I’ll gingerly invite my former lecturer and first mentor, Ama Ata Aidoo, into the matter at hand today. Why? I need wisdom. In her collection of short stories, The girl who can, she wrote that “The mind is a country-side, cluttered with rubbish.”
I’ve tried all I could to push into my mind’s backyard, the political events (some of it being nothing but constipated rubbish) leading to the election of the third President of the Fourth Republic but the more I try, the more the thoughts pop right back at me. So dear reader, allow me to digress today, and return to the election saga (before Asaga landed the word saga firmly at the center of our core vocabulary).
The brain is like a minefield. It vomits out stuff from odd streams of consciousness and unconsciousness. Even trauma has its flip side of wild laughter. Se let’s return to Election 2008 with our laughter muscles relaxed. The following are from a collection of real and imaginary odd stream of conversations comprising questions and weird funny answers in actual eavesdropping of various people which are just sitting in my brain. I need a brain flush.
From dawn until dusk: December 8, 2008
“Ketu has messed things up.”
“But as for Ketu, we know.”
“I swear, when Bantama comes, all will be well.”
“Hmm, my heart can’t take it oh.”
“You alone? I’ve been to the toilet five times in two hours. But I don’t have diarrhea. And I continue to feel like urinating but when I go, nothing comes.”
“You are talking about urinating and toilet. As for me, I’m sweating ‘by-heart’. My armpit is wet none-stop. The surest deodorant can’t help surely.”
“As for me, it’s my heart, oh! My heart keeps pumping. I think my blood is over-flowing. I feel like my heart is about to jump out of my chest. Eh, this thing can kill, oh.”
“Hey, turn off the radio. Ehhhmm, and the TV too. No more phone calls. I can’t continue to listen to all this. I’m going to sleep. If I don’t, I go die oh!”
“Eh, you’re already awake? I thought you were sleeping for real. Why, are you having restless sleep and sleeplessness?”
“Eh, GTV says Bantama has come. But Radio Gold says it has not come. Joy FM is playing music. Adom, Peace, Choice, City, Hit, Hot ………”
“Hmmmm. Democracy is tough oh.”
“Is it better than coup?”
“As for coup, tofiakwa.”
“But why should either Bantama or Ketu alone decide who becomes President?”
“Because Ghana is polarized.”
“Pola-what?”
“Polarized – as in a big pole, with the Volta Region people holding on very tightly to one end of the pole while the Ashantis stubbornly clasp on to the other end of the same pole.”
“So what happens to other Ghanaians?”
“Well, the Ga-Adangbes, Northerners, Mills-people, Muslims and all the Zongo-people and their Mamas follow the Volta-people to cling on to one end of the pole. This disparate group constitutes about 50% of the population”
“So the other end of the pole has all the other people?”
“Yes, the other 50%, for the most part, constitutes Twi speakers, the select elite and all those who are still nursing very deep never-to-be-treated-and-or-healed wounds and story-telling jagged scars, inflicted at the hands of AFRC/PNDC cohorts in the very ghastly days of the revolution – have teamed up with the Ashantis to hold on rigidly to the other end of the pole. That is the meaning of polarized.”
“What happens if they pull the pole too hard that it breaks; it goes kaput?”
“Oh! So why did Ghana go through more than one year of campaigning? Since these people are holding on to their own ends of the pole, does it even matter what the political parties tell people? And, ehhmmm, what’s the use manifestos?”
“Eh, you ask too many questions. But you’re right. The campaign hulabaloo promises and manifestoes are sheer nonsensical nonsense of the highest degree; fun trash-talking.”
“It’s really fun. Idle energetic youth who have nothing doing become temporarily gainfully engaged by following the entertaining campaign trail with the empty hope that it might take them somewhere. (It never does but they’re too young to know that.) They do have a good party in the sweaty dusty intoxicated tropical heat of politics. It keeps them busy (briefly) and away from unneeded mischief. Oh, they get Tee-shirts and some cash too for providing a ready-made exuberant crowd of supporters.”
“So, it’s a win-win situation? The politicians get the chance to burn-up some of their ill-gotten cash of never-never-disclosed never-never-explained sources and the kids have fun in the hot sweaty sun with Tee-shirts and cash.”
“Oh, then Ghana should just organize a Pole Pooling Gala to determine the winning political party and presidential candidate. Just like fishermen drag the net. The whole country would just scream ‘chooboi hey, chooboi hey. Then Doctor EC will announce the winners. Very simple."
After December 29, 2008
“Well, Bantama and Ketu couldn’t find us a president. One touch didn’t touch. What a trip when you don’t touch!”
“Yes, I hear that now it’s going to be Tain.”
“What?”
“Tain. It’s somewhere in the bushes of Brong Ahafo.”
“Did you say Ten?”
“No, Tain, as in AI. We must all learn to pronounce it well because very soon, Tain will become the center of Ghana.”
“Eh, the capital of Ghana? Why Tain?”
“Because basically, Ghana is an agricultural country. But we’ve chosen to forget about growing what we eat and eat what we grow. Instead, we import our food, and just about everything else we need on this land plus all the white man’s junk we don’t need.”
“Oh, domestication?”
“Yes, domestication and much much more that are beyond our own bizarre version of civilization.”
“Is this God’s message to us that Tain, a little-known hard-to-pronounce farming community should give us our President?”
“Yes, this is a message from above. But wait and see. The politicians will abandon them after they’ve used them for their ways and means elections.”
Postscript: March 6, 2010
“So what happened to Tain?”
“Which Tain?”
“Oh, that Tain that got us a President and by that, resolved our election saga (before Asaga was). They need schools, roads, hospitals and a tall list of life-improvement things. Oh, and two-square-meals a day.”
“Square meals? How about round meals! As for you! Tain gave us a President, so what? This is politics. It was just a vote. The politicians long moved on. Tain people should continue farming. It is corn and yams today. They might as well add plantain, rice, tomatoes, pepper, onions and even potatoes tomorrow. If they are so motivated, they can grow salt too. Who cares!”
“Hmmm, if Bantama, Ketu, Oda, Cape Coast, Tamale, Ada and all the hungry folks in the forgotten armpits of Ghana could not select a president for Ghana but little-known hard-to-pronounce Tain did it, then we dare not forget them. Campaign promises must be fulfilled. This is show time! Or else……..”
“True. Tain, a victim of Ghana, saved Ghana from the outskirts of a stinky cemetery.”
Hear Alice Walker in, In search of our mothers’ gardens. “All history is current….. Progress affects a few.” Even Mrs Sarah Abraham of those matriarchal bible days will heartily agree.
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