TALKING DRUM: Of a Tailor at Kweku Panfo & the next President of Ghana!

Tailor John Atise at his shop

He swatted from his right arm what appeared to be a ‘mysterious’ mosquito. The sun was harshly smiling and John Atise was busily working.
 

His right foot stepping on a small black pad that laid on the ground, John’s Masco Sewing Machine sounded ‘grrrrrrrrrrr’ and he gently pushed the edges of a folded material under the machine’s needle-point.

I had gone to Kweku Panfo to report on the December 1 special voting and I would engage him to know more about him.

“I learnt this trade, as an apprentice, in Takoradi, in the Western region, and graduated in 2004,” he tells me.   

Here at Kweku Panfo, a community under the Domeabra-Obom Constituency of the Ga South Municipality, John Atise is both their Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani. He is anything fashion.

“There used to be three tailors here but two of them have abandoned their shops to ply a new trade as tricycle riders. We are only left with Atise here at [Kweku] Panfo and if you are a man and wants to look classy, then, you cannot bypass Atise,” says Kwame, a resident.

“Whether it is wedding or funeral, our tailor remains Atise,” says another man.

John Atise plies his trade in his family house under an erected post of four bamboo sticks with a corrugated iron sheet roofing it. 

The Kweku Panfo acclaimed tailor tells me that he is forced to close from work whenever it rains. “You see this roofing, my brother! You tell me if it is possible staying under this shed for just a second when it rains.”

The iron sheet, when one raises the head could see the heavens through its holes. Electric cables hang top-down from his shop’s roofing to connect to his sewing machine.

A long view of John Atise's shop

John says after he completed learning how to sew in Takoradi, he made efforts to get his own shop in the city. However, after waiting for that miracle that never came he decided to go back to his roots. 

“It is here [Kweku Panfo] I come from and I told myself that to starve in Takoradi, it will be better I join my wife and children back home. At least, by the close of each day, in my hometown, there would be food on my table,” says John as he fixedly stared at his sewing material.

His coming back to Kweku Panfo was a little after his graduation in 2004. He learnt all he could in Takoradi as he tells me is able to even sew choir robes among others.

John Atise shows his certificate

John’s major challenge now is that although he has customers that keep bringing him materials to be sewn, these customers refuse to come back for their shirts. It sounds interesting, right? But what could be the reason?

He says “the customers are unable to pay the 20Gh₵ per a shirt sewn.” At times, he is so sympathetic that he reduces his price to 15Gh₵ but these customers would still not come for their shirts.

John says what keeps him ‘opening’ his shop on daily basis is the word “hope.” He has that hope that as the cock awaits to announce the birth of a new day, someone among his numerous customers would come for their shirts so he gets his profit.

Kweku Panfo seems to be habouring an army of youth who are poised to achieve in life. John Atise is not the only one dying to succeed here. Opposite to John’s tailoring shop is another shed.

This shed, far better than that of John, serves as the parking lot of the Kweku Panfo Okada Riders Association (KPORA). The road from Domeabra to Kweku Panfo is pot-holed as the front teeth of an old lady in an Ananse story. And this road is basically inaccessible by cars. 

Some members of the Kweku Panfo Okada Riders Association

 

So, these Okada riders serve as that ‘bridge’ connecting Domeabra to Kweku Panfo. When I got to their station I could count as many as nine motorbikes that were parked awaiting passengers.

Uhmali Francis is the head of the Kweku Panfo Okada Riders Association. He tells me they charge 10Gh₵ from Kweku Panfo to Domeabra. 

Like the case of John Atise, the Okada riders also have concerns. They have not been able to register their motorbikes. This, they find it hard going near Kasoa as they fear they would be apprehended by the police when caught.

“So, why are you not registering these bikes to get out of this hide and seek with the police,” I asked.

“The truth is that these are not our bikes. We work for our masters [owners of the bikes] and they are not listening to us despite our complaints,” says Uhmali Francis.

Francis, as well, tells me they are not paid at the end of the day/month. What their masters demand is a fixed amount of say 100Gh₵ a week. Here, if the riders are able to work to accrue enough money exceeding the targeted amount, then, they [riders] pocket the surplus. 

“It’s like we are working in vain. I just hope any government that will come into power after the December 7 polls will come to our rescue.

“We just need such a government to support us by buying us the motorbikes so we work to defray its cost, by so doing it becomes ours after defraying the cost of the bike.”

The riders tell me they do not engage themselves in partisan politics. They all will obviously not vote the same presidential candidate. However, they will eagerly work with any government that comes to power.

The plight of the youth of Kweku Panfo is a microcosm of the bigger picture across the country. If our youth get actively involved in a productive venture, no politician stand the chance of inciting them to violence. 

I believe government creating an enabling environment for the youth like John Atise and his cohorts to start up their own businesses would go a long way to put our country on the right path.  

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

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba

Fast rising highlife musician ABAT to drop ‘Nnipa Nnyɛ Koose’

Highlife musician ABAT

Are you in love and is your partner taking you for granted or perhaps you know someone in this situation? 

If you answered yes, then cry no more as one of Ghana’s emerging highlife musicians, Abatara Peter known in showbiz as ABAT is set to drop his latest single. The song titled Nnipa Nnyɛ Koose would make your unconcerned partner think twice about your effort to love him or her.

“Nnipa Nnyɛ Koose tells the story of a lover who, after all his contributions to make his relationship stand tall among the rest, gets unappreciated by his lover.

“He is fed up and seeks for a break up. I know there are a lot of women out there, too, who are also being taken for granted by their partners and so this song tells their story too,” ABAT said in an interview.

When asked the meaning of the title of his song, ABAT said ‘koose’- a traditional beans cuisine mostly eaten with porridge- when being fried gets turned all over and for one to be tossed up and down in a relationship, he likens the two.

Nnipa Nnyɛ Koose drops on tomorrow November 15, 2015 and it would be available online for your download.

ABAT has over the years released Akonoba, I Go Pay and Kube Nsuo.

By Solomon Mensah

TALKING DRUM: A Cry at Noon, Accra Psychiatric Hospital’s Blues!

A signpost of the Hospital, curled from online

From Monday, October 31, 2016 to Friday, November 4, 2016, I was stationed at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital reporting for both 3FM and Onua FM, TV3’s radio stations. 

The nurses at the facility were on strike and as I write this piece they have not called off their strike yet. Although they prefer the media not referring to their action as ‘strike,’ so it has been reported.

The nurses, prior to their strike action, had complained about poor working conditions. Such complaints were the lack of basic supplies like detergents, gloves and medication to suppress aggressive patients.

On October 21, it was reported that an aggressive patient landed a blow in the abdomen of a nurse. She was hospitalised at the Ridge hospital afterwards.

This poor condition of service persisting, the nurses withdrew their services describing such an action as staying away from ‘dangerous working environment.’

I have been to a number of hospitals and I have always admired the work nurses and other health officials render. However, owing to my few days at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, my respect for the psychiatric nurse and their other colleagues has doubled.

“Please turn. Don’t give them your back,” said Dr. Susana Seffah, a Resident Psychiatrist. 

It was at the Special Ward of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital where Dr. Susana together with her colleagues were setting up to interview/examine some patients. Those to be found ‘sound’ would be discharged to go home.

The doctors were looking at getting about 250 to 300 patients to pass this exercise. And Dr. Susana would grant me interview on the development. 

However, little did I know that I needed to face the patients, at the ward, in a special way.  

“Please, stand with me to this direction. Let’s face them [patients] while you interview me. It’s always advisable you face them so you see whatever is happening,” she again said to me.

Indeed, every occupation has its own potential hazards but some occupational hazards supersede others. For the psychiatric nurse, their job is like being set before them a lion.

Former Chief Executive Officer of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Dr. Akwasi Osei had once backed the nurses making reference to how dangerous their work is. He was speaking on 3FM’s morning show called Sunrise.

One is, therefore, not surprised the nurses asking for, among other things, medication that calms down aggressive patients.

But the situation does not seem they are seeking their own good to the detriment of their patients. Interviewing the spokesperson of the nurses, Frimpong Okyere, on a number of occasions, I realized how dear these patients are to the nurses.

“Nurses do not use the medication we are requesting. Whereas it will help us do our work on one hand, it is for the greater good of the patients,” he said.

On Wednesday, November 2, in few minutes before reporting live on 3FM, I had engaged a British researcher interviewing her on why she chose the Accra Psychiatric Hospital as her case study and also to get her comments on the hospital’s blues.

Ursula Read said she has been researching in Ghana for some time now but she is very much passionate about mental health issues. On commenting on the challenges the hospital is going through, she spoke so passionately on why Ghana must place value on mental health as we do with other sectors of health.

She was making good reasoning on the issue and I had told her I will again interview her on air. It was not long to our on-air interview that Ursula burst into tears.

“These patients should not be left like this … I am not a Ghanaian but I will call on the government to come to the rescue of the hospital,” said Ursula as she pulled a handkerchief from her bag to wipe her tears.

Sadly enough, the government, led by President John Dramani Mahama, that Ursula called on for support for the hospital, says it had no idea of the development.

Speaking on Ghana Broadcasting Corporation’s radio station, Sunrise, in the Eastern region, President Mahama confessed he had not heard of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital’s back and forth.

“No, it hasn’t come to my attention yet. But I do know that the area of mental health is one of the areas we need to focus [our] attention,” he said.

Some, on social media, jabbed the President making fun of his comment that he hears every supposed insults hurled at him by the opposition but not the cry of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.

Interesting. Isn’t it? But I am not surprised a bit. Here in Africa and Ghana, we are mostly unconcerned about that which needs urgent attention. We would rather politically ‘dance’ with state resources while pressing needs look us in the face.

Yes! Politics conquers all. Did you not hear on radio, saw on television or perhaps read online/papers that Rebecca Akufo Addo, the wife of the New Patriotic Party’s flagbearer, Nana Akufo Addo, made a donation to the Children’s Ward of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital recently?

It was on November 3, 2016. Donating anything needful to the hospital in times like this is commendable. However, if politics leads such a donation to score marks ahead of one’s political opponent then it becomes a handshake that goes beyond the elbow.

It was disheartening seeing common soft drinks whose wrappers had been replaced with Nana Addo’s posters. Politicizing health care, I believe, is tantamount to declaring suicide.

Bashing the politician in the wake of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital’s hard times, we cannot leave out [private] organisations that take delight in only sponsoring nothing but entertainment focused shows with the intention of amassing profit at the end of the day. Must we be reminded that we all have a part to play in building our own London and New York here in Ghana?

As it stands, we look forward to seeing the numerous promises made by the Ministry of Health and others to the hospital fulfilled in the days ahead.

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

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @Aniwaba