Can Anas’ exposé heal the wounds of the Osu children’s home?


Ever since the umbilical cord of Anas’ investigation involving the mal-treatment, moral rot and injustices within the Osu children’s home was cut, official reaction to the story raises questions which are similar to what a poet in verse:

“Where is the curiosity we have lost in discovery?
Where is the discovery we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in communication?
Where is the communication we have lost in mass media?
Where is the message we have lost in the medium?
And where the community we have lost in all this...”

I have chosen to mirror official reaction to these lines in Ugandan born Richard Ntiru’s “The Gourd of friendship” because, it is unthinkable how certain people are trying to question the genuineness of the investigation even in the face of hard core facts present in the documentary that Mr.Aremyao has shown to the whole nation. Yet it is common sense for one to admit a rainfall by looking at the wet ground even if you never witnessed the downpour from the ageless old man beyond the skies. This is the wise saying that we have all been taught since childhood.
This development bores ample credence to Daily Graphic columnist Kofi Akordor’s lamentation in the state of affairs in this country. Permit me to bore you with his sentiments in his Tuesday September 21st article code named “Hannah must not die in vain”. He writes; “…In our part of the world, we try solving serious national problems by creating wasteful bureaucracies called committees when the real solutions are obvious and needed someone with the required courage and seriousness to confront the problem squarely and take the bold decision”. According to Chief Moshood K.O Abiola, African politicians are people who tend to swim but do not want to get wet. I can not agree with him any less.
I pity the feelings of Anas so much and imagine what he will be going through when people try to make mockery of his toil. High ranking officials of the department of social welfare, who appeared before the committee of inquiry, dismissed Anas’ claims that, the guest house
in the home (built by the World vision), has gradually turned into a brothel house. It will sound funny for a child in the primary school to hear that the guest house screens its visitors and select people of “integrity” but not prostitutes. Yet this is what the Assistant Director of the Department of social welfare in Accra; Mr.Daniel Opare Asiedu wanted us to believe when he spoke on Shamima Muslim’s Eye witness Account, two days after the celebration of founders’ day. To me it is a betrayal of the honesty and selflessness found in the leaders whose abiding legacy we celebrated. What the assistant director and his boss are failing to realize is that Ghanaians are a discerning people who can not be forced to swallow falsehood down their throats. If Anas himself had his way into the Guest house with a prostitute from Macumba, then what dust are they trying to throw into our eyes. They should please stop that since it does not befit their outfit.
His questioning of Anas’ motive for such an investigation is also very unfortunate. I could sense from Mr.Asiedu’s comments that they (The department ofsocial welfare) feel hurt by the exposure of the filth in the home. But I think there is equally something important that he can learn from Anas. This gentleman himself admits that he could have carried the story four years back to have ameliorated the situation from going this far. When Nicolai Goggol’s government inspector was first staged, the reigning Tsar was around to see the filth in his administration being enacted and openly confessed of how he has got “his own share” from the play. Indeed we all complement each other for the progress of Ghana.
Anas deserves a pat on his shoulders for schooling Mr.Asiedu and by extension Mr. Stephen Adongo (Director of the department of social welfare in Accra) on the technicalities involved in under cover journalism, which made it possible to fix forty- five cameras in the home, how documentaries are done and why it is absurd for them to claim that the new sponges in the home shows that the women used many sponges instead of a single one for all the children in the home. Certainly who should believe this?
I strongly believe that it is about time we place Ghana first and work harmoniously towards the betterment of our country. We must not give way for this case to die off like it has become in our country. The tradition of negligence and playing to score political points must stop. Surely we cannot afford to watch these children grow with straight teeth but crooked morals. And this is why we need to take a second look at this guest house which is a potential treat to inculcating values in these future leaders. Anas’ sincerity on the need to look to consider the care takers is also timely. We need more care takers who need to be motivated to give their best-it is a whole institutional over-hauling. A great reform must come from this investigation; it must not be a nine-day wonder.
I am just hopping that those who are bogged down by the issues of ethics and adversarial journalism learn their lesson from here. We hail Nkrumah but forget that but for his positive defiance, we would not have won the position as black Africa’s first country to gain independence. The denial of persons even in such an evidence flooded matter speaks one thing: Anas’ style of journalism has enough organic connection with the African situation. Indeed abnormal situations need abnormal solutions.

From the way things are going, I wonder what the nine member committee is going tell the people of this country. Nevertheless it is certain that the Ghanaian people have their expectations like that of the Prophet Amos demanding justice for the poor and neglected in society: “Let justice roll like a river”.

Courtesy: Gyan Enock

The writer is a student of the Ghana Intitute of journalism, and leader of Orange education Ghana.
Email:gyanenock@yahoo.co.uk On face book: Kofi Manu