It was a blistering afternoon, one of those afternoons when the heat from the blazing sun is like a naked flame lowered just above your head. Though the savanna blood in my veins is accustomed to such heat, it was a different thing enduring it in the belly of a fully loaded trotro vehicle in a suffocating traffic.

The traffic was so stagnant that it took almost thirty minutes to move from Golden Tulip Hotel to the 37 Military Hospital. The traffic situation in Accra is having a debilitating toll on almost everybody but some of us suffer more than others. Those who patronise public transport would have to endure the thick scent of smelly armpits, bad breaths and any other possible odour that the human anatomy could emit in such situations.

Well, authorities in Malawi are currently trying to pass a law to ban flatulence in public places. They’re advanced, aren’t they? We here line up the beaches and a first timer in the country might be tempted to think that there is a sport here called shitting competition. I’m just wondering how the Malawians will succeed in getting people who fart noiselessly to admit that they are responsible for fouling the air. So it’s hell being in public trotro, in a hot afternoon traffic. But others, like this girl who was chauffeur-driven in a brand new saloon car, may only be frustrated by the delay and, perhaps, the draining of their fuels.

I call her a girl because if she shaved the dark and silky hair that almost touched the base of her seat, she would not be too old for a first year student of Aburi Girls High School. Her plush car was just beside ours and she was fidgeting with her mobile phone, perhaps on Mark Zuckerberg’s facebook. I looked at the man driving her and the two did not match any of my three classifications of lovers in a car. It is interesting how each of the three groups behaves.

The first group is usually those whose relationships are fresh. Usually a young man and woman, they chat and laugh and touch as if they were meeting for the first time. Sometimes when the traffic light turns green, it takes a lot of honking from furious taxi drivers to remind them that they are on the road. The second group is the Mr. and Mrs. whose happy moments have been ruined by the Law of Diminishing Returns. They usually behave as if they were implacable enemies forced into the same vehicle. The man usually looks straight ahead while driving and will be forced to concentrate on the left window when they are in traffic.

The third group is illegitimate lovers. This is usually one “Big Man” and a small girl, a student or a vulnerable national service personnel. The “Big Man” is attending a weekend conference and has kidnapped the girl to “check his how far.” He usually drives and she slouches in the back seat, praying hard for the vehicle to get out of the city. The big man is married and she must not be seen with him! But the two in this vehicle this afternoon had no connection whatsoever, judging from their ages and appearances. I stretched my neck further and the inscription on the side of the vehicle told me it might be a car owner and her personal driver. “Miss Malaika 2010” was the inscription boldly written on the vehicle.

There and then, my discomfort in the trotro gave way to a strong feeling as to why these countless beauty pageants attract a lot of juicy sponsorships, including plush vehicles while others such as the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) award do not. My feeling about the issue became stronger last December as I watched the 2010 Ghallywood Awards on Multi TV’s Cine Afrique. The showbiz industry in Ghana has over the years deteriorated in quality and the movie industry is a major casualty. One does not have to travel far into the past to recall that some of the best movies on the continent were produced here in Ghana. They were films with relevant themes, written with the socio-cultural setting of the Ghanaian in mind and acted by some of the finest NAFTI-trained actors and actresses.

Though the technology in the 1990s was thousands of miles behind what we have today, the quality and creativity in the Ghanaian movie industry was so high that nobody knew about or had any interest in Nigeria’s Nollywood, from where we copied and coined our own Ghallywood.

Today love seems to be the only theme available to our film makers. And one finds it difficult to differentiate between Ghallywood’s love films and pornography. Love and romance are not bad themes but our inability to domesticate the theme to suit our socio-cultural context makes the films not only boring to those with literary eyes but also very irrelevant. Our movie industry should reflect the cultural values of the nation and where the story line is borrowed it can be domesticated to suit the local audience.

After reading Ola Rotimi’s The Gods are Not to Blame, one cannot but appreciate the fact that with the right kind of approach we can tell the same story in a way that makes it ours. Our movie producers often cite love as a universal theme and argue that it is the most marketable theme in the movie industry worldwide. No one is against love or romance. Anyone who has read Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine would agree that is one of the best novels on love. The fact that The Concubine, like other such African books, is not celebrated worldwide has to do with more with the colour of author than the quality of the novel. It is a love story in which the reader momentarily forgets that he or she is reading a novel. That is love brewed in an Eastern Nigerian village.

So Ghallywood has not genuine excuse for not coming out with the best. It is not enough to parade handsome and beautiful actors and actresses to display their beauty in erotic scenes and call it love films. Lately, the local language productions have come with their own myriad of flaws. While there has been a significant improvement in the quality of productions of these local movies, the story lines are not worthy of any good commentary. Some of the stories are just like the “maame ne paapa” kind of thing children learning to come to terms with the reality life perform on playgrounds. The theme is rather that of spirituality or litigation in which razor-sharp tongues such Agya Koo or Kyeiwa subject their victims to insults. All these notwithstanding, the much-publicized Ghallywood awards night was an impressive ceremony and presented a lot of lessons for organizers of the GJA media awards.

The first lesson is the suspense in the awards. Madjid Michael’s over-confident disposition when he came to pick the best male actor in English category did not suggest that he knew Agya Koo would beat him to the highly coveted prize at stake. Suspense is one thing that makes awards interesting. The GJA awards committee should shortlist awardees, at least three persons in each category, and announce the winners only at the ceremony. For now, the names released by the GJA usually turn out to be the winners.

The GJA Journalist of the Year is sometimes known before the night. I, for instance, knew that Samuel Agyeman of Metro TV would emerge the overall winner nearly 48 hours before the ceremony. A colleague journalist who whispered in my ears warned me to keep it secret, for it was not meant for public ears. And that was the same thing I told my GIJ mates a day before the awards. There’s no need concealing an open secret!

Besides, there should be a screen to display highlights of winning works as was done at the Ghallywood Awards. The CNN Multichoice African Journalists Awards does this and listeners and viewers have the opportunity to know the subject or stories that won in the various categories.

Another thing the GJA award organizers should learn is the fact that the media awards night is for journalists and not a platform for long and sometimes irrelevant and boringly long speeches and lectures. Each recipient of the Ghallywood award had the opportunity to say something, either to thank one person, orgnisation or to dedicate the award to important people who have played roles in their lives. At the GJA awards, not even the ultimate winner is given that opportunity to do so. I was I was very disappointed when Mr. Kofi Akordor of the Daily Graphic picked the Journalist of the Year but was not allowed to say a word on the podium. Samuel Agyeman of Metro TV took the microphone from the MC because it was Mr. Kwami SefaiKayi’s initiative. Kwami had asked whether he had anything to say.

The night ought to celebrate the men and women behind the microphones, cameras and keyboards. Unfortunately, after the long speeches, a few minutes are used rush through with the presentation. The most important lesson the GJA ought to take from the Ghallywood Awards is the prize for the ultimate winner. Apart from the educational package from Uniliver Ghana, it is not too much for the GJA Journalist of the Year to walk home with either a house or a car. Ghallywood was able to get sponsorship for two Zoyte SUVs for overall best actor and actress.

Unfortunately the overall best actress award, which many thought Jackie Appiah deserved, was presented to her and three others who jointly won that category. Kofi Adu, alias Agya Koo, however drove home the prize for the overall best actor, a brand new Zoyte SUV. It is also important to note that without the media, the sponsors of all these beauty pageants, Ghallywood and other such events would not dare to invest in any of them. Why should the media not be able to attract the greatest sponsorship when they have better avenues of advertising sponsoring organisations? Ironically, the GJA media award is among the least publicized awards in the media.

Journalists are among the least paid workers in Ghana. Most of the popular journalists, including some in the public media institutions do not take more than GH?200 at the end of the month. If the GJA cannot do much about their salaries, then when it’s time to reward media excellence, it must be worth the name. Mr. Ransford Tetteh and his crop of GJA executive have done a lot to enhance the quality of the awards, but the room for improvement is too spacious to be full.

If the Miss Malaika girl I saw the other day could walk away with a brand new car and other juicy prizes after a catwalk, waist wriggling and answering questions that any intelligent primary school kid could answer, then it is not out of place for journalists who risk their lives daily to tell the stories to demand such awards. It should not be too much for the corporate world because, the success or failure of their businesses depends on the media.