Area Boys of Ghana

Do you know your Area Boys? You must. Knowing might give you peace of mind and probably even save your life from idle male youth and young adults who hang around in your neighbourhood. They might not necessarily be troublesome or are looking for trouble. The problem is that trouble can and does find idlers. They can potentially slide into crime.

The phenomenon of Area Boys first hit me when exploring to own a piece of Ghana to construct my own concrete tent under half the sun. One boy came through my radar. With veiled threats, he sheepishly informed me that he is one of the Area Boys. Clueless, I asked him, “Are you a Land Guard?” He replied, “No, an Area Boy.” Proudly, he offered to become my eyes and ears, with services to provide labour for any construction work I’ll undertake. Of course he assured me that he knows just about everything, a master-of-all-trade master-of-none kind of guy.

Here is the profile of Area Boys I’ve developed over the past one year since this phenomenon came to my attention. They are young males within the teens and late-twenties age bracket. They have had basic school education and have effectively dropped out of school before or after JSS either because they barely passed their examinations or had no support to continue. So they hang around in neighbourhoods, waiting for opportunities – any opportunities.

They are in a state of arrested development. As should be expected, among the rank and file of Area Boys are some knuckled-headed crack-heads. They are permanent fixtures in some neighbourhoods, probably in all neighbourhoods in the country.

They live within the frail crumbling fringes of our society. Our national edges are so frayed that it’s easy for anyone who is stuck at the edge to fall off. There are no social safety blankets to provide a buffer to anyone who is about to fall or who actually falls. Not even prison. Especially, prison!

Area Boys form ready crowds and gangs of foot-soldiers. Have you ever wondered where several young men suddenly emerge from whenever there is a vehicular accident or an incident like a fight in the general neighbourhood? These are Area Boys, idle and ready to come out of the shadowy woods to stand and stare and gossip about occurrences in the hot sweaty tropical sun. Such events offer much needed interruption to an otherwise drab existence.

Politicians benefit from Area Boys during electioneering campaigning. Once clothed in Tee-Shirts and given a little bit of cash, they are set as material at mammoth political rallies amidst gleeful cheers.

As Area Boys sit and stare, their shame factor about their idleness reduces to zero. They appear very happy, finding joy in idle-gossiping. They also display sheer bravado, on permanent expedition. On the initial look, they appear calm and gentle. Yet, they totter at the frontline of crime, disorder, indiscipline and rascality. They are trouble, no, disaster waiting to happen – any day.

Talented, no, potentially talented, these pockets of unemployed, underemployed, and mostly unemployable youth have few skills. It doesn’t appear that anyone is responsible for these male youth. They grow up doing odd and dead-end jobs, forever.

They live in uncompleted buildings and kiosks. Their sanitation and waste management needs are very simple with no complications whatsoever. They live purely at the whims of nature, truly next-to-nature. They bath at dawn in make-shift structures. When nature calls them and they have to go, they go ‘free range’ by way of plastic ‘take/throw-aways’.

But some live by perching on the edges of families with no one in particular taking full responsibility for them. Some are just defiant and have broken away from parental or guardian control.

You see them in plain view. In day-dreaming stupor, they sit around street corners and road-sides, under trees, near popular spots – gleefully chit-chatting. On several occasions, I’ve observed Area Boys watch me in wrapped attention. The stares are hard-hitting, without smiles. Beyond New York City, I never thought I’ll feel fear of idle young black men – in Ghana. But I find myself feeling intense fear of the presence and rigid stares of Area Boys. I imagine, deep in my mind’s eye, “That’s an armed robber waiting in the wings!”

They fight for dominance in neighbourhoods. For that reason, some self-identify as Area Boys, as if the title is a badge of honour. For people who don’t have anything, or don’t even have dreams of becoming anything, a fight for dominance in an area where they perch without pitching a tent is an accomplishment. Temptation lures them, smiling, grinning, beckoning them to bite the bait. Your Area Boy of today could potentially be your armed robber or petty thief tomorrow.

There are ways to relate to Area Boys. One option is to infiltrate their ranks; make them useful – for a fee. When you succeed in connecting with a few, periodically, drop some ‘gifts’ their way. A cedi here, five cedis there can simply blow their minds and win you their unbending loyalty. Such ‘tips’ could be packaged as, ‘here is no ko feoo’. That always wins you a broad, grateful but shy grin. Once you consolidate some form of relationship, they become your own Area Boys who could potentially protect your interests.

Without a connection, they simply remain Area Boys – not yours, because they owe you no loyalty. Area Boys who simply belong to the community at large are nothing but loose canons that can fire off at any time.

As I ponder over the issue of Area Boys, enduring questions storm my mind. How are geniuses made? Genius from nature needs to be nurtured and tutored, not left to fate at the mercy of the elements. Specifically, how was the genius of Shakespeare nurtured? For sure, he was not born and nurtured among labouring, idle, uneducated folks. Bill Gates did not rise from the hot ashes of despicable neglect. An environment can nurture or destroy a genius.

How many geniuses is Ghana neglecting to destruction? A diamond is just a piece of rough stone until it is identified and polished. We are abandoning our potential Shakespeare’s and Bill Gates’ as dirty stones, cast into the muck. Wild weeds spread themselves to choke our geniuses. This is the house Ghana is building; this is how Ghana is taking care of its unwanted youth. Is gangrene better than amputation?

I recall the mid-1980s horror stories of the Lost Boys of Sudan, the approximately 27,000 Sudanese boys and young adults who were forced by violence to roam around for about a thousand miles until they reached refugee camps in Kenya, parentless. The Area Boys of Ghana are our own version of internally displaced male youth who are forced by idleness to sit and stare while the years pass by with no hope for the future but pure luck and chance and prayers. God is!

Like the Lost Boys of Sudan, Area Boys of Ghana need redemption. In this year of grace, when Ghana will finally harvest commercial quantities of crude oil from under the belly of the mighty Atlantic Ocean, a progressive youth policy must be put in place and implemented without any leadership buffoonery.

dorisdartey@yahoo.com