Calus Von Brazi
“Skin Pain” is the first cousin of “do me I do you”. Many a time, they are not on talking terms, although they are always interested in what the other is thinking especially about the “family heirloom”. Theirs is a pathetic existence, for they feign indifference to the other while losing lots of sleep over the moves of the other which they always interpret as calculations and machinations to undermine their own sorry selves. “Skin pain” thrives on twists and contortions, not the type that the Ghana Dance Ensemble is so dexterous at; rather, the twists and contortions of “Skin Pain” are the ones that make the grandma and grandpa regret even in their graves for having spawned the archdeacons of pure envy, for that is what “Skin Pain” really is. Sometimes, “skin pain” transcends envy and wallows within the labyrinths of unbridled loyalty to ideologies, godfathers and mothers and more dangerously, political opponents. When “skin pain” is at its worst form, it seeks to gobble up its uterine brothers and sisters. That is when “skin pain” becomes a double edged sword.

You, my dear reader may be wondering why yours truly has decided to go a “skin paining” on such an auspicious day in the Land of Our Death. Well it is simple; I have discovered a plot by “skin painers” to “skin pain” their way to the frontline of whatever they consider theirs by right. You see, when somebody does not know your source of income or livelihood, and foolishly goes about throwing accusations that one has amassed wealth based on some imaginary unaccountable imprest, the type that Poku the Francis had yanked from under his remit by Osei the D.K, or the type that Nyaho’s uncle is starving Gbevlo the mustached Lartey of, one easily smells the horrible fumes of “skin pain” wafting all over the place. The downside of all this is the wrath it evokes on the other side. Come to think of it, the most dangerous people to attack with “skin pain” are intelligence officers, whether serving, hibernating or fully retired. On any given day, their response to such “skin pain” attacks can be as devastating as they can be deadly. Ask Quantson the K.B if you are in doubt. Uncle K.B., how be? As I was stating, some people have found themselves in the lurch. Their spendthrift habits have caught up fully with them. Their sources of flamboyance have been cut off and as they are wont to do, people sitting their somewhere quietly are being accused of being the instigators of the recently closed financial taps. I ask again: if some Father Christmas has decided that he is no longer paying for the connubial and amorous escapades of the institute type executives, should that be attributed to any intel officer? If somebody has built or bought a Waldorf Astoria on the eternally traffic jammed Spintex road, of what relevance is it to conclude that such edifices are the result of unaccountable imprest bestowed upon a supposed intelligence wing of an operation?
You see, some people have become so blind as not to realize that before political campaigns started, some people lived. As I have stated elsewhere in this column, some people within the great MPP have been in opposition even when the Diminished Order of the Kufuorhood was in full power. Such people learnt the painful art of surviving whether Ghana was under the spiritual suzerainty of Joshua the occultist, or Jesus The Christ so that irrespective of what order prevailed, they continued to grow prosperous and resourceful. Now compare that to those who lived on the largesse of others by always concocting a mixture of Bird’s Brand Custard and Hausa Koko from the Neat Foods Company in order to survive. If their cup is full and the custard is full of curds as to induce the largesse to be discontinued, they spew vile verbiage about the sources of income of those upon whom “skin pain” seems the natural thing to unleash. Question: why is it that for some, the more “skin pain” is vented towards, the more prosperous they become? How come those who stayed far away from the frontline manage to survive irrespective of the direction in which the winds blow while the “perpetual frontliners” have lost both favour and clout, the ones that allowed them to arrogantly arrogate to their miserable torsos the right to determine who sat where had the tables been turned? We are now where we are and the era of “skin pain” is in full bloom, with unbelievable stories being thrown into the fray, some as bad as to accuse the same lawyer-politician-flagbearer of having stashed away the currency with the Queen’s effigy on it in the Queens dirty capital city. So the plot is, if the lawyer-politician-flagberar is as devious as to sabotage his own campaign by siphoning off funds that would propel him to further prominence, then his operatives, especially the backroom ones must have had some unaccountable imprest that enables them to maintain extremes of confidence and live as Arabian Kings in Waldorf Astoria style houses on the Spintex road. I have very bad news for such people: “skin pain” always attracts reactions, the type and scope of which is the sole preserve of they that choose to react. If for example a person who has “skin pained” another happens to have a record of dipping his filthy mallam-inspired fingers into the bag of the lawyer-politician-flagbearer and doing away with his hard-earned dollars, or happens to live in some recently acquired SSNIT property in Cantonments, the “skin pained” has the right to expose such a “skin painer” and embellish it to the high heavens, especially if the source of funding for that SSNIT property is very questionable, bordering on the shortchanging of some innocent advertising executive whose only crime was to produce materiel for campaign purposes. Do you now see why it is unwise to “skin pain” intelligence officers no matter the circumstance?
Then there is the sad case of the Mpiani the Otchere Kwadwo, immediate past Capo de tutti capi of the fully Diminished Order of the Kufuorhood. When I heard that the Donkor boys had strayed into his territory, I cringed in my crib, quickly reciting the Nigerian cliché, ‘trouble don come now’! I panicked not because he could not deal with anything that could be thrown at him; I am fully aware that Mpiani the Otchere Kwadwo is one of the very smart fellows around the Land of Our Death. Actually he is two (2) notches above Obeng the Paul Victor, who we were once told had the intellectual firepower of five (5) great MPP people put together. Thus, if I tell you Mpiani the Otchere is 2 notches above Obeng the Paul Victor, you must know that he is really of soundly sound mind and as sharp as the people who infuriated God enough to descend from Heaven to sow confusion into the determined builders of the Tower of Babel. People of that nature are a prime target of the culture of “skin pain”, even if there are no legitimate and sensible reasons to “skin pain” them. However, if the reasons are legitimate, the kind of “skin pain” that is meted out to them can induce the wearing of sackcloth and the sprinkling of ashes on one’s head. The downside of an attack on such people is to breed unbelievable unity and oneness of thought even among the patriarchs of “skin painism” and our own brand of PhD apparatchiks.
That is precisely what happened in front of the Investigations Bureau of the National (IBN) headquarters where perennial demonstrators like Madam Fati vented their anti-“skin pain” spleens on the gates of the edifice and who or whatever lay beyond. Come and see police people laughing while standing at attention and winking at great MPP people to up the stakes, never mind that some of these men in black had been at the receiving end of Mpiani the Otchere Kwadwo’s acts of commission and omission at one time or the other. In fact, I can vouch that most of the people who gathered there, including yours truly were the ones who were supposed to “skin pain” the old fox in his time of great tribulation. I remember when we did the “Mac Manu Operation”; Mpiani the Otchere Kwadwo instructed a mutual TV host to inform me not to step into the Castle again, thereby ensuring that his Mafioso seat was as distant to me as the sky is from the Afadzato. Nonetheless when I was listening to the Ga-Dangme Forward Movement in a very anti-MPP place, the MAKA center, I left immediately I got a call that an operation was in place to show solidarity with Mpiani the Otchere Kwadwo and that is how I came to the conclusion that majority of those who joined the people who are likely to be “invited” to answer questions pertaining to their previous duties were supposed to be anti-Mpiani “skin pain” people. Even in his moment of need, Mpiani the Otchere Kwadwo had managed to unite the great MPP and in one fell swoop demystified the fear that was attributable to the IBN especially by great MPP people. You my dear reader must glean yet another justification of my previous statement that the man is two notches above Obeng the Paul Victor whose supposed intellectual prowess has sent him into ‘political Siberia’ on the board of his Alma Mata after a very failed “coup” that was reported to the Grand Attahood himself over a certain COCOBOD matter; unlike Obeng the Paul Victor, the man Mpiani the Otchere Kwadwo is intellectually capable of reversing “skin pain” even when it is fashionable to pay him back in his own well-deserved small coin.
What is the import of all this litany of words? Ghana is going through a difficult time that needs our individual efforts collectivized to produce the kind of development that was promised by the Grand Order of the Attahood but may only be delivered if we collectively veer off the tangent of “skin pain”. We cannot continue wallowing in this attitude of paying people back in whatever coin we deem fit, simply because it massages our petit egos and serves our political interest so to do. If we continue to make “skin pain” our institutionalized national pastime, let us not be dismayed or confounded when our neighbours adopt it and with that, unleash a dose of our own inclinations on our increasingly despondent selves now that Abossey Okai shop owners sing “Delilah a daada mi” at the close of work each day and our “ecomini” is being battered on all sides agonizingly because someone got carried away by the demonic principality of “skin pain” and made statements that entertain the places of darkness or brings pleasure to the habitations of cruelty. Jehovah Rapha heal our tormented minds, bodies and nation from the wiles of “skin pain” demoniacs!