News Commentary

NEWS COMMENTARY LOOKS AT KENYA’S STRIPPING OF WOMEN IN MINISKIRTS, THE ‘MY DRESS, MY CHOICE’ CAMPAIGN AND THE LESSONS THE GHANAIAN WOMAN COULD LEARN FROM IT.

BY SOLOMON MENSAH, A FREELANCE JOURNALIST.

Her attackers stopped her, harassed her, and tossed her around like the dice on the slippery surface of a ludu as they ably yelled in Swahili “Toa” which translates into the English language as ‘take it off.’ Indeed, the miniskirt-attackers took off an unknown Nairobi woman’s miniskirt giving room for the hungry eyes of the sea of people around to feast upon her nakedness.

This is, but, a description of the YouTube video which went viral on social media few days ago. The video which could be termed as a gruesome display of lawlessness by some Kenyan men who, in the said video, reduced the Nairobi woman's dignity into rags. The woman’s crime was simple and straightforward; she had worn a skirt which her attackers described as only a little bigger than a handkerchief; a dress code the group of therowdy young men disapproved; calling it provocative to onlookers.

The 1 minute 27 second- long video again showed the woman being beaten and paraded heartlessly along the streets. This shameful act by these rowdy folks must be condemned by any discerning mind irrespective of being a citizen of Kenya or not. It is, therefore, not surprising that most Kenyans shortly after seeing the video took to Twitter with the hashtag “My dress, my choice” to send a message to the attackers that women, like men, must be respected in the society.

Women have suffered all forms of abuses from some unscrupulous men in our societiesfor far too long. More often than not, men are left off the hook to go about their activities without being apprehended in any way. Are the attackers saying they have not sighted some men who pull their trousers below their waist to expose their filthy boxer shorts; a dress code referred to in Ghana as Otto Pfister? Has any of the Otto-Pfister-men been stripped naked in public before? So why must it be done to women?

On the 16th of November, 2014, majority of women in Kenya supported by well-reasoning men hit the streets to protest against this act of stripping skirts. They as well adopted the slogan ‘my dress, my choice’ chanting women must be allowed to wear what theywant. Sadly, before the protestors could take respite from their long walk for freedom, another Nairobi woman was, again, stripped of her skirt and the other cloth on her totally removed by another crazy bunch of lawless men. From this YouTube video, too, the second woman suffered much more brutality from these men.

This stripping of miniskirts in Kenya did not start today. Somewhere in February, 2013, another Nairobi woman was equally deprived of her skirt in public. It took the intervention of a local politician Daniel Kachori who whisked her away into a room. Mr. Kachori later described the attack as shameful. But... a year and over after the incident, this shameful act still goes on.

The director of Kenya’s public prosecution has ordered the Criminal Investigation Department to probe the incident. But before the law takes its cause on the attackers, we must not forget to ask ourselves some questions. Can any member of the society determine what one can and cannot wear? Who, as a member of the society, is given the right as the moral police to arrest and strip women of their miniskirts because such dress is seen as indecent? Is it not true that the attackers’ victims could be your mother, sister, wife, or even girlfriend?

If this abominable practice is allowed to gain roots, then the law as the guiding principleof the society becomes useless.

This happened elsewhere. Far away in Kenya. That notwithstanding, the Ghanaian woman must learn her lessons from it. Apparently, you may freely walk about in town in your skimpy dress regardless of the law prohibiting indecent dressing. However, one does not know when such a bunch of these lawless men will spring up here to pounce on you when you least expected and strip you of your dignity.

For the attackers, they must for now realize that enough is enough. Our elders say, thatwhen a handshake goes beyond the elbow, it ceases to be a friendly gesture. Inasmuch as most people and for that matter the society abhors indecent dressing does not mean that women must be subjected to public humiliation for what they wear.

It is about time the Kenyan law enforcement agencies rose to the occasion to ensure that the rule of law worked without interferences.

 

'Unemployed:' Why not dance for cash?

By Solomon Mensah



Jacky

In the late 1990s, I had an undying passion for dancing. I wanted to be a dancer aside my aspiration of becoming a journalist. So … there were no twisting moves that the likes of the Slim Busters did that I couldn’t imitate to perfection. Unlike today that there are proliferations of reality shows on our screens, in the late ‘90s it was as rare as armed robbery cases at Burma Camp, as Manasseh Azure Awuni – my mentor - would put it. Among the few reality shows we thronged behind people’s windows to watch by peeping through holes was Embassy Pleasure; a dancing competition. Did you watch it, too?

It was my favorite and I wanted to partake in it. I had one of my sisters’ approval to contest but my mother would not allow me to dance. And so, the spirit of dancing died off. Today, with the advent of the azonto and akayida, I hardly can tilt, like the Ghana map, to shuffle one of my feet left alone to clench a fist and throw it in the air.

It’s been about fifteen years now since I hanged my dancing shoes and kissed the dancing floor a goodbye. Today, I’ve a school mate at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) who has taken dancing as a ‘world cup’- serious business.

Meet Jacquelyne Sackeyfio whom I will call as Jacky in the subsequent discussions. She is a journalist by profession, an entrepreneur, [currently] a public relations student at the Ghana Institute of Journalism and a dancer. A dancer you mean? Oh yeah, she dances. I mean she dances for cash!

“Charley you for watch how Jacky de twist en waist at her rehearsal,” a friend had said to me. “Jacky? Rehearsal?” I retorted. There in that WhatsApp video that the dancer had sent to a close pal, I watched her with amusement; great one for that matter. She moved to the left, to the right and back and forth with rhythmic shivering of the body as if she had touched a naked wire. But to what extent must one value dancing? Does it indeed cause the economic rains to fall on a dancer? Listen up.

In one of the intros of Daddy Lumba’s hits, “Med) w’as3m bebiree,” he acknowledges how important dancers are to his music career; “This song is dedicated to the newly formed ‘Lumba Dancers’ in Amsterdam namely Yvonne Prempeh, Abigail, Manfred, Brother Denis, Charles, and Kwabena (popularly known as Richard). I really love you. Thank you.” 

Then in the jerry-hair-do era till now, musicians have been pulling crowds, not only with their creamy curled hairstyles and fashionable apparels, but, with their team of dancers, too.

Such dancers would do the formation dance moves either in front or behind the artiste who would take a lead role intermittently. From the lists of our legendary folks in the music fraternity like Nana Kwame Ampadu, Adofo, Akwasi Ampofo Adjei through to the Akosua Agyapongs and the Nana Acheampongs, down to the contemporary exuberant singers - rappers – Guru, Sarkodie among others, dancers keep playing a pivotal role in musicians’ packaging of songs to their audience.

Talk of the music videos of any musician and it would be obvious that dancers are conspicuously present. They add color to the video which makes one directly or indirectly grow fond of such a song even if they didn’t like it.

One is therefore not surprised that Daddy Lumba, who for the sake of “Koobi” swearing an affidavit to be known as ‘Tilapia’ also transmogrified into DL, says to his dancers “I really love you all.” Similarly, if you should ask Stonebwoy and Mz Vee how important Jacky is to them, they, like Adom TV, would say to her ‘y3w) adze a oye.’ Why? Simply, Jacky is their personally billed dancer!

“Although I am their [Stonebwoy and Mz Vee’s] personal dancer, I do dance for other artistes on pay-as-you-go terms,” Jacky, told me in a WhatsApp interview.

“I have danced in the music videos of VVIP (Selfie), Criss Waddle (3shishi), Castro (Seihor), Vybrant Faya (Mampi), Choirmaster (Pull me down)  and I was on the stage of the 2014 VGMA with Stonebwoy and Iyanya, 2014 Ghana Meets Naija with MzVee, and Afrobeat and GH Rocks again with Stonebwoy, in R2bee’s Star beer advert and a host of others.”

Jacky says she does not dance on pro bono basis. “Would you mind telling me how much you charge your artistes then?” I asked. She laughed and replied “No, I don’t mind because I dance alone.”

“For a music video, I charge not less than Ghc300 and on a stage show, I go for Ghc100 or something higher per music performed,” she observed.

Jacky after completing the Ghana Institute of Journalism in 2013 had had her certificate shelved; unemployed. Perhaps Jacky, like yours truly who has rejected some media houses’ offers including that of a popular television station in Ghana, doesn’t want to read empty contract agreements. She would therefore dance to survive aside the beads of accessories she makes and sells herself. 

However, Jacky faces challenges in her dancing profession. When asked if she has a boyfriend and whether he approves of her dancing, she said “Yes I have a guy and he does not approve of it. So is my family. Both do not side with me on that.

“But since I like it [dancing] they do not stop me,” she said. “Do you enjoy what you do?” I queried. “Oh yeah, I am a professional dancer and I do it with style. To succeed, one has to love what he or she likes and I blow kisses at it. I love and enjoy it.”

The truth is that Jacky is not the only person who benefits from her dancing. There are other individual and various groups of dancers who equally get paid by dancing. Recently, on one Friday evening, a friend invited me to sit with him and another friend at a joint behind the Oxford Street Shoprite Mall over foods and drinks (not what you think). While we sat, a group of young children numbering five came to acrobatically display. From swallowing a glowing fire on a piece of a stick to standing on each other’s shoulders, they lit up the place.

Thereafter, a young man dressed in the resemblance of the late Michael Jackson took the dancing floor. He had given his own collections of songs of the singer to the disc jockey of the street eatery. If the world searches for the Jackson-alikes, I can bet with the coins in my bank account that the Ghana Jackson would be chosen. From the moonwalk to whatever dance moves of MJ’s you know, he did it to perfection. Then … he stylishly removed his fedora, placed it in his palm for the bowels of it to sit prostrate and moved from table to table to solicit for funds (for thrilling us). After taking his offering, he changed his apparel to a casual one, took his pen drive and away, he went to a different gathering of merrymakers.

In Ghana, professions like painting, plumbing, driving, including dancing and many others are either left to the so called uneducated in the society or discarded into the bin. I trust you know that dancing is considered a serious profession in the white man’s land? So … while you are capable of doing the azontos, amandas and the akayidas, why don’t you join a dancing group near you to sell what you do for free? Is it not better than waiting on that targeted job that never comes? When you finally decide to dance for cash, email me and I will link you up with Jacky.

Lest I forget, Jacky says I should inform you she will be on stage with VVIP this Saturday at the 2014 MTN 4Syte Music Video awards night.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Blog: www.aniwaba.blogspot.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

 

 

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In La, Togolese family lives under tree for 10 years

By Solomon Mensah

The Family's Mansion

Food, water and shelter are said to be the basic human needs. Any human being in short of one of these lives a life turned upside down. In the heart of La, a suburb of Accra, an old woman, her daughter, and her (old woman’s) grandchildren - have been living under a giant nim tree for close to ten years now.

Regardless of the prevailing weather conditions, sleeping on mats under the tree at night in an open space is the only option for the family. Their few belongings they have acquired are either washed away by rains or swept away by merciless winds.

It is 6:00am, aged Agnes Akutse, laundry woman, and her family are up from bed with each one of them partaking in getting their house chores done. Madam Akutse folds the mat on which they slept and finds it a resting place. Her daughter, Janet Agbedam, a laundry assistant, holds a broom in hand and sweeps around. Five year old Abigail Akutse helps by shoveling the gathered rubbish into a dustbin.

Two of Madam Agnes’ grandchildren are already dressing up for school while the other younger ones are also preparing to join their colleagues at the Presbyterian Primary and Junior High Schools.

This morning’s routine has being taking place in this open but choked space for the past nine years. On this same ground open ground is the Family’s bedroom, living hall and kitchen. The family’s ‘mansion,’ a tree tall enough to be seen when one is looking at it from the Fraga Oil fuel station across the road.

 “We have been living here for nine years now. When it rains at night, we go knocking at people’s doors to find a place to lodge,” Madam Agnes Akutse, a Togolese native, reveals.

She says that when it rains in the morning, the Family manages to sleep by spreading rubber sheets on the muddy floor in the evening before putting their mats on it. “When it rains in the morning, we sleep here in the evening. We buy charcoal and set fire in a coal pot beside the children to keep them warm.”

Madam Agnes Akutse says her husband died about 17 years ago after they migrated to Ghana. Eventually, they were ejected from the room the family occupied, and they have been sleeping under the nim tree since.  The owner of the plot on which the tree is will not allow them to erect any structure on it. Thus the way they live.

Michael Nii Odoi and Stephen Yemoh are the elderly grandchildren of Madam Agnes Akutse. They are both graduates from Osu Salem High and Accra Business High Schools respectively. For all the time in their lives, they have been competing for space with the rest of the family under this tree that shelters them here at La, not far away from the La Community Bank.

Michael, 23 years old, was however fortunate to have been adopted by a good Samaritan who financed his Senior High School education. He has asthma and had to battle the cold at night during his Primary and Junior High School days before his guardian came to his rescue.

“I dream of becoming a journalist and would want to attend the Ghana Institute of Journalism but there is no help coming my way,” Michael says.

Unlike Michael, his junior brother Stephen Yemoh, 20, still lives with his mother and the rest of the family in the shades of the nim tree. He showed me some cartoons he had drawn telling me he wants to be a cartoonist. Stephen aspires to study graphic design, but he will need financial support.  

Their mother, Janet Agbedam, says she got impregnated by Yemoh, a driver, during her basic school days, rendering her “a school dropout.” She now has four children with him and a fifth with another man. Yemoh, the father of the first four children, “ended the marriage a long time ago and does not cater for the children.”

Janet says “He has gone in for another woman and cares for us no more. He beats me whenever I visit him so I have stopped visiting him. He has refused DOVSU orders to pay an amount of money. I again reported him to the DOVSU but has yielded no results.”

Apart from the bad feeling of living under a tree, Janet’s third born, 14 year old Samuel Yemoh has additional burdens. He needs books and other materials to study in school.

At night, a number of Frytol Cooking Oil gallons are placed around the family’s mats to serve as barrier to the wind. One mosquito net is tired to a dry line to support it in position and it is gently tucked under the mats. Janet Agbedam says she is scared at times for their lives living in the open space.

To prevent – or cure - sicknesses contracted as a result of sleeping in the cold, the family boils some of the leaves of the nim tree under which they sleep as medicine since none of the family members has the National Health Insurance coverage.

I sought the whereabout of driver Yemoh and found him in his family house at La to speak with him for his take on the allegations made against by him his ex-wife. Initially, he foams at his mouth, hearing I came to ask about his children; soon enough, he sits me down to talk to me.

“It is not that I have fathered the children and left them to their fate,” starts the 42-year old driver. “It is because of their disobedience. At first, I was not working but now I am a trotro driver and I asked the elderly children to come and work with me as conductors when they finished SHS but they refused.

“I live in my Father’s house where there are many rooms. I asked them to come and stay with me but they would not come because they will not do what I asked them to do. So … I told them not come to me again,” Mr. Yemoh explained.

I first investigated this story and got it aired on GTV a year ago (October 12, 2014). On October 15, 2014, a year after that broadcast, I visited the ‘tree family’ and nothing has changed. Three of Janet’s young children are currently home, having been sacked from school for owing levy fees, and Janet Agbedam is also battling a “disease” whose name she doesn’t know.

For Madam Agnes Akutse and her family, their prayer is to hold a key to what they can call their room…one day.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

Writer’s email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Blog: www.aniwaba.blogspot.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Might Die Tonight!

 

By Solomon Mensah

Farah (left) & a casualty of the war

Somewhere in August this year, I had gone to shave my hair at a barbering shop located at Coastal-Spintex, Accra. After shaving, I chanced upon The Times, a UK newspaper, on the centre table of the shop which made me spend hours reading. While reading, I bumped into a write-up on the Israel-Gaza conflict making me to abandon the rest of the stories.

“Every night, as Gaza City shudders under a barrage of bombings, the secondary school student cowers in her bedroom and posts a blow-by-blow account in English of what it is like to live under fire,” Bel Trew, a freelance journalist, wrote (in August 4, edition) of a 16 year old Farah Baker.

“She likes Taylor Swift, wants to be a lawyer and is an avid user of social media,” Bel noted. “The only difference between Farah Baker and other 16-year-olds around the world is that she tweets from a war zone. Her twitter feed, @Farah Gazan, is littered with videos of airstrikes, recordings of drones and photos of latest casualties.”    

Farah does not merely worry about tweeting from a war zone but the constant ‘hide and seek’ with death. She lives opposite to the Al_Shifa Hospital. Farah would at times stand on her rooftop and observe what is happening at the morgue of the hospital whenever situations are a bit calmer. On one of her observations, she tweeted seeing “a woman shouting, screaming and slugging. After a while, a doctor arrived and with him was a dead body which was covered by a white cloth.”

She has witnessed three wars which she described as 'hardest ones'. For her and her family, to survive in Gaza for just an hour is the greatest miracle one could ever recount; the kind a Ghanaian would seize the microphone in church to shout on top of their voice Mark Anim Yirenkyi’s ‘Aseda dwom.’

That is it: Gaza scare! But in all these brouhahas, in struggling to sustain one’s breath, Farah and her family have not ceased to praise Allah for protecting them. They have not killed themselves by committing suicide to shame the enemy. They have not stopped smiling because though some of their hospitals (if not all) are bombed, food and drugs are in little supply, most houses razed down to rubbles and what have you. So... who are you to end your life because the going has become tougher for you?

Perhaps, you might think you are the only troubled soul wandering on Odomankoma’s planet. Listen to this....

It was only two weeks to complete teacher training college. The colleges of education across the country had given their third year students some days off to relax from their teaching practice before going back to campus to write their final papers. I had had my teaching practice at Wamfie, Dormaa East district, and, then, I would rush home (Sunyani) to eat from my mother’s kitchen from time to time.

We vacated, came home and met my lovely mother, Ama Adease, and the entire family. As old as she was, she would never entirely ‘handover’ the kitchen to her three daughters to do the cooking while she sat idle. She would strive to do something to assist the cooks. Perhaps, the only time she vacated the kitchen was when she went to the farm and came back home late.

Ama Adease would share her meal with those afflicted by hunger and her foodstuffs with the needy. These and many other benevolent deeds became part and parcel of her life. Once again at home, I enjoyed seeing her hold on to such deeds tightly like the scarf sitting on the head of a Nigerian woman.

But... on 19th July, 2010, the dawn of the day we were supposed to leave the house for school, the unexpected happened. It was around 4:00am when one of my brothers struck a loud bang at my door. I had slept around 1:00am (doing some reading) so to be called to wake up at 4:00am was sickening. I managed to creak the door opened only to be told “Maame awu!” to wit; mom is dead.

All of a sudden, it seemed I was watching a Kumawood movie. I shook terribly as if I had touched a jelly fish. “This can’t be true,” I told myself. The very night that hatched that awful dawn, I had had a chat with my mother telling her that when the cock crowed to usher in a new day, I would leave the house for school. She responded ‘Ok.’ She sat in a plastic chair in the heart of the compound chatting with the wife of my brother who broke the news to me.

When the hour hand hit 2:00pm that Monday and a number of black-clad sympathizers sat under the mounted canopies, it was then I realized “agye gon.” Maame (as we affectionately called her) was gone. Almost a year to commemorate her one year anniversary, on 18th June, 2011, my father also passed on. A smell of death I could sense. Since these days till now, knowing how painful it is to lose a relative, I never have wished for anyone (not even my arch enemy) to taste or smell death.

Life has not been easy. I struggled to finance my education at the Ghana Institute of Journalism because I closed the door of my source of income – teaching - to pursue my heart desire; journalism. I did no longer want to live someone else’s dream and I have dearly paid a price for switching professions. There have been days I lived on less than Ghc2. There have been days all hopes were lost. I was recently turned down (employment) by two great Ghanaian media platforms. But amazingly, there have also been days people asked me for an unimaginably huge sums of money in the form of loan, asked me to help them publish their books and the list is endless. Isn’t God a wonder working God?

Following the reignition of the Israel-Gaza conflict on the 8th of July, 2014, the pungent smell of death in Gaza became much more suffocating. It was, therefore, not surprising that on 28th July, 2014, Farah Baker shared a tweet: “Gaza is my area. I can’t stop crying. I might die tonight.”

The most important thing to be well noted here is that Farah did not use the word ‘will’ but ‘might.’ Get the difference. Fortunately, her little faith of a sustainable life one day at a time worked magic. “This girl can’t believe that she is back for her ordinary peaceful life. I am soooo happy,” she tweeted recently. Israel and Palestinian groups have on 26th August, 2014, agreed an open-ended ceasefire to end seven weeks of fighting in Gaza.

I have never lost hope in life, Farah did not, and I charge you to steadfastly hold on to God, faith and hope, too. Forget not that no matter how bad you think your predicament is, someone else’s is more bitter than yours. I write from Gaza to motivate you. O.J, the Ghanaian musician, transliterated his song “Obi Nya W’ay3”; “Somebody get you do.”

 

The writer is a Sunyani-based Freelance journalist.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Blog: www.aniwaba.blogspot.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

 

Berekum: A Premature Widow?

Back view of Berekum's Library

Somewhere in 1924, my father walked with his father (my grandfather) from Berekum to Kumasi. The long walk was to attend a welcome durbar held for Nana Agyeman Prempeh I on his return from Seychelles. I guess you remember the Seychelles story? Then, my father told me Berekum was beautifully blossoming like the promising breasts of a girl in her prime. Indeed, Berekum, was a little Las Vegas in the Brong Ahafo Region.

It (Berekum) is 36km from Sunyani (the capital of Brong Ahafo Region). Nsoatre, one of Berekum's immediate neighbors, is on its east, Seikwa to the north and Gyaman to the west.

Berekum, according to hearsay, was one of the first towns in Ghana to have had storey buildings. The "Mpem-num abrosan," a storey building that cost the owner five thousand cedis- fifty pesewas (50p) in today's currency together with many other buildings have become local tourist attraction centers to citizens and visitors alike; not necessarily because of the buildings' architectural beauty but of the cost involved in putting them up. Such seem outrageously cheaper today.  Thanks to our drowning cedis.

Walking through the streets of Shalom FM, NHIS and the main lorry station street that joins the roundabout, among others, these buildings have been aesthetically queued up on the various shoulders of such streets and seem to form a canopy over one's head. Coming from Sunyani, plying the NHIS route, one meets the main roundabout. 

Facing the roundabout with my back towards the NHIS route, I face the road leading to Drobo with the same road branching on the right to head towards Mpatasie. On my left is the Dormaa road and on my right is another leading to Mpatapo. From all these directions come cars, motorbikes and bicycles with some of the town's cheerful citizens either crossing the roads or walking on its shoulders.

In a story I did for Adom TV- multi TV- somewhere last year, the chief of Nanasuano (Nanasuano is a suburb of Berekum) told me in an interview that considering the layout, ornamental plants, cleanliness and good roads of Berekum, the title "Golden City" was indeed befitting for the town.

However, today, the story of the 'Golden City' could be told differently. The beauty of the city is fading away. Kato, a suburb of Berekum, is the town that ushers everyone (when coming from Sunyani) into the Berekum city. 

Moving further away from Kato, one is greeted by the Berekum Senior High School situated on the left and a bit further on the right, the Berekum College of Education. However, the entrance of the College, in shambles, would make you feel like rejecting her greeting.

Journeying on, on your left sits the town's library in a ‘forest' close to the Agricultural Development Bank. The forest library, since my days (2007/2010) at the Berekum College of Education till now, has its entire compound grown with weeds tall enough to swallow a class three pupil.

At ‘Scotch De Low' (a drinking spot on the shoulder of an intersection- which gives you the choice to either ply the NHIS or Shalom FM routes), potholes-turned-manholes gladly say "akwaaba!" Thanks to God, the town's court house which once stood as a hen coop, somewhat opposite to the Scotch, has recently seen massive renovation. But opposite to the court, a community centre sits dejectedly.

Let me take you back to the town's lorry station manhole-street. With Mpatapo behind me and facing Dormaa road, Berekum's main lorry station is situated to my right. Considering how Berekum has come in terms of growth, the size of the station is too small a plot to accommodate the numerous vehicles that compete for passengers. In more plain terms, the legendary Aseibu Amanfi could consume a farm of maize planted on the station's plot within a split second.

At the choked station, observing the movement of these vehicles, the ones that have finished loading passengers onboard spend much more time finding their way out. And when these cars finally get out of the station, a fleet of vehicles also parked on the said street pose as another threat. As if this is not enough, taxis and other passenger cars stop and load/offload passengers in the middle of the street. Consequently, there's total indiscipline.

Let me add this before the Zoom Lion workers chastise me for not telling their story. Still on Berekum's lorry station, is the indiscriminate waste disposal by both drivers and commuters. Litters on the floor of the station could form a carpet for a conference hall. I ask myself whether this waste dumping is as the result of lack of dustbins here. But is the earth man's dustbin?

Still on indiscipline and wrong parking, the Shalom FM street is noted for double parking. This poses a great danger to pedestrians since they could be hit by approaching cars and motorbikes.

Berekum is my father's hometown and I love to associate myself with the city. But the time has come for the truth to be told of the fading title, the Golden City. Indeed, a Golden City cannot not be associated with an entrance of its college of education that does not even match that of a kindergarten. A Golden City cannot not be associated with a library of which weeds have taken over. A Golden City cannot not be associated with potholes-turned-manholes on its streets. 

A Golden City cannot not be associated with the gross indiscipline of loading and offloading passengers in the middle of roads, dumping waste indiscriminately, and double parking on the shoulders of their roads. 

A Golden City cannot not be associated with a lorry station that is only a little bigger than the size of a lotto kiosk. A Golden City cannot not be associated with a plush roundabout that links a tattered road. A Golden City cannot be associated with …

Is Berekum not too young a ‘wife' to lose her ‘husband'- beauty?

The writer is a Sunyani-based Freelance journalist

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba