TALKING DRUM: Child Beggars! A horrifying story of tomorrow’s people

A child putting into his wallet begged-money

Observing her from afar, she looks through the passersby like a football coach selecting his potential players. 
 

55 year old Auntie Vero, donning a sporty jacket sits in a wheelchair somewhere at Spanner Junction, a bus stop on the 37-Madina road. 

Hanging on one side of her wheelchair is a blue container which serves as a receptacle of the goodwill showered on her by passersby. These are either those touched by her plight or irritated by the incessant calls by her for money. 

Physically challenged, Auntie Vero begs for a living. She tells me her son, a JHS graduate and an iced water seller, would sit her at her begging point in the morning at the Spanner Junction and takes her home at sun set. 

“If I mean to go home, it is just a phone call away and my son will come and take me away. He sells iced water on the streets,” Auntie Vero said. 

She reveals she ended up physically challenged at the age of two, her mother had told her. A Whiteman who tried to help took her to Nsawam but the treatment was unsuccessful. 

Auntie Vero would later learn a trade at the social welfare Centre. She learnt needle work and specialized in making stuffed toys. She, however, says economic factors forced her to quit establishing herself in the trade to hitting the streets to beg for a living.

“After I had made the stuffed toys, I struggled to get people to buy it in bulk from me; I couldn’t withstand the financial burden. It was then that a visually impaired woman introduced me to do begging on the streets.” 

Auntie Vero is not the first and she won’t be the last in the begging business. Almost on all the streets of the capital city, Accra, one would see beggars going about their business of soliciting for money.

There are those who have found jobs helping other people to beg. At Kaneshie First Light, in Accra, Richard Oppong, a visually impaired young man sits in-between two parked saloon cars. 

He tells me he hires the services of such persons. “What I do is to hire these people [one person at a time] to take me to the streets to beg. So, they will take the money and give it to me. At the end of the day, I give my assistant one-third out of the total proceeds,” says Richard.

Mr. Latif Yusuf is an Anthropology and History lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism. He says begging has been one prominent issue history has known off.

“The history of begging started in the Biblical period, moving down to individual countries and communities. Begging in general in recent period started [maybe] due to the breakdown of our extended family system. The extended family afforded people who are hard up to seek for help from other family members.”

Auntie Vero says she makes at most 15GHC a day out of begging. She bemoaned her benefactors giving her coins instead of paper notes.

However, the trade which Auntie Vero says does not fetch her enough money is said to be illegal. Lawyer Kwamina Mensah says begging “is actually a criminal offence in Ghana. The Beggars and Destitute Act (1969) clearly states that.” 

He adds that he who encourages one to beg is him or herself guilty before the law. 

If begging is an offence, why do we see children indulging in it too? These children, basically, abandon school to hunt for monies on the streets.

Meet Mary Seidu, a class two pupil who together with her mother beg for money at the Canadian Embassy area on the 37-Madina bound road. 

She says she joins her mother at the begging point whenever she closes from school. When asked why she begs, Mary said she does so because they need ‘something’ to survive on. 

At the Kwame Nkrumah Circle and other places such as Lapaz and around the Accra Mall area, some foreign nationals push their children onto the streets to beg. These children would hold a passerby insisting the passerby gives them money.

Right in front of me at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, a young boy held the skirt of Comfort, a passerby, for money. She says these children aggressively attacking their targets is worrying.

Similarly, at around the Accra Mall another child accosted a young man for money. The man who gave his name as Nick says the situation is embarrassing.

For Comfort and Nick, they want something to be done about the situation.

The question one would like to ask is how did these foreigners come into the country and with what intention? My efforts to get the Ghana Immigration Service respond to this question yielded no results. 

However, pieces of information I picked from the grounds indicate that the Ghana Immigration Service itself does not know how these foreigners got into the country. 

Mr. Latif says the influx of these foreign nationals is as the result of the Sahelian drought which occurred in the 1970s-80s.

“Countries such Niger, Mali and Chad were affected forcing most people to move to other places to seek for greener pastures. 

At Lapaz, I interacted with Hamid. Hamid, per my guess, will be about seven years old. He has tried hard enough to learn a little bit of the English Language.

All he could say to me in English was that he was hungry as he pointed his right hand towards his mouth. He makes gestures signaling that he want money from me.

For Mr. Bright Appiah, a Child rights advocate, he is worried over these children indulging in begging on the streets. He says they must be enrolled in school.

He says “these children [both Ghanaians and the foreigners] need to be protected.”

Mr. Benjamin Akonu Otoo is the acting director at the Department of Social Development under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.

He says his office is not in a position to cater for these children. 

“It is not that we don’t see these children indulging in begging on the streets. We see them. Mostly, it is the police who have to make the arrest but you ask yourself if they arrest them, where will they take them to?”

Mr. Otoo wants the Beggars and Destitute Act reviewed.

As it stands, begging has become part and parcel of us but the question remains; must children abandon school to beg for a living? And when will the Department of Social Development be resourced enough to take these children from the streets to give them a better future?

By Solomon Mensah

Talking Drum is published on www.3news.com on every Friday. The writer is a broadcast journalist with 3FM 92.7. Views expressed here solely remains his opinion and not that of his media organization.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: Montie 3, NDC’s free speech & a Man called ‘Ntensere’

By Solomon Mensah

"Talking Drum" is a column published on www.3news.com on Fridays

On Wednesday, July 27 2016 at the headquarters of the National Democratic Congress at Adabraka in Accra, some supporters of the party had thronged.

Standing either akimbo or with their arms folded on their chests at the forecourt of the premises, they demanded nothing but one thing. That President John Dramani Mahama and the NDC executives should fight for the freeing of the three persons involved in the Montie FM’s said unsavory comments against the Supreme Court judges.

The three sentenced, radio host Salifu Maase alias Mugabe and his panelists Godwin Ako Gunn and Alistair Nelson were said to have made a life-threatening statements against judges who ordered for the deletion of over 56, 000 ‘illegal’ names from the voters’ register. For being cited for contempt by the Supreme Court, the three after days of trial were each sentenced to four months in prison on that faithful Wednesday. They are, in addition, to pay GHC10, 000 default of which they will serve one month more in prison.

This, these supporters of the ruling NDC deem it too hash a punishment for their colleagues. 

“Massa, all that we are saying is that ‘No Mugabe and Co, no vote,’” some of the angry supporters told me in an interview.

On that Wednesday evening I interviewed Communications Director of the NDC, Solomon Nkansah on 3FM. He said: “We [NDC] aren’t the judiciary but what we can say is that there are a lot of schools of thought and experienced people in the law and they are also calling on persons who … I understand other people should go for review. I am not part of their lawyers but I do believe that the right will be done. 

"I want to use your medium to convey my messages of hope and assurance to the teeming NDC supporters that the NDC party will not turn its back on these three young men. We will do everything to give them the needed support.”

As if the party supporters were not convinced by Mr. Nkansah’s assurance, they picketed again at the party’s headquarters on the following day. When I got there at 10:27am the “freedom fighters” stood wearing red and black apparel yet humming the same chorus; “No Mugabe and Co, no vote.’”  

Angrily waiting for party officials to talk to them the National Chairman of the NDC, Dr. Kofi Porturphy, popped up. He stood face to face with the supporters with just the giant metallic gate of the office’s main entrance separating them. Before Dr. Porturphy would speak, he ordered all journalists out of their meeting. Yes! He had a secret to share with the supporters. 

After about seven minutes, the supporters who were earlier fuming with anger were now cheering up their National Chairman. When I drew near some of these supporters I was told that Dr. Porturphy had told them the President John Dramani Mahama has heard their cry and that “he [the president] will surely do something about the situation.”

It is disheartening to know that the NDC is basing its argument on “free speech” in calling on President Mahama to exercise his constitutional powers to free the Montie 3.

Aside Mr. Solomon Nkansah who had told me, as part of my interview with him, that the sentencing of the Montie 3 curtails free speech, I have as well read and heard some other party officials saying same. 

In their petition to the president to invoke such constitutional powers under Article 72 of the Constitution of Ghana, solicitors Ato Dadzie and George Loh wrote that they accept the decision by the Supreme Court. However, they added that they “do not believe that citizens of Ghana ought to be committed to prison for infractions on free expression especially in light of the repeal of the criminal libel law.”

How do we understand free speech? Does free speech mean one could let derogatory words freely leave their mouths as droplets of milk freely leave a lactating mother’s breasts?

Early this year, working as a freelancer, I wrote a piece on Radio Ghana’s News Commentary segment of its news bulletin. It was about France’s satirical magazine called Charlie Hebdo who had had some of its staff killed including the editor by some aggrieved persons. Their crime? Charlie Hebdo had consistently drew irreverent cartoons of Prophet Muhammad that which the killers deemed it an affront on their religion.

When the Charlie Hebdo’s sad news broke, the world saw prominent personalities calling the ‘barbaric act’ as a threat to free speech. Freedom of speech [and for that matter freedom of the media] does not in any way mean that one’s speech should be a threat or ridicule to another man’s peace.

Do we call a threat to kill some judges as a freedom of speech? Only in Ghana! Whereas the NDC’s call for a lesser punishment for the Montie 3 maybe somewhat reasonable, I think freeing them entirely would give the rest of Ghanaians derogatory license in our media discourse. What do you think?

On social media and on other platforms, some people are in a way jubilating over the Montie 3’s imprisonment. I am not, however, surprised. Are you? In this country, everything boils down to NPP or NDC. But we must not forget the nickname ‘Ntensere’ of Michael Boateng Amanfo’s character Kofi Bεyεεdεn, in his book Sε Ɛbεwie.

Sticking to Kofi Bεyεεdεn’s nickname without going into details of the book, it is advisable we desist from rejoicing over someone’s mistake for tomorrow may be our turn. 

What I think we ought to do is to learn from the Montie 3’s mistakes. In my article on the Charlie Hebdo’s stupidity, I offered one advice in a form of a proverb to other media persons and to those who have access to such platforms.

That, “a child whose father received bullet in the head,” the Igbos of Nigeria say, “uses an iron pot as a helmet.”

The writer is a broadcast journalist with 3FM 92.7. Views expressed here remain solely his opinion and not that of his media organization.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

   

Nkrumah Circle: A ‘Monkey’ Being Decorated!

By Solomon Mensah

Nkrumah Circle interchange under construction

After we had closed from lectures, a friend sat me and other friends down over some bottles of drinks.

Don’t hold your breath, I took a bottle of Malta Guinness! This was Saturday, February 27, 2016.

Our gathering was very successful. We discussed almost every trending issue concerning Ghana – from the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards disqualifying Shatta Wale from its 2016 edition to President Mahama’s 2016 State of the Nation Address.

There at the Ghana Institute of Journalism’s cafeteria were five passionate young men poised to see Ghana rise. We all had at least one concern about the nation that we wished changed for the better.

My concern had to do with the hawkers still taking over the Kwame Nkrumah Circle even when the construction of the interchange is ongoing.

True to my Nkrumah Circle worry, at 7:53 pm on the very day I complained to my friends, I watched a trailer when I got to Circle. The trailer, rather a horrifying tale starred a young thief who whisked a lady’s phone.

The victim, sitting at the front seat of a four-wheel drive, held her phone in her hands as a pupil does to an excellent terminal report in the air. She was presumably on WhatsApp.

I saw the young man approaching the said car. Within a split of a second, the thief had annex ‘his’ phone from the lady, turned, doubled his steps while the lady shouted “thief, thief!”

The thief waned into the thick crowd. Just like that. Although that was my first time witnessing a theft case at Nkrumah Circle, I have heard gory accounts told by many other victims.

Three years ago, a lady friend cried her heart out when she realized in a bus that her laptop had been stolen. While jostling for a bus at the Nkrumah Circle, after work, the cunning and unsuspecting thieves cut-open her bag on her blind side and took away the laptop.

If we were to call on the general public to render an account on their Nkrumah Circle experience, I am sure it will take the father of history, Herodotus, to document such accounts.

But thievery is not the only problem at Nkrumah Circle. What annoys the most is the hawkers taking over the streets as a market place. If you mean to walk through this part of Accra and you do not have the heart of a class one teacher, then be prepared to fight always.

“Yes, boss. Hello madam …” the phone-in-hand sellers would beckon. As if that is not enough, when you decide not to give them attention, they hold you by whichever part of your body they get hold to.

These hawkers are the very reason for which the Odawna Pedestrian Shopping Mall was built. Once a reporter with The Finder Newspaper, I did a story on the shopping mall where the head-trader of the place told me that the few traders who had occupied the Mall may go back to the streets.

His explanation was so simple and reasonable that bombarding him with questions, I thought, was unnecessary. “My son [the head-trader addressed me], we were on the streets but were convinced to occupy this place. The idea was that (we) all the traders will move to these shops so the market stays here. But, the authorities could not enforce the other traders to come here. They are on the streets selling and they are having all the sales.”

Indeed, why would I begrudge the head-trader when we only make cacophony of noises about policies and bylaws for two weeks and then go back to sleep? When after a hoax made Ghanaians wake up at dawn, stood on football fields with many saying their last prayer because an earthquake was about striking us, we made bylaws.

That bylaw said that Ghanaians must register their SIM cards to make it easy to arrest anyone who peddled falsehood using his or her phone. This law worked but only for two weeks. Now, SIM card vendors sell registered cards using either their own identification cards or that of unsuspecting innocent persons.

As it stands, one can easily buy a SIM card today, commit a heinous crime with it and cause the police to arrest an innocent man whose ID card a SIM vendor may have used to register the culprit’s new phone number.

However, since our elders say that a frog does not jump backwards, I thought our leaders have learnt their lessons well. But a year and some months into the Nkrumah Circle interchange makes me understand that the average black politician thinks about the next election and not the next generation.

In the first place, it is not a coincidence that the government of the day timed the construction of the interchange for its completion to meet Election 2016. This, however, is pardonable. But I find it sickening that the contractor of the interchange having to move the hawkers to one side then to another in order to get the interchange constructed.

Since 2014 that I acquired a passport, I have not yet travelled beyond the borders of Ghana. Frankly, I have never seen a plane on a tarmac except the ones that fly above my head. That notwithstanding, I can say without fear of contradiction that nowhere in Europe or America would people sell right under a constructed interchange.

A Zimbabwean proverb teaches that an ox hide must be folded to a shape one wants while it is still fresh. Was this not the right time to have kicked off the hawkers at Nkrumah Circle and forced them to stick to selling at the Odawna shopping mall and at other markets?

We could not sack them before the construction. Will we be able to do so after the interchange has been constructed considering the fact that Election 2016 is just few months away? Certainly, the fear of losing the hawkers’ votes will not make that ‘a prudent political decision.’

In his book “Dark Days In Ghana,” Dr. Kwame Nkrumah cited a letter a white man by Name Richard Wright wrote him.

“I say to you publicly and frankly: The burden of suffering that must be borne, impose it upon one generation! … Be merciful by being stern!” said Mr. Wright.

I look up to a president, who would impose the burden of suffering in kicking off these hawkers from our streets on one generation. A president who will not listen to the mantra ‘this is where we get our daily bread.’ A president who would sacrifice winning the next election to winning the good of the larger society. A president who will be merciful by being stern.

Until then, Nkrumah Circle may have all the good looks with its monumental facelift and upgrade but a decorated monkey will still be a monkey.

The writer is a journalist and a cultural activist.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

Instagram: aniwaba

‘Let the Charter House awards go’ - Okyeame Kwame tells Shatta Wale

Okyeame Kwame

The Rap Doctor, Okyeame Kwame has advised acclaimed dancehall commando Shatta Wale to let the 2016 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards pass him by.

Speaking on Accra based 3FM on Wednesday evening, the Rap Doctor said that: “I think he [Shatta Wale] had it coming. If you take an award someone has given you and you auction it on Facebook, you send it back to them and you want to go inside again, I think any sane organization will make sure that … I mean … how would they know you are not coming back for it to ridicule them again?

“I like Shatta Wale. I understand his hustle. I think he is an inspiration to all of us but I think he should let the Charter House awards thing go. He should let it go.”

Answering a question on his favourite Ghanaian artiste currently, Okyeame Kwame said he likes Shatta Wale.

“I like Shatta Wale. I like the whole Bandana silence, makeover, the rebirth of Bandana [to] Shatta Wale as a movement. I think he is the modern definition of marketing in music properly.”

Charter House disqualified the dancehall commando from the 2016 VGMAs over comments he made about the awards of which they are demanding an apology.

Source: Solomon Mensah/Aniwaba

Afia Schwarzenegger, Ken Agyapong & the Ampan Dankwa scenario

Afia Schwarzenegger & Kennedy Agyapong

“The drums beat and the flutes sang and the spectators held their breath,” Chinua Achebe, in his book Things Fall Apart, described the fiercest fight between Okonkwo and Amalinze, the Cat.

That spectacular Amalinze-Okonkwo banter was years ago. Wondering whether we have had such a hyped bout in Ghana aside the recent Bukum Banku vs. Ayitey Powers’ bouts? You need not look further. 

It started with comedienne Afia Schwarzenegger, who doubles as a radio and television personality, hurling missiles of insults at Honourable Kennedy Ohene Agyapong for the latter’s reported attack on President Mahama’s family.

Defending one’s President positively, I must say, is in a good direction. Afia Schwarzenegger started a good course. She wanted to ensure sanity prevailed in our daily politics where one would not go the extent of seeing his or her opponent as an enemy.

However, like a child who drew a beautiful lion but unfortunately added wings, Afia spoilt her ‘lion.’ Lions don’t need wings! Indeed, Afia could have respectfully tamed Mr. Agyapong and reminded him that he bore the title ‘Honourable.’

Mr. Agyapong, when received the barrage of insults and the comedienne calling on him to let Ghanaians know his true source of wealth, did not take it lightly either. Speaking on his Oman FM, which Afia said she would never tune in to, the Honourable Member of Parliament did not mince words. He, as well, retaliated calling the Kↄkↄↄkↄ host a prostitute.

This brouhaha between the two has generated a heated debate among a section of Ghanaians. Both sides of the divide either praised or bashed the fighters. Recently on Radio Ghana’s News Commentary, a social commentator bashed Mr. Agyapong for not acting as an Honourable. The commentator, again, called on Parliament to discipline their colleague for stooping so low.

While the bashing and praising went on, the supporters of both Mr. Agyapong and Afia hailed them respectively. They did not only hail but scored their respective candidate with high marks and declared their fighter winner of the verbal battle. 

If an egg falls on a stone or a stone falls on an egg, our elders say, the result is the same. Whether it was Mr. Agyapong who first insulted President Mahama and his family or it was Afia Schwarzenegger who first insulted Mr. Agyapong, both sides did not help matters.

Without fear or favour, I condemn the two for not acting professionally. However, I will not ‘put it to’ Mr. Agyapong for not doing what is expected of Honourable Members of Parliament.

In one of Nana Kwame Ampadu’s songs titled “Ampan Dankwa” – where the title refers to the bat, the legendary highlife musician told an intriguing story in the animal kingdom.

The animals had met for a meeting. Mr. Squirrel, the Secretary, began the meeting by marking his register. When it got to the turn of Ampan Dankwa, the bat, there was silence. Squirrel mentioned the name over and over again. It was obvious Ampan Dankwa could not attend the meeting.

It was later discovered that Ampan Dankwa was in the belly of the Leopard, after a surgical operation. The case appeared before Judge Rabbit to rule on why Leopard had breached an established law that called for animals to live in peace without one eating the other as food.

The court case was tensed. Very! Perhaps, comparable to the NPP-NDC Supreme Court battle. Lawyers for both Ampan Dankwa and Leopard argued vehemently. But… the Leopard’s lawyer’s interpretation of the law had Judge Rabbit setting Leopard free.

“Mr. Judge,” started Leopard’s lawyer, “it is true the laws say one animal should not pounce on the other as its prey. However, there is no clause that says that because of this law one could use the mouth of his/her friend as a playing ground.”

Leopard had had his mouth opened while sleeping. Ampan Dankwa, instead of waking him up to ask for them to play, decided to rather play in the mouth of the former.

Nana Ampadu recounts that Judge Rabbit was well convinced and eventually set Leopard free. He [Nana Ampadu] commenting on the animals’ story cautioned the public not to take things for granted.

It is true Members of Parliament must command respect by first respecting themselves. However, Mr. Agyapong could not when Afia Schwarzenegger had virtually been given the license for abusive words to freely leave her mouth as milk freely drops from a lactating mother’s breasts. 

When it was alleged that musician Becca had had an affair with one of the Black Stars’ players in Brazil, Afia Schwarzenegger had the guts to call the former names. As a matter of fact, even if Becca indeed had that affair and it did not contradict any of our laws… then no one had the right to fight her. After all, Afia Schwarzenegger is not a ‘moral police’.

In another breath, Afia Schwarzenegger has fought with her former boss Delay. That did not end there. She has battled Bishop Obinim and the boxing stars, Bukum Banku and Ayitey Powers.

Afia Schwarzenegger may be right in some of these instances but I think her approach has not been the best. In fighting Mr. Agyapong over his derogatory words fired at the President, one is tempted to ask if what she says of the president herself is not derogatory enough. Don’t get me wrong. I am not blindly justifying Mr. Agyapong’s act.

On her show dubbed Kↄkↄↄkↄ on UTV, she is known for flaunting herself as the President’s girlfriend among other risqué jokes. So… when the Despite Group and Okay FM issued a press statement on February 9, 2016, to apologise to Mr. Agyapong and Ghanaians for their presenter’s words, I laughed.  Here in Ghana, we do unnecessary things with careless abundance and later apologise.

Indeed, the Despite Group should have long tamed its lioness. It was rather unfortunate they had to wait for Mr. Agyapong to act as the Leopard in Nana Ampadu’s story to do the taming.

How the media has raised Afia Schwarzenegger is not any different from how they did to Nana Aba Anamoah, formerly of TV3. TV3 revered her so much that Nana Aba insulting Viasat 1 on live broadcast was brushed under the carpet.

In my article on the ‘Nana Aba was there’ titled “My view: Of Nana Aba Anamoah & TV3,” I blasted TV3 for poor-parenting the young woman. I, as well, gave an advice to others especially loud-mouth media personalities to take a caution from the Nana Aba’s.

That advice was summed up in an Igbo proverb which says that a person whose father received a bullet in the head, uses an iron pot as a helmet. The media must also be warned to desist from hipping uncultured mouths.

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

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

Instagram: aniwaba