Observations in Ghana.

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I have just returned to the UK from Ghana. Most of my previous visits have been very short. This time around I stayed longer. In the end it became very difficult to depart from the place because I desperately wanted to stay. I wanted to stay because Ghana is buzzing. You can have access to anything, anywhere provided you have the dosh. Even though, through prudent management of the economy, my pound sterling fetched less than it did three years ago. I could still enjoy myself because prices have stabilised.

Having stayed longer, nine months to be precise, I observed a lot and some of my observations derived from personal experiences. There is good and bad news for those who are interested.

First, the good.....and then the band news. For ease of reading, my observations are grouped in broad sub-headings under which the good and the bad are juxtaposed. I have deliberately taken the subjects which I feel need closer examination if we are to forge ahead as a nation, particularly; freedom, equality, openness, justice, service, abiding by the law, and truth.

Freedom

You are free to go and come as you please. You do not have to watch your back. People openly vent their frustrations on the ruling party, its head (the president), his representatives (the ministers), and the party faithful (the NPP supporters) and nothing happens to them. No one disappears; they continue to live to talk and goad another day. There are enough religious associations to match the sand on Labadi Beach. People seem to associate freely. There are Reverend Doctors upon Pastor Doctors delivering sermons day in and day out.

In a sense, freedom of movement, speech and association; the hallmarks of any civilised democracy, seem to be guaranteed to all. But, is this really the case?

Movement of the people seems restricted. Not many people travel at night for fear of being attacked and robbed. There are some vicious armed robbers operating all over the country. Free speech needs careful immediate vicinity scan by the speaker. At Kimo, a tiles and taps outfit at Accra Industrial Area, I nearly got beaten up by a bunch of Ghanaian sycophants for berating a Pakistani who had blocked my exit from the customer car park by parking behind me. You just cannot talk to anyone anyhow. The priests have established churches everywhere. They have hi-jacked the airwaves, preying on peoples? fears and delivering unhealthily loud messages; some comforting, others confusing, most out rightly wrong. Some of these messages are so loud and untrue that they should carry health warnings. My doctor friend said that he would not go to a church which is younger than he is. His primary reason is that most peddle misery. Then, counselling my sister for her fibroid operation, he warned that her womb would be removed so she should grasp that fact and not jump from church to priest to pastor seeking a child. Some of these religious men promise heaven on earth.

Still, the government has tried with a certain degree of success to create an environment which makes it easier for all to co-exist and enjoy the basic freedoms. Most of the restrictions are self-imposed. People choose to rob rather than work, attack you for speaking your mind, and go to conmen for miracles that will not see the light of day. However, there is a need for a mass civic education to emphasise the need to align freedom with responsibility.

Equality

Everyone is equal; no one is bigger than the next person. Apart from the president?s motorcade, and oh, people in aircon vehicles, everyone is subject to the appalling effects of the traffic jams, including inhaling the foul fumes that spew from ill-maintained Mercedes 207 buses which are usually driven by ill-trained drivers. The secondary school admission system has been computerised to ensure fairness. Anyone can live anywhere provided they can afford to. The police arrest all known armed robbers and it is not true that some of them lend out their uniforms and guns for robberies in return for money.

Yet, I also discovered that equality has a price. I took my very unwell sister to Korle Bu hospital. It was clear from the word go that she would require major surgery. Her fibroids had distended her abdomen and she looked six or more months pregnant. Every time we saw the doctor, he prescribed some medication, intended to: lower her blood pressure; boost her blood count; improve her appetite; curb her depression; help her. Sometimes the interval between appointments was a month. In the end I asked the eminent doctor if he knew where my sister could receive an accelerated service. He pointed me in the direction of a private clinic. The private doctor said it could be done in three days and it would cost eight million cedis. I was worried, not about the cost but what could happen in an emergency. In the end, a good doctor friend arranged for the operation to be done at one of the major hospitals within a week and it cost almost the same. It would have taken months at Korle Bu, even though (from what I learnt later, her heart was enlarged due to internal bleeding) it was an emergency. How can someone who claims to have taken an oath to protect and preserve life act in such a perverse way?

Heartily, there are many fair minded people who are prepared to do the right thing. I was able to get a humble journalist from Ada to accompany me to Tema naval barracks to confront an officer who had accidentally poked his finger into a loud-mouthed taxi driver?s eye. The officer bravely owned up, apologised and provided medical treatment for the driver. In any other country, I would not have dared. Ghana is ?paradise? as an elderly Nigerian friend recently observed from his peaceful abode in East Legon, only to be robbed a few days later on his way from Accra to Kumasi.

Openness

Things are open. Nothing is shrouded in secrecy. You understand how and why decisions are arrived at. You all apply for jobs and the selected candidates are invited to attend interviews. The best candidate(s) is/are appointed based on merit. That is how my friend?s son got into the fire service. It is great because in the old days, that is before I left Ghana some two decades ago, you had to have the right connections.

But has it really changed that much? No, not really; looking at my own experience it seems we are still dancing in the circle of corruption. After attending two separate interviews for the same job over a two year period, I have finally got a written response that I have not been successful. The reason given was that I have not lived and worked in Ghana for so long. Funny; this same job was given to a white man who was later sacked for inefficiency. Their excuse for giving him the job was that he told them he had lived in Ghana for eight years. Yet, the nature of the job required knowledge and fluency in at least one major Ghanaian language. This guy could barely speak or understand any of our languages.

It still seems as though, despite years of being abused by the white man, we still think he is a mini god who deserves better treatment even to the detriment of our national interests. So a tramp or hobo from the sub-cities of London or New York decides to become a lord and his/her first port of call is dopey Ghana. They are being made chiefs and sub-chiefs as you read this article. So the Lebanese, Pakistanis, Indians, Germans, Malaysians, Americans? you name it; every Tom Dick and Harriet is here. I hear some of them even make some of us drink their urine. Not surprising, if you ask me. It is no different from the treatment they give to the higher echelons of our blessed society. Just to secure the financial futures of their families and portray to the rest of the impoverished masses in their little villages that they have been successful, some of us are willing to stoop so low and crawl on all fours to dig a few cedis from underneath a heap of cow dung; they are willing to sell their souls. I once accompanied a friend to go and negotiate on behalf of our national interest in the North East of England. He managed to laugh his way through the whole process. I did not know whether he was embarrassed or overawed or both.

Luckily, there are those who still have their dignity and do not laugh anytime a white person opens their mouth to talk. I saw a taxi driver give an earful to a tanned Italian (who was with his Ghanaian girlfriend) in the notorious Spintex Road traffic. This Italian was hurling abuse at the taxi driver, telling him to f?.off. The taxi driver was giving as much as he was getting. I felt good inside and wished the driver?s attitude constituted a microcosm of that of the average Ghanaian, or that those at the top sported a similar confident stance in their dealings with representatives from so-called rich nations. We would not be in the mess we are in right now and there would surely not be a yawning gap between the haves and the have nots.

Justice

There is justice all around. People form long queues at the banks and tro tro stations and wait patiently for their turn, despite the fact that the movement of the queues are agonisingly slow; everywhere. Nobody is encouraged to jump ahead. There is a rent control system to prevent abuse of tenants by landlords. Notorious armed robbers receive fair trials. All importers pay the appropriate duties and civil and public servants do not accept bribes. You do not have to know anyone to get ahead. Everything moves in a logical sequence. You pay your electricity connection fee and you are connected.

Would to God this were so throughout the nation. Ghana would be the best place in the world, despite the fact that there is no comprehensive transport policy to deal with the nation?s transportation crises; none for the capital, none for the countryside. Not as far as I am aware.

Yet, justice also comes at a price. On a hot afternoon in November 2005, I got a sight full of what real mob rule looks like. I was in my bedroom (in my cousin?s house at Tema Community 11, where I was staying), when I heard shouts of awi o! awi o! (thief! thief!) . I got to the gates within 30 seconds after hearing the shouts. A group of able bodied young men had gathered round and formed what looked like a circle. In their midst stood a balding, middle aged man: puny and wearing a goatee beard. He was on the receiving end of some vicious beatings. He was being slapped around the head and face. Some of the mob wielded stones in their clenched fists. The poor thief began to bleed profusely. I just could not stomach it. I asked my cousin if we could intervene. He looked at me with scornful eyes and politely said no. They stripped him naked and continued to beat him. I asked my cousin if they would take the thief to the police station. He said they would beat him mercilessly and leave him. He commented the thief was very lucky because it was daylight. If it was dark the mob would have certainly killed him. It was daylight and nobody was prepared to stick their neck out and commit the murder to avoid any repercussions. Instant justice is everywhere; the police take bribes, thieves get killed, the complainant gets shunned, and in the private sector the sacked worker is not compensated.

However, something my cousin in Tema said stuck in my mind. He said that the justice system works so well that even an ant could cause anyone to be imprisoned. It was therefore not safe to lock horns with people, no matter what. Essentially, Ghana is still a live and let live society. Like everywhere else, it has its faults and it is not perfect, but it is the best place to be when you want just to live.

Service

The service you receive is good. Workers go to work to provide a service and get paid as a result every month. The civil and public servants do their core hours religiously and help the nation tick along. Food sellers and hotel workers serve their customers with a smile. Journalists and news reporters do their jobs with a greater degree of objectivity, acting responsibly and always focused on the public rather than personal interest. Priests and Imams minister unto families. A greater majority of the population are religious and therefore righteous. Teachers provide adequate guidance for the future leaders of our nation. As a result, our future is bright because the moral fabric of our society is clean as a world cup referee?s whistle.

Yet, nowhere is the adage ?money talks,? given more credence than in our present society. Even when you have paid for a service, the service provider on the ground ? the one who actually carries out the duty- demands payment after doing the work. So for example, Atsu (a so-called contractor for Tema ECG) wanted me to buy a hundred metre 16mm cable and some nuts and bolts for my electricity connection. I refused because I had paid the requisite connection fee of C3.5m to ECG. This amount covered the entire service to be provided. Yet Atsu wanted me to fork out if I wanted a fast service. Why take money for a service you can?t provide, ECG? Why leave me in the hands of a corrupt and arrogant contractor to whom customer service translates into customer abuse?

The well heeled are held in high esteem. People drop their names like intoxicated mosquitoes to gain unfair advantage, This is because nobody asks questions about peoples? sources of wealth. So rogue employees are deemed smart rather than corrupt. This has created an atmosphere of greed and selfishness. This is because the richer you are, the more license you have to; look down on people, gain unfair advantage for self, friends and family, and literally throw your heavy weight around. For this reason, people jealously guard their positions and are not too happy for others to join their ranks. They do not want others to reach their perceived positions because it will cheapen their hard ?earned status.

Surprisingly, there are a few people who are not in the least daunted by the fame, fortune and even the selfishness of the so called asikafo. They are prepared to stand their ground when they know they are right and have a point. Perhaps, they do not want to see the nation go to the dogs, as it often does when it is left in the hands of people who only want to enrich themselves.

Law Abiding

Obeying the laws and regulations of the land forms the basis of a civilised society. People do not take the state for granted; neither do they take what is not theirs. All vehicles have the appropriate road worthy documents. Drivers have all passed their tests and are deemed qualified to drive. They therefore understand and obey traffic regulations. Pavements are for pedestrians; and roads, vehicles. People do not issue dud cheques because they will bounce. Interviews are held on time and appointments are based on merit... There is law and order and defaulters are punished. Therefore, people do not take the law into their own hands.

Yet when it comes to the law, some agents of the law have their hands tied firmly behind them. The chief superintendent can get off easily for careless driving. Which police constable in their right mind could knowingly arrest a mindless superior? People consciously encroach on other peoples lands; some even take them over outright. Then they employ an outlawed bunch of thugs, known as land guards, to terrorise the rightful owners. My friend in Raudefen, Germany, bought a piece of land from an unscrupulous landlord some years back at Dome. When he returned last year, he saw a rather ugly building on the site which used to be his land. He approached the landlord and he was told that he should not worry. ?There is plenty of land. I will give you another one.? He did not want another one at any price He wanted the one he had paid for. It was impossible. He had to take it or leave it. One thing was for sure, he was not getting his money back.

On the whole, we Ghanaians are a law abiding people. People still leave their doors unlocked in the villages. Nothing gets stolen and no one gets murdered. I do not suppose anyone gets raped either. People live in communities and there are still compound houses. Our sports stars walk openly without extra human protection by way of bodyguards. Kidnapping is still a foreign word, which might only creep into our lingo via CNN, MTV and the BBC. People are fearful of wrongdoing because the law is allowed to take its course in Ghana. That is why it is such an oasis of peaceful co-existence at the heart of a troubled region.

Truth

Being truthful to ones self is key to the collective moral of our nation. It seems people are trying to be truthful. After all, that is why there are so many religious teachers and followers. Hawkers and market traders do not overcharge, teachers? marks do not favour certain students, and artisans do not steal raw materials they are supposed to be working with. Friends are loyal (mine were), and do not say nasty things behind your back. My best friend gave me C20m, when I needed money. Partners are faithful and stories of young women turning older lovers inside out with potions are figments of people?s imagination. When you are told to look up, you do and you are not taken for a ride.

In Ghana today, people take you for a ride. Someone stayed in my uncompleted house for four years or more. She cooked and sold food to the workers around the area and run up a huge water bill. When I asked her to move on, she wanted me to pay her to leave, what cheek! I went to makola with trained carpenters to buy 330 square metres of tongue and groove ceiling wood. The retailer churned out a lot of figures which according to him amounted to 330. This was more than what was required. I even talked of returning any remaining wood. However, in the end it fell 75 square metres short. I was compelled to put the figures on a spreadsheet and discovered that his figures, and therefore my wood purchase was nowhere near the stipulated amount. I had to chase him for the missing amount. Then the artisans conspired with my illegal lodger to steal some more of my ceiling wood. In the end I had run out of money so substituted with ply wood where possible and left the rest bare.

In the latter days of my stay, I resorted to taking tro tro. I was running out of money and friends. Taxi drivers, unscrupulous retailers, fast-talking dudes, old friends, corrupt customs officials, bare-chested (waist exposing) spring chickens, lying and cheating artisans, the Ministry of Transport (for not putting meters in taxis), Fridays at Sakumono (for selling delicious roast fowl), Rothmans Kingsize, Guinness, and Labadi beach; everything I came to do and everyone I came into contact with, conspired with my lifestyle and the harsh economic realities to rid me of my last cedi. It was a fabulous ephemeral existence, though.

Still, it is not the end of the world. We have seen wars waged on some very doubtful and dodgy facts. Modern wars are on the David and Goliath plane; no two sides are equally equipped. Perhaps if they were, there would be no wars. Some nations have enslaved others; some have annexed foreign territories. Some people have deliberately tried to wreck peoples? careers, while some kill openly because of greed. Others have decided to deplete the environment to get what they want while some build destructive weapons to put the fear of God in the rest of the morally sound. To this extent, Ghana is the most trustworthy of nations and it is inhabited by saints of the modern age.