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)
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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