Whither the Ghana Reset?

Earlier this year, I decided to have lunch at one of my favourite cafés. I needed to unwind after a tough morning. The café had been a haven for several years - cozy yet dynamic ambience; not so loud and enjoyable music in the background (think jazzy lovers rock, blues, easy reggae, slow-ish R&B); great selection of finger foods for a lazy eater like me; cool atmosphere provided by the well maintained air conditioners that were always running (I am at that age that cool temperatures matter) and of course good cappuccino.  Patrons and the staff were sufficiently well mannered. People meeting to discuss or pitch business deals, sharply dressed but seemingly laid-back professionals stopping for a quick bite while dealing with paper work, old friends and acquaintances meeting to catch up, new couples on a date and sometimes some shady but respectable looking characters taking in the vibe. Only occasionally would loud laughter and banter ring across the room and turn a few heads. I went there mostly for brunch, coffee, to think, write, and sometimes people watch.

Setbacks

January 29 was different. The main service area of the café was littered with waiters and waitresses having loud conversations, interspersed with laughter and backslapping, sometimes name calling across the room - all in the full glare and proximity of customers. It seemed there were many more hands than usual, which was a good thing except that when not serving, they took to leaning against or hovering around customers’ seats, without any sense of customer privacy. Strangely most customers showed no signs of discomfort.  Some watched ticktock videos, listened to the radio or were engaged in phone calls - on speaker! I guess for the pleasure of most others present and irritation of the oddball. Call me snooty but I decided to make my way from the main sitting area to an inner room in search of a quieter, calmer, and to my mind more civilized spot. My displeased self wondered if people needed telling that not every space is a market square where every clown could ply his talent. In the inner supposedly premium sitting area, my only other company was a couple about finishing their lunch. They were seated at the farthest corner from me, facing each other, each watching something on their phone - on speaker! My mistake for thinking I could escape the noise and read the article a friend had sent me.

Resigned to the afternoon’s fortunes, I sat thinking about events in my own neighbourhood not so long before. I had woken up to a barrage of messages on the community WhatsApp platform. Many were recounting several harrowing experiences involving neighbours’ dogs on the loose in what is otherwise known as a ‘gated community’. The narrations had pushed me to inquire from my fellow neighbours whether anyone really needed to be told to have their dogs vaccinated, nuzzled when out and about, have collars for identification and leashes and definitely not leave their dogs unaccompanied in public? Of course there were no responses to my haughty inquiry, which by the way was not meant to illicit any. I thought my reasonable expectations to be fairly obvious, though they appeared to be too much to expect, even from the average middle class owners of rottweilers, dobermans, bullmastiffs and the like, living in an estate where the average rent for a 2-bed semi-detached house is $500. After all, these were the same people reluctant to pay GHS50 (just over $3) a month for a decent communal security service for the neighbourhood.

Agenda Setting

I have been mulling the reset idea since the National Democratic Party (NDC) run and won Ghana’s 2024 presidential elections on that tagline. The 200 page manifesto which brought the party to power, entitled “Resetting Ghana: Jobs, Accountability, Prosperity”, outlines the party’s programmatic proposals in key sectors of Ghana in 7 chapters – the economy and prosperity, jobs, industrialization and structural transformation, energy, investment in people, good governance and corruption, and foreign policy. The President’s introductory message described it as “a well-curated blueprint to fix the economy and create prosperity” among others. The people responded positively from the turn of events at the polls in December 2024. It appears citizens believe or have at least put their faith in this reset agenda indeed. Every public event since the elections - conferences, radio programs, webinars - has carried the ‘reset’ tag or framed its focus around it. On March 6, the new government itself, marked the country’s 68^th independence day under the theme, “Reflect, Review, Reset” with a modest ceremony at the seat of government, casting off age-long parades starring school children, uniformed forces, professional bodies and workers. This pleased me and I hoped it was indicative of the resetting to come and not simply an improvisation compelled by the country’s empty coffers. I still remain cautiously optimistic as a result of experiences such as my lunchtime and neighbourhood ordeals which I view as representative of aspects of the status quo that need radical change. Even without having yet fully appreciated the limits and depth of the new government’s reset agenda, I cannot help but wonder whether, even if successful on those terms, the social, cultural and behavioural resets that the country really needs would be achieved without more.

Yearnings

I wonder for instance whether the worries of an average citizen like me, seeking only to live a simple life in reasonable comfort, will at least be acknowledged as problematic, if not addressed in any reset agenda. For instance, Why have our roads become permanent parking spaces, even for commercial businesses no matter where located? And how is it that private staff of business entities overseeing parking spaces believe they have authority to stop vehicles on main roads, sometimes forcefully, just so they can enable a driver who should know better to reverse into the road? Why are schools, of particular interest non tertiary level schools including kindergartens and primary schools, sitting on the fringes of main roads, some with their gates opening onto the roads? By the way, did I hear the new road minister promise more roads at his vetting in response to our traffic challenges in the cities?  Then again, why are drivers turning into the lane of vehicles in opposite lanes at T-junctions and crossroads? How are commercial including ride hailing vehicles doing business with their vehicle windows all tinted? How come there are individuals on radio and television purporting to adjudicate legal causes without certification or recourse to operative laws? Why do salespersons have the freedom to traverse every and any neighbourhood in mobile trucks touting all types of wares in the most tormenting manner and at any time of the day and with loud speakers? What accounts for the indiscriminate placing of billboards and advertisements that clearly obstruct the vison of drivers at road junctions and compel in drivers entering a road to edge in into the road to improve visibility? To think that the majority of the businesses being advertised are led or owned by persons who have undoubtedly had nothing less than average schooling beats my mind. I have also been intrigued by how public discussions mostly attract opinions about which panellist was the more knowledgeable or is aligned to some faction rather than which ideas were superior and useful for our collective progress? This inquiry could go on ad infinitum.

I submit that we are in a crisis of civilization (some would say, development). More than, and not in lieu of more money in my pocket, I yearn for significant improvement in the quality of my life. One that is reflected in shifts in social and cultural mindsets, lifestyles and behaviours that impact my everyday interactions with ordinary people - artisans, public servants, people waiting in a queue, fellow road users, neighbours etc. One that leaves me no less sane and distraught than I was leaving home each day. So I am rooting for change agenda and programs that prioritize logical thinking and reasoning over illogical and partisan stances and arguments; intellectual curiosity and principled argumentation over unquestioning followership of titles, seniority and positions or unjustified and baseless sectarianism; communal or systemic considerations over self-centredness and parochial interests; integrity and meritocracy over favouritism. Changes that are more likely to also safeguard the advancements we may achieve with the current big ticket reset headliners.

Simply, I look to a reset to a sensible and compassionate society. Nothing fancier.

(UN)TAMED

Daddy thought
She's just a chirpy little girl;
She should be left alone.
Mother thought
She’s daddy's little girl;
Better let her be.
Everyone thought
This one is unusual:  
She’s best left alone.

She thought nothing
She was just a child.
And time passed ...

Now
Daddy’s gone,
Mother is gone too,
Everyone is but a shadow
She’s all grown up
And she’s met the world.
They were right, she thinks  
She was best left alone,
But was she?

Sex, Education and Development

I was clearly born a hopeless, incurable but happy romantic and I cannot say that it bothers me. For some reason, I never read any of the popular Mills and Boon novels in my day, even though many young people at the time got their sense of love and relationships through those stories. Yet I had and still have an idealized view of the world and of relationships.

Anyhow, as I experienced life, the need for the subject of sex to be openly, systematically and objectively discussed and studied (yes I meant studied), especially with and by younger people became more and more important to me.  It had occurred to me along the way that not knowing many things concerning the subject was an injury that could have had much more dire consequences than it may have had on me, had the universe not conspired in my favour. Take this short story of a young lady for instance: 

It was in the mid-eighties. She was in her mid-teens and she was a virgin. She had no knowledge of condoms and whether they were even a thing, much less about the foaming tablet until she agreed to be the community bad boy’s girlfriend. She had no idea what it meant to be someone’s girlfriend, but this boy was a few years older and seemingly wiser, plus he was well known and quite a charmer.  

 

At the time, her shapely body was taking form and many of the boys in her community, including much     older males were already making comments about her body, telling her she was pretty, throwing sexual     gestures and jokes her way and in various ways, reminding her daily of her sexual appeal and their dark     desires. It was only a matter of time that she would fall into one of these arms. So, despite her naivety,      she sensed there was something sexual required of her as a girlfriend. To her mind, why not the charming boy in the community.  

 

When he took her to an empty house one night, she followed dutifully and strangely, without fear. The experience was neither exciting nor pleasurable. The pain was significant but bearable. The boy, obviously more experienced, knew about the pain and reassured her.  He had pushed a tablet into her and had told her it would prevent her from getting pregnant. She believed him and took his word for what it was worth. Luckily it was over before she knew what was to be done. The pain did come and she saw some blood later but that was all there was to it. She did not get pregnant.  Not a soul ever found out how she got her first lesson in sex and who taught it. She did not get pregnant and that was all that mattered. And she was in her mid teens.

In my part of the globe, there is continuing resistance to sex education in schools. At home, it is still mostly taboo to speak about such things even among adults. Some conspiracy theories even claim sex education is a ploy to spread the reach of the ‘rainbow’. Suppose there is any truth to that, should that not be more reason why we should be deliberate about talking; not simply about faith and morals, but about lived experiences including about sex and their social, economic, physical, emotional, psychological implications, good, bad or ugly?

Several years back, my son then about 5 or 6 asked me why his “willy” was much smaller than that of his dad. By the way, we long ditched the pseudonym for the actual word ‘penis’. He was visibly upset about the unfairness of that particular resource allocation. Rather than shut him down I explained, that it grew with age, then I took steps to make some changes in our domestic practices. Over the years, we have spoken about sexual topics including condoms. I concede that on one occasion when I tried to talk him into learning how to use a condom, he protested. What he did not know was that I needed the lesson myself. Good thing is, at least the subject was not off the table. When he was told at church that it was better to abstain from sex until after marriage and saw his (relatively) young church mate get married to an equally young woman, he came home to have a conversation with me. We opened up the subject of marriage before sex and questioned the rationale, concluding that it was a question bordering on morality and not necessarily an objective question. We discussed why marriage was the reference, rather than say, getting a degree or having a profession or being in a position to be responsible for the consequences of ones actions before sex for instance. We also discussed the value of examining sex in relation to those other considerations. We spoke about the implications and effects of sex. That babies are not the only outcomes of sex. That in fact, one could  argue that babies are the least of the worries when it comes to sex, even considering the period of pregnancy, childbearing and the possible medical complications surrounding both baby and mother, not to speak of the socioeconomic and psychological effects on the unprepared.

I never had any of these conversations with any of my parents, so sex education was for me as was and still is for many young people, akin to that of the young woman in the story or any other rendition of it. Today, we contend not only with so-called community bad boys or girls whom everyone knows. We contend also with the various means by which technology brings instruction to the bedrooms of the present generation. And I wonder, are we really better of not speaking about penises, vaginas and sex? 

 

photo credit: curiousdesire.com

#WeAreAllKaaka

 

This is the hashtag of the #FixTheCountry movement in the statement released by the group @ghfixthecountry, following the killing of Ibrahim Mohammed aka Kaaka. For how it resonates with me, I fully associate with it and take the liberty to use it.  

Like many in Ghana, I have also read and heard the news of the killing of Kaaka and matters following. Kaaka is reported to be a journalist, a social activist and member of the #FixTheCountry movement. He was killed under circumstances yet to be unravelled if ever and as expected, several theories are already making the rounds about the motive behind the incident. We may get to the bottom of it or yet again, we may never get beyond the news value of the moment.

For some reason, whenever I hear such reports, I think of the unfettered influx and use of drugs (you know the types), and the obvious progression from a transit to a user country. I think of the challenge of small arms and increasingly bigger arms including those from official armouries in the hands of just about anyone who wants them. I think of the general intolerance of differences encouraged by and fed on by political and self-seeking interests which is taking the place of reasonable discourse. I cringe at the unrestrained greed and extravagance of people with ‘power’ plundering the resources of the vulnerable and the public. I think of the profane misuse of the media- and I am not just talking of the vulgarism, but the sheer lawlessness and dishonesty thrown recklessly at us. I worry about the unrelenting security blunders. I think of EDUCATION or the lack thereof. I think of the growing anger and desperation of the vulnerable, marginalized and oppressed, many of whom will soon exhibit the ‘power’ they don’t think they have, if not already. Oh, and I remember a certain Mr. Osei who has been drawing attention to the mental health situation in Ghana for a while now. There’s just so much that such reports throw up! And for some reason, I think that these are connected and inextricable from the current headline, the daylight robberies, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

I may be wrong but while ‘investigations’ get along on Kaaka and all others, and I hope we catch somebody; I wonder about these matters and how perhaps #FixTheCountry is about all of these things and how that slogan is quite appropriately a call on everyone. Fix the country may very well be fix me, fix you, fix us, fix the system, fix our society…and whatever the heck we want to call it.

Something is broken - question is, who is going to fix it, and who is going to make them?

#IAmKaaka

#IAmCaleb

#IAmSuale

#IAmAnyOtherSomebodyWhoMayKillOrBeKilled