Quick start. Music soaring. Voices swelling. Atmosphere psychedelic. Quick draw. Handkerchiefs swaying. Microbes sailing. Nostrils inhaling. I'd rather stay in bed.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
BlogCamp 2012 - Ghana Rising
Online porn is the quarry of the bird-dog youth of today! Clueless carol of some society speakers. Not true! Imagine my sweet surprise on seeing so many still-growing minds with yards of yen for social medial relevance at BlogCamp 2012; relevance as content creators and catchers too. Ghana's rising the right way - led by the youth. Well done to the organisers.
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Saturday, April 14, 2012
Too Old to Hold an OD
I was trading bagatelles with a concupiscent
confidante about being middle-aged and unmarried when she got a phone call. Earlier
that day, a bank she works at had refused a man an overdraft.
What was the reason? He was over seventy! They
would not say this, but they fear he could drop off at anytime, clearly. It matters little his clean credit history or bold bank balance.
So, while we were trifle-flirting-fretting
over being nearly too old to be unmarried, a prosperous senior citizen was too
old to snag an OD.
Friday, March 30, 2012
It’s Not Too Much Talking; It’s Too Little Voting
Some people say there is too much talk in
Ghana. They reckon more action and less talk is the economic elixir we require.
I agree that too many people pretend to be political, economic and social
experts in the media (including online social media). I disagree, however, that
Ghanaians talk too much. The basic meaning of democracy – as I understand it –
is the sounding of all views before choosing the most popular.
If TV, radio, print and online media are
filled with the ‘voice of the people’, there is a good chance that decisions
would be the choice of the people, and failure would be viewed philosophically
and not vi et armis. I shift my
position a little. The inexpert experts should hush and let the vox populi be
broadcast.
Having said that talk is good, talk is not
enough. It would be a catastrophe if we did not talk at all. It would be a
shame if we talked and talked and nothing happened. A child in primary school,
I read a story of a world of creatures resident in a ball of animal fur or
something like that. This world was unseen to the ‘normal’ world and condemned
to be destroyed. A campaign team was sent around this tiny world to urge the creatures
to make an almighty racket. Maybe it could be saved if they could prove that
life existed in the ball of fur. Voice and cymbal, drum and hands – they made
the din with anything they found. But the animals were not convinced that life
resided in the ball of fur. Things got critical. Then the creatures saw the tiniest
of their kind. It was hiding behind a flake of dandruff. It would not join in
the noise. It did not believe it could make a difference. At the end, it was
convinced to shout at the top of its voice, and the animals heard the din. Their
world was saved.
It would be a senseless shame if we all
spoke up but failed to do the one most important policy-affecting act. VOTE! And
it would be sadder still if one could not vote because they did not register. We
all know the shortfall of votes that took Ghana to a second round in the 2008
elections, and the number that made the difference finally. How many did not
register? How many did not vote? Could they have made a difference for one
party or another? Imagine the cost to you (as a taxpayer) that we had two (some
say three) elections, instead of one, to choose a leader!
I will not say that the abstaining wise
deserve the rule of the foolish but civic. But what a bummer it would be if two
abstainers out of every ten could sway the elections by doing nothing beyond
the civic right to speak. Many do not feel too patriotic, and I understand their
reasons. But when you vote, you vote, first, for yourself; not for Ghana.
The voters registration is on. It is only
of secondary importance that the process is biometric rather than something
else. Be responsible for your future (and maybe Ghana’s). If I have convinced
you – if I needed to – please go out and register. If I failed, then we will
fail.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Five Favourite Forget-Me-Nots
Grandfather's Old Law Book
The ancient, no, Jurassic, Jurisprudence
book that belonged to my grandfather. He’d wanted to a lawyer. He abandoned
school with eyesight problems and a thirst to enter politics against an
evolving dictator at the time. He became a magistrate, but never a lawyer. When
I pick that book, he speaks to me. He starts, “Panyin Senior Brother.” That’s
what he called me. He's smiling down at me right now.
Varicoloured, Old Bed Sheet
The many-motif strip of cloth my mother
gave to me in ’98, when I was going to the university. It saw tears and wet dreams
for coquettish college girls and served me well in my law-limited sleep. I keep
it as a cover cloth now, and it will never retire from my bed.
Bold, Blue Bath Bucket
Ten-litre pail with a lovely black handle. Faithful
companion when the showers turned traitor. Now benched as a laundry boy, it’s
still not too little to give me a quick body dousing.
Blue, Plastic-Strap Swatch from Primary School
My first Swatch, and mother of many more. I
can’t say it rendered me precise, but it was a long-lasting friendship.
Black, Sleek, Scientific Calculator
Daddy bought this gizmo months after we “broke
the neck of this Apartheid” in South Africa. He bought it in Johannesburg. It was
seventy-something Rands. A long-distance cousin I only saw once visited for three
hours. He must have arrived back in Koforidua with a new toy.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Cast-Away Hat in the City of Accra
A well-worn, brown hat perched on the bald cusp of the Spintex Road. I saw it just before a trotro cut in, in a half-whisker before me, and bow-legged the hat. I wondered if it sailed off its owner's suddenly-naked head or if, in typical thug-driving, a trotro whisked him from under the suddenly-perchless hat. It looked so lonely among the people and cars.
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Sunday, March 18, 2012
Happy 90th Greeting Cards
It simply had to say 'Get well soon'. Not one did. Upside-down, back-to-front, hand-soiled, crumpled cards, the stupid shop didn't have any get-well-soons. It made the pain worse that there was a card for a 90th birthday. Are there more nonagenarians than invalids in the city of Accra?
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Monday, March 5, 2012
Our Kids Are Smart; They Just Have Shitty Teachers
“If you can read this, thank a teacher.” That
is my earliest memory of a saying. Well, there are others. “An apple a day
keeps the doctor away.” That one was rubbish in my gangrenous grammar. Were
Apple and Day best friends? How could they work together to keep the doctor
away? What was the doctor trying to get to? You get the point.
Let them go right ahead. A farming
settlement outside Accra with exam-flunking kids snarls at the local teachers. Next,
they threaten to lynch them, and issue a worrying writ to quit town. Be my
guest. Sink deeper in your educational cesspool right there. At least you had
some teachers.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Girondin
Beneath his starlit eyes
All passions burn so cool
Smiles a lot, slow to speak
Mellow voice, mellifluous
He is a tone of brawn and braw
But he’s naked to the bone
He wins his hearts in serenades
And a smooth je ne sais quoi
Girondin is cast in steel
That no fire can hope to melt
His mystery flows beneath the floe
A halo crowns him like a charm
He stalks the wildest fantasies
And stirs the songbirds to a tune
He’s on, he’s off, he’s flittering
Who can hold bold Girondin?
Saturday, March 3, 2012
(S)Pin(n)ing
I did not know, the time we met
That it would end this way
I'd not have sung this long duet
Or walked to meet halfway
I did not know true love could die
Unlike in fairy tales
I would have sliced mine like a pie
And boxed a piece with nails
I do not know the way from here
Or if I want to go
Today, the sun did not appear
Tomorrow, it will show
That it would end this way
I'd not have sung this long duet
Or walked to meet halfway
I did not know true love could die
Unlike in fairy tales
I would have sliced mine like a pie
And boxed a piece with nails
I do not know the way from here
Or if I want to go
Today, the sun did not appear
Tomorrow, it will show
Silence
It is the music of the trees
In the drone of the balmy breeze
It is the stretching of the hills
And the tears the sky sadly spills
Thunderclap in breaking hearts
The unseen tail of poison darts
It is the picture of the sea
The still before the storm we see
It is the depth of the deep black
hole
The massive ice caps in each Pole
It is the cosmic dance of stars
And the sounds of life on Mars
The great allure of muted minds
The need to see behind the blinds
The presence of stark loneliness
The blank before each ‘I confess’.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Finis
It rose and then it glowed
Was hot and enragé
Turned cold and blazed again
It grew and flew away
It struck a light and shone
Was swept up in a swirl
Tailspinning in a trice
It mellowed and refined
It set and gave a sigh
Was far from growing old
The time had come to go
It crept away to die.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
PatrOItic
Rubbish teacher. How can a person luring kids to a TV programme say "patroitic" and expect me to let my child watch? I've seen too many kindergarten teachers destroy our kids' speech and pronunciation with 2 decades of undoing to correct. Are teachers at that level not probably the most important? Patroitic? Idiotic!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Do You Know Certiorari?
Three lawyers and I found ourselves in a suite
with building engineers. For a spell we forged ahead swimmingly, while jousting
over fair laws and shear walls. Then, the convener careened into construction clichés about ‘fixes’. To tease us, mystified advocates, one engineer made a grand old
show of explaining ‘fixes’ to us. What did I do? I fixed him with a fast-fetched question: Do you know Certiorari? He waved his hands in his pride-peeling
pickle and did not veer my way again.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Struggling for Sovereignty with God
One virtuous man of the cloth, who sees some
of his peers jaunting downtown with a raised skirt, has chided them to put
their skirt down, walk with cultivated control, and stop struggling for
sovereignty with God. I like him. See the report here.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Delivery Boy
Go embalm your still-born face in a cadaver fridge. When I showered you with a healthy tip, your fetid face fluoresced to life. I spoilt you just to prove to you that you are a slave.
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Saturday, February 11, 2012
Street Sweeping in the Harmattan
I’d only assayed the third layer of dust cemented
on their skins when the traffic lay on me. As we moved on, we huffed extra soot
to thicken the puff swirling around them. Their eyes did not look down. They looked
bright and straight ahead, maybe a little irritated. They still had to take
their brooms out there in the hard-nosed Harmattan.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Bleak Benighted Bonehead
We suffer all styles and stripes in our
universities: the unlettered, the unread, the untutored, the vacuous. But what benighted
bonehead would bob and bounce at a UG admission letter to the Bachelor of
Political Science degree in the second semester? I hope find you a place in
that uni.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Anger Waiting for a Cause in the City of Accra
Two young men snatched a phone in broad
daylight and bolted. One slipped away; the other was bagged by oh ten thousand ‘petulants’.
They hurt and hammered the hangdog with sticks and stones and switches until
their gall seemed to peter out. Then, a jobless Beelzebub fetched a grubby jerrycan
of grimy engine oil. They soused him slick with the stuff, and made him glug a gallon or two.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Smiling Monsters after Dark in the City of Accra
Man Mountain, hanging like a treacherous cliff
over a forlorn length of the shadowy Spintex Road in the mini-principled city
of Accra, why are you counting on a lift from strangers with that tarzan torso just because you can smile?
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