Corporate colouring of Ghana for a little bit of cash

Last week, I responded to the national call for Ghanaians to embark on domestic tourism. Yes, I did! While I did, I saw yellow; I saw red. MTN and Vodafone have strategically painted neighbourhoods of key tourism sites I visited in the Western Region. And, we let them. Why? For a little bit of cash! The red and yellow colours are in your face – loud, bright, rude, offensive, invasive and intrusive. And, it is annoying – to say the least.

The overpowering corporate colouring clash and interfere with the intended exposure of tourism. This is a mind-game that is meant for one thing only: grab the attention of tourists by any means necessary – foul and insulting. How far will the cell-phone wars take us? Is anyone responsible for drawing the lines, or any negotiated settlement for a little bit of cash is enough for this corporate colonizing war?

Museums and Monuments Boards and the Ghana Tourist Board – is there a policy on branding tourism sites? Or it’s just a free-for-anyone corporate exploitation, for a little bit of cash?

In a grand exploitation of our human need to talk, this time, in a 21st Century fashion, mediated by new information communication technologies, companies have brought shiny colours to our streets as banners and billboards and as kiosks and table tents. And now, to our homes to envelop tourism sites? Where is this going? Into our bedrooms to ensure that we see and remember to patronise certain telephone companies? Or someday, they will colour the food we eat? Oh, P-L-E-A-S-E!

Come with me on my first tourist visit to a part of the Western Region. First stop: Nkroful, the birthplace of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, now rehabilitated and therefore, he is of blessed memory.

The disrespectful extent to which MTN has defiled the neighbourhood in yellow oil paint is troubling. Houses next door and near by have been branded by MTN. Explanation? MTN sponsored the Nkrumah Centenary celebrations. So for a little bit of cash, does that give them the right to colour his birthplace yellow? Oh, P-L-E-A-S-E!

On the right-hip side of the Nkrumah birth-home, which until recent years, was also his burial-ground, is a small aging house, the size of a two-bedroom family home. MTN simply picked up that building, dipped it in thick yellow oil paint and re-planted it on the same spot while the paint was still wet and dripping, and then ….. moved on. I learned that it used to be the palace of the chief of Nkroful, before Nkrumah built a more befitting edifice for the purpose. The new palace is next door to the little sorrowful yellow-paint-dipped house.

On the left-hip side toward the back, in close proximity to the Nkrumah birthplace, another house has also been dipped in yellow paint and shamelessly branded MTN. This house is strategically located, next to the cement-paved path to the river which gained prominence in the cock-and-bull mythical story of “Once upon a time (a time!), baby Nkrumah was strapped to Mama Nyaniba’s back. While crossing the river, Baby Nkrumah said, ‘Mama, Mama, you’ve stepped on a fish.’ Upon that bold pronouncement, Mama looked under her foot and lo and behold, there was a fish. So Baby Nkrumah made her Mama Nyaniba a fisher of fish. She promptly picked up the fish, walked a few steps from the river to her kitchen and prepared a meal for them to eat.”

More desecration: MTN has also painted a storey building almost opposite Nkrumah’s birth-house in its loud corporate colours. The entire neighbourhood of this tourism site is therefore an MTN zone.

Why should such defilement be allowed? I wonder how ‘Comrades’ react when they are rudely confronted with this corporate colonization of what should be a shrine of so-called Nkrumahists. I am not a ‘Comrade’ but I was offended by the desecration.

Next stop: the twin-city of Sekondi/Takoradi, the up-and-coming Oil City of Ghana. It is crying red and yellow tears. An increasing number of family houses, some multi-level storey-buildings, have been painted annoying MTN yellow or ridiculous Vodafone red. It appears that this onslaught on the Twin-City is part of a grand business strategy, in brisk and ruthless preparation for the expected crude oil population.

Next stop: Already feeling blinded by loud yellow and red, I continued to the 494 year-old Danish Fort St Anthony at Axim. To my utter surprise, MTN was again in my face Buildings and walls close to the fort have been painted yellow and fully branded MTN – another rude case of defilement of a more than painful symbol of our nation’s history.

This creepy phenomenon of corporate colouring of our country’ landscape is less apparent in Accra where the colouring seems to be limited to kiosks and containers. Question: Have the mobile phone companies branded all other tourism sites in other parts of our country? Who is allowing this raping insult on Ghana? Oh, for a little bit of cash!

Corporate rainbow-colouring of Ghana is taking on a frightening dimension; a disturbing dimension. The telecoms, particularly MTN and Vodafone, are not satisfied with old school marketing. They are painting entire houses too. And, they are intruding into and defiling our tourist attractions.

I detest the type of marketing that insults the dignity of a people. Our national monuments and their neighbourhoods should not be given away to any corporate entity to brand. We may be poor, we may not have much, we may be foolish enough to allow foreigners to take our gold, our diamond, and maybe soon, our oil. Long long time ago, our kith and kin were taken away to serve as slaves. But we must guard whatever is left of our national dignity as a people. Somebody should stop this rampant and senseless corporate colouring of Ghana.

Advertising, standard marketing outlets, erecting kiosks, containers, umbrellas, billboards should be enough. It is upsetting enough to see the youth chasing after moving vehicles, clothed in product vending shirts of the mobile phone companies. With impunity, the telecoms are sneezing and coughing and pissing their colours into all parts of Ghana. They are behaving like mosquitoes in a nudist colony – so excited at the unlimited access to raw flesh targets, and with sharp proboscis, bite and suck blood from the hands, legs, bottoms, neck and indeed any body part of choice.

Centuries ago, such people came. They came tall. With erect noses and thin lips, they came. They came bold. They took and took – gold, diamond, then humans as cargo. With flaring nostrils, thick lips and unsuspecting smiles, we accepted them wholly. We bore their presence like a crown of thorns and now bear their castles and forts like a cross. We gave and gave; they took and took. And we shrank back into our mud houses. No! Not again, in any shape or form.

Developed? No, developing. Becoming. It’s a word with an ING ending. This thing is a process. What a long process! ING! This matter calls for a hymn: Precious Lord, Take our hands, Lead us……