'Land Guards' in the City of Accra

They fight on the land. They fight for the land. They maim on the land. They maim for the land. They kill on the land. They fight encroachers. They fight claimants. They fight the police. They fight the law. They fight (or snub) the courts. They are the law. They have the guns. They have the support in high places. They have the invisibility. They have the alibi. They have the anonymity. They have the land. They have the drugs. They have the greed. They have the back of the person with the money.

Send Me a Text Message

I’m often locked up in meetings-for-miles or at solemn places where I can’t receive calls. My phone is rigged to reject calls with a message - I’m engaged and can’t pick your call. Can you send a text please? Four times out of five the message alert doesn’t beep. It’s not because they’re loath to disturb (for they can irritate you with redials forever if you ignore the maiden ring). Is it that the calls are usually bagatelle? Or is it that people are just text-timid?

Could We Have Built This Differently?

Could there have been another way? Could there have been another way to build (in) Accra? A way to keep out all the rain and yet keep the rooms cool while it shone? Could we have avoided all the glass and still kept out the flies and birds? Could we have explored mud-brick, wood or something not as dense as concrete? Could we have built around our trees, avoiding the easier choice of scything them down? Could we have kept our water bodies for beauty and ecology? Could we have continued with planning when we finished with Tema? Was Ghana not always meant to look as green and neat as Akosombo? Could we? Couldn’t we?

Too Many Hair Stylists in the City of Accra

East Legon, Accra. But also Madina. And Kaneshie. And Dansoman. Every quarter of Accra is festooned in yellow, blue, green, white, etc of MVP, Revlon, UB and Dark & Lovely. The ads are draped on wooden shacks and wooden kiosks, sandcrete stalls and disused steel sea-freight containers. These are all hair stylists. There are puny hair-styling schools every forty paces and hair stylists every thirty. There cannot be half-enough heads to go all round for business. So what are they training the girls for?

The Creative Parts of Accra

It’s so easy to perch pretty in your tight spot in Accra and ‘enclose’ the economy in Ridge and Osu; Kaneshie and Makola. I’ve recently ‘touristed’ the dustier parts and scanned technology shacks with computers, musical instruments, cameras and boom mics couched behind mechanic yards or ‘chop bars’. Young men mixing audio and video and creating the modern music sounds of Ghana. I totally dig that.

The Empire Which Died in its Sleep

And so the greatest empire formed over the land now called Ghana was brought to a humiliating end without a single rifle shot. I don’t know what to make of it all; of the novel pacifism of its formerly warlike rulers; of the treachery of the ‘enemy’. I mean, Troy had its horse, Rome its hellish decadence, and Germany its ambitious war. But why did this empire not fight? Its name means “because of war”!

The Radio of a Night Watchman

The night watchman's job must be as lonely as death. How often do I see him striding in his give-away clothes with a transistor radio locked down on his shoulder in the oblivion of some overloud treble talk?