Sunday 31 January 2016

Adom TV, Kumkum Bhagya & A Cow-Dashing Chief





Nana Wadie presenting the cows to Adom TV staff
"Wᴐfa Kofi, do you watch Kumkum Bhagya?"

"What is that?" I deliberately asked.

Reclining in a chair with his legs bent to kiss his chest, Jeff quickly sprang to his feet. He removed both hands that had been buried under his faded green Lacoste shirt.

"It is an Indian movie,” Jeff said.


“Really?”

“Yes, it is shown on Adom TV," he added.

When I got to Sunyani the night of December 26, 2015, I knew I would return to Accra when the cock announced the birth of the next day. So, I strived to visit each of my siblings in the municipality before I went to bed.

When I got to one of my sisters' place, two of her three children were asleep. The eldest of the three, nine year old Jeffery Owusu Korang, also known as Jeff, was awake.

Jeff loves gifts and surprises. Whenever I called his mother and asked that I spoke to him, he would give me a list of items I should buy for him on my visit to Sunyani. One thing remains constant on Jeff's gift list. He wants a "Kufour bus"- Metro Mass Transit bus. Trust me, I cannot even buy one of its tyres!

When I went to his home without even a sachet of This Way Chocolate drink for him, my heart palpitated on seeing him awake.

Surprisingly, Jeff seemed to have forgotten ever speaking to me on phone about gifts. He didn't ask for his 'Kufour Bus'. Rather, he met me with the excitement of watching Kumkum Bhagya. Can you imagine!?


The soap opera “depicts the life of a Punjabi woman, Sarla Arora, who runs a marriage hall named Kumkum Bhagya. She lives with the hope of seeing her two daughters, Pragya and Bulbul (who’re poles away), married,” says Wikipedia.

I first read about the popular soap opera on the internet. The story read that Adom TV was to show an Indian telenovela that has its characters/actors speaking Twi.

That sounded nice. I guess it was a plan to outcompete UTV's popularised stance on such soap operas. On UTV, a presenter sits on air to run commentary on the previous day's shown episode. She does not do this alone. She has a panel who further deepen the discussion.


A lady shopkeeper, whom I buy provisions from in my Accra vicinity, literally gets annoyed whenever a customer calls on her while watching these soap operas.


If you ever heard of UTV’s La Gata which became a household name, some Ghanaians forcibly befriended the opera’s cast. Last year’s Christmas saw banners raised in town. Some read, "Friends of La Gata beach party." Thus, Adom TV would try whatever possible to rub shoulders with its competitor. Hence, Kumkum Bhagya. My mind, though.

This is how far our country Ghana has come. My worry is that these soap operas, apart from hinging on the theme of love, do not bring anything tangible onboard to move our country Ghana from ‘developing’ to a ‘developed nation.’


In an Aljazeera news report titled “Thailand PM bemoans 'divisive' soap operas,” dated September 26, 2014, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha criticised television soap operas for promoting violence and divisions in society.

Mr. Prayuth said he will write them (soap operas) himself “if he has to.” As if that was not enough, he added: “I have ordered that scripts be written, including plays on reconciliation, on tourism and on Thai culture."

Here in Ghana, soap operas may not be dividing us directly as Mr. Prayuth says of his country. That notwithstanding, I think a country which has a lot of its leaders trained in prestigious universities such as the Harvard and yet struggling to combat diseases like cholera and malaria, should not overly get drunk in ‘love’ movies.

Our problem, as a preacher once said, is not to go to the moon. We have no business there. Our problem is simply to clear the filth off our streets and choked gutters. Yet year after year, we die of preventable diseases.

The Ghanaian media, I strongly believe, has a great role to play in helping build Ghana. But is that to devote a chunk of air time showing empty foreign movies?

The BBC of all media houses sponsors a radio drama called Story Story that is recorded in Nigeria and aired on the station. Story Story’s themes have always been tailored towards the development of Nigeria and other African countries.

Few days ago, veteran Ghanaian actor Solomon Sampah passed on. There are many of such actors who are just waiting to die. Thanks to poverty. Can our media houses and movie industry make use of these old actors, together with the youngsters, to tell our story?

Could Adom TV and the rest of our television stations not have recorded their own Kumkum Bhagya with themes that would promote concrete national development?

In another Aljazeera news report: “Thailand taps into soap opera to fight corruption,” dated January 20, 2015, the country was shooting a soap opera to fight corruption.

“Thailand’s military government is tapping into popular culture in an effort to battle corruption. A soap opera based on real-life cases is being produced in the country,” wrote the report.


Most nauseating to hear of our country and soap operas, Myjoyonline recently carried a story that got me asking myself if we are serious as a nation.

“Viewers of Adom TV’s all-popular Televonela, Kumkum Bhagya could not believe their ears,” the story started, “when it was announced that the Chief of Assin Asaaman in the Central Region has decided to reward personnel of Adom TV for being innovative and presenting to viewers the telenovela which is dubbed in Twi language.”

All the way from his land, Nana Kwasi Wadie Esly II and his entourage presented two fat cows to the staff of Adom TV in Accra. We must honestly appreciate Nana’s kind gesture. However, his act would have been much appropriated had he awarded a Ghanaian movie like “Fulani Land Guard” which starred Kwadwo Nkansah Lil Wynn.

Fulani Land Guard was shot in Twi and it addressed some major problems bedeviling us; chieftaincy and the nefarious act of some Fulani nomads in the country.

Perhaps Nana Kwasi Wadie has never watched this and many other good Kumawood movies to reward them with cows. As well, Nana may not have watched the popular Efie Wura television series that addresses societal problems. If he has awarded them at my blind side then I hold my fire.

I am not in any way fighting Nana Kwasi Wadie. With all due respect, I cannot instruct him on who he could bestow his favour. My concern, however, is that we must solidify our movie industry before investing in other people’s. By rewarding Adom TV on Kumkum Bhagya, we are but telling them to do more of copying and pasting. No wonder that on Otumfour Osei Tutu’s 15th anniversary, Adom TV showed a documentary on Manhyia that was filmed by the BBC.

Would an American or European or Indian television ever show a soap opera shot in Ghana by Ghanaians to its viewers? On what grounds? Well, they may do but will that be shown at prime time and almost on air all day?

I am not calling for a ban on soap operas/foreign movies. No! If such soap operas speak on [national] development then why not show? My call is to take off our television screens soap operas that indirectly rob us the little we have.

It is only prudent we empower our movie industry to write good scripts to build the Londons and the New Yorks we dream about... here.

The writer, Solomon Mensah, is a freelance journalist and a cultural activist.

Email:
nehusthan4@yahoo.com
Twitter: @Aniwaba

Wednesday 13 January 2016

Living in Fear

 
- GIJ students’ untold harrowing story
By Solomon Mensah
 
A mounted emblem of GIJ
“It was one Sunday when we had just closed from lectures. Walking home with two friends, at the Trust Financial Holdings intersection, we saw two guys on an unregistered motorbike,” Fiona recounts.
Fiona Wepia Edwards, a level 400 weekend student of Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), says the guys on the bike had passed by them earlier only for it to take a U-turn.

“We thought they wanted to ask us something but to our dismay, they took out their weapons [knives and other sharp blades]. My friends were quick to sense danger so they were able to run away leaving me helpless in the hands of the two strong men.”

Keeping calm in the midst of threats, Fiona’s thieves bolted with her belongings. This was in October, 2014.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven... the number of robbery cases keeps increasing. Intermittently, a student on his/her way home from school or to school would rush to campus in tears with regards to their bags and belongings being snatched by thieves; thieves who ply their trade on motorbikes.
For some time now, this has been the untold harrowing story of some students of GIJ. A number of the students have had to bear the brunt of these motorbike thieves in daylight robberies.
Laptops, cameras, cash among other valuable items have been taken from these students by these unsuspecting robbers. On the Garmel Abdul Nasser road, a stretch of road that lies in front of GIJ, the thieves would either whisk away the bag of a student walking on the road or get down from their bike to take such bags at knife point.
In 2013, a student sustained a knife wound in his palms for struggling with his attackers to prevent them from taking his bag. This male student’s incident was not the first to befall a GIJ student. Some of the victims have made attempts reporting to the police but it becomes a herculean task for the police to trace these thieves. Why? The motorbike thieves use unregistered bikes!
After a year and three months, Fiona’s unforgettable incident still brings tears into her eyes. Tears literally filled her eyes as I held my voice recorder to her mouth. She gathered courage, again, to continue her story. “They asked me to give them my bag, phone and everything on me. I was so scared that I complied and they left with my own belongings.”
The ‘belongings’ of Fiona comprised of a phone, digital camera, lecture notes and an amount of GHC1, 500. She laments that the money the thieves took away got her crazier. It was her two-year rent. As a matter of fact, she was on her way to pay it to her would-be landlord!

Fiona reported the case to the police but the thieves, on an unregistered bike, could not be traced.
If Fiona’s story made you shiver then wait till you hear that which made Felicity and her friends quiver.
Felicity Ampomah and her friends Janet and Perpetual, all GIJ students, have had their share of the motorbike thieves’ bitter cake.
I am taking a stroll together with Felicity and Janet on the Garmel Abdul Nasser road, starting from GIJ’s entrance, to bend on the right of Trust Financial Holdings to the ‘GIJ’ hostel. They will be recounting their horrible experience to me.
“It was Sunday, October 18, 2015,” Janet remembers. “Felicity Ampomah, myself and Perpetual-a friend- had closed from a weekend lecture. Walking to the ‘GIJ’ hostel, which is just a few meters away from the School, little did we know that Felicity’s bag would be whisked away from her by thieves.”
Janet, who lives at Madina, was to part ways with the others just before reaching the hostel’s gate. She says she became suspicious of two men on motorbike who rode pass them.
“They [two men on motorbike] came back, riding pass us. One of the guys looked at me that I became suspicious of them. I quickly stopped a taxi to the Police Headquarters junction for a bus to Madina, parting ways with my friends,” Janet says.
She had told Felicity and Perpetual to run as quickly as they could to their hostel before the suspected thieves came back to them.
Felicity says she “suddenly turned and saw them” and “told my friends to run” but before the sleek legs of the ladies could quickly carry them to the hostel, one of the guys jumped from the motorbike brandishing a knife at her.
Felicity had hatched a plan before being caught. “It occurred to me that I should just drop my bags in a nearby fenced house, which has wild dogs, so I go for the bags later.”
Her idea was good enough but she momentarily thought otherwise. “Then I asked myself, "What if they come to us and they don’t get anything from us?" They could hurt us with their weapons. So, I dropped one of the two bags into the house leaving with me another bag which contained ladies’ slippers that I sell.”
Eventually, she did not only have her bag snatched but had a hefty slap, too. She somewhat blocked it with her hands. This incident also happened in broad daylight and the story is not any different by the regular students.

Louisa Boadu, also a student of Ghana Institute of Journalism, seeing me interview Felicity and others came telling me yet another robbery case a friend endured on the same stretch of road.
So, are the authorities of Ghana Institute of Journalism aware of these happenings? And if they are, what plans do they have to avert this serial robbery?
Romeo Adzah Dowokpor is the President of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) of the Ghana Institute of Journalism. He spoke on the issue.
“I have heard of such unfortunate cases. We advise students to walk in groups,” he said.
“There have been reported cases of students being robbed in taxis with the connivance of the driver and his syndicates who act as passengers along the Quarters to campus route. Students should avoid boarding taxis from Quarters that have passengers in them,” he said.

Romeo says his office is working on fixing streetlights on the route from the Police Headquarters to campus to ensure visibility and improve on the security situation at night.

The robberies do happen at night but predominantly at day time. So, I asked the SRC president if he would consider security patrol on the route in question aside the provision of streetlights. This, his office could deduct an amount per student from the GHC90 SRC dues to foot the bill, I suggested.

Romeo says that is a laudable idea worth considering.

When I interacted with some of the students to ‘show by hand’ if they have heard, encountered or are worried about those robbery cases, a good number of them showed concern.
The students want their school’s authorities to urgently address the situation. Until then, the students reopen school in February, 2016 only to continue living in fear.

The writer is a student of the Ghana Institute of Journalism and a freelance journalist.
Twitter: @Aniwaba