(I borrowed the words of the title,
credited to Tai Solarin a Nigerian educator, simply because I love the ring to
it and off course because I read it many many years ago and it stuck)
A relative of
mine, a creative fellow with answers to most of my country’s challenges, came
up with his latest idea recently. He thinks “we as a people” – this is one of
the favoured lines in national debates - should derive more value from our
culture and traditions. As far as he is concerned traffic offences will be a
thing of the past if we replaced the police on our roads with barefooted and bare-chested
men in raffia skirts, shiny little pot bellies, faces painted with white chalk
leaving the eyes and armed with little clay pots filled with water and leaves
and tiny bells hanging around their necks. Any time a person run the red lights
these people would only sprinkle some white powder in the air after the
offender with a wand. Off course this got us all laughing. This chap is never short of outlandish ideas
we said; he is the same person who declared a conviction that the tropical sun did
something devious with our brains (the consequences of which reflect in our
development) and so if he became president his first and perhaps only policy
would be that each person would wear a hat at all times in our country. Still,
thinking about the angry driver honking like crazy behind us for not driving
through the traffic lights as they turned red, we wished his suggestion could
actually work!
I came across a
newspaper report a while back that got me thinking; perhaps my relative’s idea
is not so farfetched. The nation’s leading daily reported on Wednesday February
27, 2013, that a pressure group called People with Convention of Principles
(POWCOP) had appealed to the judiciary at a press conference to consider
introducing the “traditional curse” in the court system “to help find lasting
solutions in the adjudication of cases at courts”. The group held that the
current situation where persons before the court are made to swear on the Bible
or Qur’an gave these persons the opportunity to tell lies and that bribery,
corruption, etc were on the increase. Obviously, the bible and Qur’an are not
working for them as effective tools for getting the truth out of people and so they advocate the
introduction of the “traditional curse” in every sector of government. To drive
home their point, they cite the example of the on-going challenge to President
Mahama’s election as president and suggest that the curse system would be the
simplest in determining the truth.
It seems that “as
a people” no matter our religious beliefs, we so believe in the power of curses
and fetish pronouncements. That should not surprise anyone. Depending on the
packaging the effects of these things are believed to be instantaneous or long
term, spanning generations. They also do not discriminate as to the target;
that is if it is meant for the father and for some reason the father misses it,
the son, mother, girlfriend or whoever is just as good a target. What other punitive
system could be this effective?
I decided my
relative had a point when I stumbled on a 2013 report about striking workers who
have refused to return to work because of a curse. They are demanding that the
curse be reversed before they return to work. I don’t blame them! Kwakubonsam and his likes are about.
