There are some images and videos we have on our mobile phones and laptops which we find very difficult to delete because they are are too sweet as they make us feel yiiii anytime we watch them. I am lying o, that is why they say a liar’s worst enemy is someone who has good memory. It is the reason this ’useless column’ is not to be read – full of abstract thinking!

Please don’t insult me in your head o; that is why I don’t allow people to judge me because some of those people are worse than me– the fact that their sins are different from mine makes some of them feel I am a roommate to the devil himself.

So I was standing before big CEOs as the moderator of a very important programme. All my scripts were on my phone. I read virtually everything from my phone. Soon after the welcome address by the organisers, it was time to read out the profile of our special guest of honour. I went on my phone to read it. Oh my God! As soon as I touched the phone, ‘ajeish, aish, kill me me, tear me apart, finish me, faster faster, harder harder o’ was the loud sound from my phone with great decibels. As fate would have it, in my attempt to lower the volume, I increased it and it was at that point that the microphone’s bass, treble, tenor and everything became more functional and active picking and amplifying sounds of ‘kpa kpa kpa kpa kpa kpa’ amidst the ‘ajeish ajeish ajeish’ moans and groans!

I thought the easiest way to solve the messy situation was to switch the phone off. The noise was still on. I started sweating and could feel the reactions in the auditorium. When I pressed the sides for the phone to go off, it asked for my password and the sound was still on! You know these are short videos that no matter where you start watching it from you can tell the next action and how it would end. The rest is history! Ei!

The looks on the faces of the audience made me pray for the ground to just open for me to disappear.

Please it is not a good thing to keep sexually explicit images and videos on your devices. Delete them immediately after watching them. It is not healthy, from my experience. Sin fascinates and assassinates, remember. Keeping them on one’s phone can create serious professional, integrity and moral issues for one especially knowing your phone could get into the wrong hands when stolen or when it gets to the repairers.

So you believe these lies? Hahahahaa! But truth be told, this narration can be a mere imagination and once something can be imagined, it can happen. Be careful!
Ei when people say the crime rate in the Voter Region is low, I dey fit laugh aaaaaa enter Friday. How can the police record any crime rate if there is no evidence of a crime? Ern? In Voter, we won’t touch you so you would go and say we harmed you o, our juju wifi is enough to see you off if you just dey bore us espceicially if you offend us! The truth is nothing would happen to you if you are innocent!

It was a dream come true when I went abroad the first time. I was working really hard and if you would recall the name I used to work was Mr Rosemond. I caught the heart of a white woman. I was 25 years old. She wasn’t too old; she was only 64. Hmmm. I liked her because her looks were similar to those of an auntie – super pretty. Her veins were partially exposed with teeth somehow polished with sutes resulting from excessive smoking. She says she wants to marry me. Ei.

Thank God my ancestral poverty is coming to an end. She wasn’t as sexy as I expected but this is a fine opportunity. She said we should marry. I embraced the idea knowing it was my dream to get married to an obroni. People would be singing for me in my village when I bring her home: ‘Yevu Yevu Bonso3…Nyama Nyama Bonso3! At least that would guarantee a total elimination of my ancestral poverty which has transcended till now! Away, poverty! She wasn’t as romantic as I expected but this is a fine opportunity to get my papers too. I was physically very lanky and for somebody like that to agree to marry me only tells me her problems may be bigger than mine! The veins and bones in my neck were on display. It is called ‘gakli meets gakpey’ (scrap metal meets granite stone)! But I have to ‘sacrifice’ as it was a timely intervention to truncate poverty in the family tree!

Ei but until I travelled abroad, I didn’t know it was that difficult to get young white ladies to marry o, herh! So I managed this ‘grandma’ of mine as my wife but what shouldn’t have bothered me was her lack of interest in giving birth again though at 60 something!

Then the wedding took place in a church with very few people attending, I had no relatives attending because they were refused their visas. I was happy no one got the visa because my senior brother, Abraham Zogbenu, a retiree of UG would kill me if he saw me marrying someone as old as my grandmother. The least he would do if he was present would be to laugh at me till I faint and maybe re-faint; I know him.

In the church, ‘You may kiss the bride’ Kai! Hmmm! It was a difficult situation but man must survive; I managed to ‘pass that test’ somehow. My brother, you should be there to see the anger and frustration on my face at the time I was compelled by my background in poverty to say ‘I do’. Do what?
Nothing annoys me more than addressing my grandma as ‘Honey Honey’ in every utterance that came from my mouth. Trouble if I didn’t.

The wahala after marriage? Ala! Anyway they say ‘for better for worse’! Today she is fine, tomorrow, I had had to deal with one old age condition or the other and the visits to the pharmacies, you can’t count! She would often let me carry her at the back from the top floor to the ground floor before driving her to a solution centre. Poverty no good o! I think we often invite our own problems.

Every weekend, we had to go out jogging together and she had a walking stick and kissing in public was not frowned upon by their culture. You should see that woman and I as husband and wife walking the streets of abrokyire. Besides, she was extremely jealous and suspicious of every single phone call I made or received from Accra. She often threatened me with extradition and divorce even though by virtue of our marriage I was already a citizen.

I recall the day my pastor back in Ghana asked me to send him a picture of myself and my wife. God is good! He saw it and nearly had a cardiac arrest as he covered it up with the excuse that the Holy Spirit was at work! I agreed with him and indeed it was only the Holy Spirit that got me surviving this marriage albeit for a short while. Since then, I vowed never to send any picture to anybody again.

As for bedmatics, I felt I was committing murder punishable by my conscience and as to how I was going to do it, just imagine. She liked talking and could talk saaaaaaaa till I fall asleep and when I do, she would wake me up to continue talking, talking, talking. Aooo!

Her meals were made of uncooked leaves. Raw garlic and lettuce were in abundance after which I had a daunting task of kissing her and it was a MUST! Saajiwa!
She’s always upset with one thing or the other and I blame it on cultural differences.

She was everywhere I passed when we came to Ghana and my friends were just laughing at me. She said we should visit the mall. Whaat! Well, I gave in and at the mall, she wanted me to be holding her, arm-in-arm and holding her by the waist. At this point, the Naija song, ‘All I need is your waist’ didn’t appeal to me anymore. The small boys and girls around kept their fone cameras on us, albeit secretly but I saw them since I knew their intentions. We made it back to abroad. I remember the day she forced me to post the pic of the two of us on phasebook and forced me to caption the picture: ‘Me and my Baby”! ‘Baby’ at what age? Ao! What kind of poverty alleviation program is this, I kept asking myself in annoyance!

The day this Mamaga discovered that I was in a serious relationship in Ghana was the day I found myself back home in Accra!

Marriage of convenience? Never again!

While this story is as untrue as a mere useless fiction, enjoy the long weekend with unnecessary lies like this one and remember you don’t need too much comfort to enjoy life in another country; all you need is enough to survive a zongo la chichi rashes or krusankrusan before!