when these elements
work together can Ghana safeguard its natural heritage for present and future generations.
Islam is not merely a religion that condemns environmental destruction; it also provides practical guidance for preserving and sustaining the natural world. Through its teachings on moderation, cleanliness, conservation, and responsible consumption, Islam cultivates an environmental ethic that remains remarkably relevant to contemporary challenges such as water scarcity, pollution, waste management, and climate change. These teachings encourage Muslims to become
responsible custodians of Allah’s creation in both private and public life.
Water conservation: A sacred responsibility
Water occupies a unique position in Islam as the source of life and an essential element of worship. Allah says, “And We made from water every living thing. Then will they not believe?” (Qur’an 21:30, Sahih International). This verse reminds believers that water is not merely an economic resource but a divine blessing upon which all living creatures depend. The importance of water is further reflected in Islamic acts of worship. Muslims perform ablution (wudu) before the five daily prayers and ritual bathing (ghusl) under prescribed circumstances.
Yet, despite its central role in purification, Islam strongly discourages wastefulness. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) once advised one of his companions not to waste water while performing ablution, even when using water from a flowing river (Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 425). This timeless guidance establishes the principle that abundance does not justify extravagance.
Conservation remains a religious obligation regardless of the apparent availability of natural resources.
This Prophetic teaching carries profound implications for contemporary Ghana. Illegal mining has severely polluted many rivers, increasing the cost of water treatment and limiting access to safe drinking water for numerous communities. Climate change has also intensified seasonal variability in rainfall, placing additional pressure on freshwater resources (IPCC, 2023). Against this
backdrop, conserving water is no longer simply an environmental preference—it is a moral imperative grounded in Islamic teaching.
Water conservation should therefore become a shared responsibility among households, educational institutions, industries, and places of worship. Simple practices such as repairing leaking pipes, harvesting rainwater, protecting riverbanks, avoiding contamination of water bodies, and promoting efficient irrigation contribute to safeguarding one of Allah’s greatest blessings. Every effort to preserve water is an investment in public health, food security, and the
wellbeing of future generations.
Unfortunately, indiscriminate disposal of refuse remains a significant challenge in many communities. Plastic waste clogs drainage systems, contributes to flooding during the rainy season, pollutes rivers and beaches, and threatens marine ecosystems. Open burning of waste further degrades air quality and poses serious health risks, particularly for children and the elderly (UNEP,2024).
The author is Chief Imam of Katamanso Municipal and Certified Counsellor and Governnace Expert.
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