Features
The battle over alcohol
My bosom friend Joseph Kwame Korkoti has become overly concerned about the current war going on between two groups of pastors as to whether it is right or wrong for Christians to imbibe alcohol.
As a matter of fact, Korkorti’s expert opinion on the matter should have been sought.
On recent radio programme, two opposing groups of clergymen argued vehemently either in support or against alcohol. Korkorti was bewildered. He did not see their point. He did not even see their quarrel. What were they really driving at?
An article in the Mirror by my good friend and Apostle Kwamena Arhinful on the subject offered a brilliant analysis but tragically enough, he concluded poorly. But I understand him. It was the only way he could conclude without saying the Bible contradicts itself on the issue. As an apostle of Christ, he is not supposed to give conclusions that would inflame doctrinal sentiments.
My former bodyguard Napoleon Kwadzo alias Bonarparte summed up his conviction on the matter and refers to the Bible to make his point clear. “The Bible is against drinking not drunkenness. Furthermore, God chooses those he specifically wants to steer clear of alcohol like John the Baptist, Samson and the like. The others are free to quaff!”
I didn’t know the man who once protected my life was so biblical. When he drinks he quotes the Bible to support the dose and his conscience is clear. When he smokes, he quotes history and cites that Christopher Columbus could not have made it round the world without smoking tobacco.
Well alcohol is one controversial issue that has defied all forms of debate aimed at placing it in its proper place. Those who do not drink argue against it, quoting scripture over and over again. Those who drink also quote the Bible to support the number of ‘quarters’ they down. It is an interesting controversy.
I once spoke to a born-again Hungarian clergyman and asked him whether in his home country beer-drinking among Christians is regarded as a sin. He said Christians can drink some beer for refreshment but not as a habit or to satisfy an addictive urge; in effect you could drink so long as it was not habitual.
Well, other clergymen who are firmer friends with the Holy Spirit won’t agree to the imbibition of alcohol in any form. Korkorti was once arguing with a pastor and reminded him that the banku and okro soup he loves so much contains more alcohol than he could ever find in a glass of wine. The pastor told him to stop blaspheming.
When Korkorti started explaining the biochemical intricacies of the fermentation processes with respect to his reference to banku, the pastor stopped him at once because he thought Korkorti Asamoah was possessed by the evil one. He commanded him to come for deliverance.
Well some Christians permit alcohol during their wedding ceremonies, outdoorings and parties.
In fact, some pastors are properly charged even before they mount the pulpit. They are the believers in the age-old tradition that alcohol loosens the tongue.
And so long as the tongue is stiff, it must be forcibly loosened with supplementary doses. The word is then preached with vim till the pastor runs out of gas.
Alcohol is part and parcel of the lives of most people. They say it is their only source of happiness. One guy I have always known explains freely why alcohol is a faithful comrade.
“I don’t trust anybody in this world any longer .As for women I’ve finished with them, he says. “I have even been betrayed by my friends. They are treacherous. But I am assured that alcohol can never betray me. When I take my quarter my appetite is guaranteed, my happiness is complete.”
Others drink to enable them to cause trouble. If you want your in-law to stop interferring in your marriage, you only have to take quarter and the problem is solved. But in cases where the in-laws also take bitters, it can become a civil war. And hoes and cutlasses would feature prominently.
People drink alcohol for many other reason. Some say it is good for their waist and excites their libido in such a way that they are able to satisfy their sweet-hearts in ways unimaginable.
Others say it gives them free bowels, thereby removing phlegms and generally boosting their health. For others, they claim it helps them to think faster, and others say it gives them sound sleep complete with snoring and nightly contentment.
I remember sometime in 1989 when alcohol retailers were banned from selling bitters because some of them were not concocting the stuff properly and were thereby making it a health hazard. Well, some die-hards got angry and demonstrated in their homes and akpeteshie bars in protest. Before the demonstrations ended, most of them were in coma. They were dead drunk.
Today if alcohol is banned in Sikaman, there would be a social upheaval. It would be a mass insurrection against the government of the day. Thousands of believers with red and brown eyes blowing ‘fuse’ and wielding matchets and shovels will charge headlong towards the seat of government to demand that the ban be countermanded.
You are likely to see among them my uncle Kofi Jogolo, Kwapey, Adams, Blue Blue of Kintampo, Reverend Kofi Kokotako, Wisdom and Korkorti as the flagbearer.
But the problem is, is alcohol good for the body? The answer is no! A little bit of alcohol is said to be good for the heart. Anything beyond that is harmful to body tissues, brain cells, the nervous system, the stomach lining, the liver and even your manhood. If you drink too much, you can’t function.
Spiritually, it is not good for those who seek personal development and want to aspire towards a better relationship with God. The Holy Spirit indeed cannot work in our environment charged with the scent of “molasses” and the “fuse” of kpekpe.
But the fact we must also accept is that not all aspire to commune with the Holy Spirit. And if they don’t, what should they do? One man asked a catechist, “If I stop drinking akpeteshie, what would I drink. Palm oil?”
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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