Features
The verdict on ‘Akwapim Poloo’: ‘Parental care and motherhood consideration’?
There is a ‘very active’ young Ghanaian actress popularly called “Akwapim Poloo’. Her real name is said to be Rosemond Brown. She has recently been in the news; not for good reasons, anyway.
The actress got herself into trouble after taking a ‘disturbing’ nude picture of herself, together with her six-year-old innocent son , ‘to celebrate his birthday.’
A single mother, Rosemond Brown pathetically shared her nude photo , together with her son on social media in the name of celebrating her son’s birthday.
Really, Poloo’s nude photo posted on social media, ‘elicited’ huge public condemnation . And Child Rights International, a non-governmental organisation, dragged her to court on three charges, including violating her son’s rights to dignity and privacy and reckless endangerment to a minor.
Initially, Poloo pleaded not guilty and reportedly told the court that she was pregnant but pregnancy test ordered by the court proved otherwise.
Later, she changed her plea to ‘guilty’. She was then sentenced to three-month jail term by an Accra Circuit Court presided over by Her Honour, Mrs Christina Cann.
When Poloo moved to a High Court in an attempt to have her 90-day custodial sentence quashed, the court presided over by Justice Ruby Aryeetey, upheld the decision of the Circuit Court and ordered that Rosemond Brown must serve the full sentence in jail.
Still not satisfied with the decision of the High Court, Poloo moved her case to the Court of Appeal . And ‘interestingly’ all the three male judges who adjudicated the case concluded that a fine of GH¢12,000 was rather enough punishment for her, instead of the 90-day custodial sentence.
According to the ruling of the Court of Appeal judges, they considered the interest of Poloo’s six-year-old son and the fact that he would need ‘parental care’.
The panel of judges again considered the fact that the convict ” is a single mother”.
Indeed, Poloo had been standing trial for many months until the court presided over by Justice Anthony Koffie, Justice Eric Baah and Justice Bright Mensah set aside her 90-day jail term , just a couple of days ago.
So, reportedly, the GH¢12,000 fine imposed by the court on Rosemond Brown is said to have been fully paid. Consequently, Poloo is now out of jail and a very free person now.
Interestingly, the ruling of the Court of Appeal has generated a-near national conversation.
Some critics claim that all the male panel of judges at the Court of Appeal took “parental care and motherhood” into consideration while such considerations did not seem to influence the two women judges.
Such critics are of the view that because Poloo is a ‘young mother’; without a husband and has a six-year-old child; the judges who insisted on her custodial sentence are women and mothers; they could have been swayed by Poloo’s gender and her child to have been lenient on her.
Others also argue that probably, the women judges might have considered the ‘depravity’ of aspects of social media and how some people ‘born from the bowels of women’ degrade ‘womanhood’ and ‘manhood’ with impunity on such world-wide platform.
They contend that many Ghanaian youth post a lot of obscene materials on social media to corrupt their peers and, therefore, they see the 90-day custodial sentence as ” the best punishment” the women judges handed Poloo to serve as practical deterrent to others.
Some critics also argue that the “popularity” and ” notoriety” of Poloo on social media could “influence” some “benevolent” and ” philanthropic” persons to pay off the GH¢12,000 fine imposed on Poloo without she herself, experiencing any sweat.
The critics say, it is such notion , probably held by the two women judges that might have swayed them to insist on the imposition of custodial sentence on Poloo, instead of a fine.
The critics add that the women judges are “child bearers” and “women educators” in their homes; “so, aside from the law , they know how to ‘discipline’ ‘spoilt’ and ‘recalcitrant’ girls so as to make them change for the better,” hence the imposition of the custodial sentence.
However, in the case of the three appellate court judges , some of the critics claim that , “they may be pampering their “spoilt girls” in their homes while being “hard” on their “spoilt” male children, instead.
They asked: “Otherwise, aside from the law, why should they quash Poloo’s custodial sentence and replace it with a fine? “
They urged the three male judges to go on-line and see things for themselves, contending that “as soon as Poloo was released from prison, she somersaulted onto the social media platform to continue doing her own thing.”
Meanwhile, the year 2022 is almost here with us. It is “gingerly” waiting to embrace us all. Really, it is barely 10 days more, for us to step into the New Year.
As we anxiously await 2022, I wish readers of this column, a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year, in advance.
May the New Year, 2022, bring us good tidings; understanding, peace, unity of purpose, tolerance and cooperation, so that we agree to disagree while discussing diverse issues confronting our nation; in the true spirit of building our own ‘Ghana-made’ civic democratic culture to guide us in our chosen democratic path.
Contact email/ WhatsApp of the author:
asmahfrankg@gmail.com (0505556179)
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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