TALKING DRUM: A villager’s first flight aboard Passion Air

Passion Air plane at the tarmac, Kotoka International Airport. Photo: Passion Air

“Chief, is that normal?” I asked my cameraman named Richmond Tano. He sat by me.

“I was about asking you, too,” responded Tano.

“Ajala! [comic exclamation] And there are no stop points in the air, too,” I said jokingly.

We shared seats 11C and 11D respectively. I was just by the window. Whereas I had enjoyed peeping through the window admiring nature― God’s handiwork― I had my intestines pacing up and down like a drunkard trying to find his way up a hill. I was gripped with fear when the flight attendant, who I later learnt she was called Matilda, gave an announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are about entering a turbulent zone. Please, fasten your seatbelts and remain seated. Thank you,” she uttered.

The beautiful lady believed to be in her late twenties was not entirely responsible for my uneasiness. Yes, so I think. It was my first time aboard an airplane and I never really knew there could be ‘pot-holes’ in the skies that could make the big metallic bird shake.

We were en route Tamale [in the Northern Region] from Accra aboard a Passion Air plane. It was Wednesday, January 23, 2019 and we were headed for Bolgatanga and its catchment areas to cover the National Food Buffer Stock Company’s takeover of some warehouses. A sponsored trip it was.  

I did not want to appear the only villager in town, or perhaps in the skies, so I decided not to ask anyone anything. After all, we were told to fasten our seatbelts.

The airplane moved on. A crew member in the cockpit announced the level of altitude we were flying. All this while, a hot cup of coffee Matilda had served me was held tightly in my hand. I had temporarily lost appetite for it. I looked to my left. Tano had his tightly pressed to the small board of a table that one could fold downwards from behind the seat next to them.

“I wish we had travelled by bus,” I said to Tano.

“Mesee,” he said in Twi; to wit; I tell you.

The writer, Solomon Mensah, aboard Passion Air en route Tamale from Accra

We laughed out our fears and consoled ourselves that once everybody aboard the plane seemed very much comfortable, we must enjoy our flight as the voices of Matilda and that from the cockpit had previously assured our safety.

So soon, we had moved past the ‘turbulent zone’ and everything was so smooth.

“You don’t realise the plane is even moving,” I said.

“Exactly. It’s so smooth,” replied Tano as he sipped his fruit juice together with a pack of biscuit. Mind you, he was done with his first meal of a cup of coffee.

Fruit juice is not my favorite so when I took it from Matilda as she served us, I told Tano he could enjoy mine too. About 30 minutes into our journey, I felt uncomfortable in my ears. I could feel pains in my ears that at a point I cocked them with my fingers.

I think it was due to the sound the aircraft’s engine or whatever made as it was close to where I sat. I carefully looked around and everybody sat seemingly comfortably.

“Ah! How? Could I be the only one feeling this way?” I asked myself. Few seconds later, I posed the question to Tano. He felt the pain in his ears, too, but not that much as compared to mine.

Unknowingly, a woman who sat to my left― on the seat directly in front of Tano― had spotted me struggling.

“Feeling pains, right?” she intoned.

“Yes, please.”

“Okay, try yawning it will go. You will be okay,” she told me with cock-assuredness.  

I tried it and I was relieved.

“People have experience,” I said to Tano of the woman after thanking her. A reporter and his cameraman in the plane, we spoke about everything. It was rather unfortunate Tano did not have his camera on him to shoot our first flight experience.

The plane landed safely at the Tamale Airport. I said a prayer, “Thank you God.”

Our flight was very smooth. Straight from the airport, we headed to Bolgatanga, moved to Zuarugu and Pwalugu and went to lodge at a guest house in the evening.

The following day, Thursday, January 24, we moved to Navrongo and Bulsa North and South all together with the aforementioned in the Upper East Region and took coverage of the warehouses the National Food Buffer Stock Company was to take over its management.

The evening of that very Thursday, we flew back to Accra aboard another Passion Air flight. This time, Tano and I relaxed and enjoyed the flight as much as possible. Again, the flight attendants and a voice from the cockpit assured safety. We landed safely in Accra a little after an hour.

For Richmond Tano, he had heard of Passion Air before. He tells me he was the cameraman from TV3 to have shot the launch of the airline in Accra; he had even entered one of Passion Air’s planes but that [plane] did not move from the tarmac. In my case, it was my first time experiencing Passion Air and, again, my first time flying by air.

Having had a successful trip to Tamale via Passion Air, I have come to love the airline that much. So, on Tuesday, March 5, 2019 when it happened that I had to make another [personal] journey to Tamale from Accra, I chose Passion Air. I have downloaded the airline’s mobile app; PassionAir. In the comfort of wherever you are, provided there is internet, one can book a flight and pay through mobile money [all networks] or using a Visa card. There is yet an option of paying your fare later on.

For being aboard Passion Air on two separate round trips, I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to travel via flight from Accra-Kumasi, Accra-Tamale and vice versa. Right at the check-in points at both the Kotoka International Airport and the Tamale Airport [that I know], the Passion Air crew there meet you with smiles and humility unlike some services in the country whose workers make you feel you are nobody.

Aboard a Passion Air plane, the cabin crew are equally professional. They show you smiles and respect. On my first day I went aboard Passion Air to Tamale, I realised that their customers’ safety is their topmost priority.

“Hello sir, please resume your seat and fasten your seatbelt,” said one young man so politely but sternly. I think when I later asked of his name, he mentioned David to me. A passenger had gotten up to use the washroom but David, a cabin crew member, would tell him to hold on as the seatbelt sign/light was on. I think that was within Matilda’s turbulent zone and, for David, I suppose it was not appropriate the man walked in the plane.

“Hello sir,” said David again to the man, “you can please go now.” He told him when we had bypassed the shaky zone.

Nonetheless, aside Passion Air’s remarkable services, I think there are a few issues they must address. Using the airline’s app, one after booking his/her flight would at times get a different fare from what was originally quoted. So, when I wanted to book a flight to Accra from Tamale on Sunday, March 10 2019, the app kept messing me up on the fare. I had to get their toll-free line, call them and one lady I spoke to had to book the flight for me at her end. Still on the app, I think there should be [a]n option/button for customers/passengers to be able to share their fight details with persons they think must know of their intended journey.

These aside, aboard Passion Air’s planes, I realized their public address system was not that audible. At times, one has to strain their ears before getting what is being communicated and the feed from the cockpit, I humbly think, has always not been that audible [to me]. The seeming noise in the plane should be looked at, too.

Dear Passion Air, get these issues addressed and you are good to go. Please, permit me chip in this; would you [all airlines] agree with me that your passengers must be made to wear the life jackets [which in Passion Air’s case we were told were under our seats] as we board the plane than telling us to do so in case of an emergency? Considering Ethiopian Airline’s Boeing 737 Max8 crash, was it possible any of its passengers quickly wore their life jackets in hope that that could have saved them in any way?

Well, I once again congratulate your cabin crew. They are fantastic. My only suggestion is that they should not learn from Ghana’s business news reporters who would say/write ‘the year-on-year inflation rate was …’ and expect their audience to understand that with ease. What is year-on-year?

Whereas I understand ‘turbulent zone,’ I could not properly understand that aboard a plane. Perhaps, re-wording that caution will do. Something like: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are entering a zone that could mildly shake our flight. Fasten your seatbelts and relax. The shake is normal as driving on a pot-holed road. Thank you.” Or, what do you think?

Anyway, lest I forget; my first flight experience teaches me two things. That, God deserves every praise for His beautiful nature and the wisdom given mankind to do marvelous things. And, secondly, a massive thanks to the people behind the making of aircrafts as they really have made use of their brains.  

The writer is a broadcast journalist with TV3/3FM. Views expressed here are solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organisation.

Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com

Twitter: @aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: Freeing Aisha Huang, may thunder fire Nana Addo’s gov’t!

Galamsey Queen, Aisha Huang [L] & Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Marfo 

A day before my traveling from Sunyani, the capital of Bono Region, to Accra, I promised myself that I would have a good meal. Being the last born of ten children, I don’t struggle for food whenever I go on a visit in that region. So, I ate bits and pieces of foods that came my way.

Ironically, when I promised myself of that eating spree, I knew my stomach could not stand [hot] pepper for a second. Yet, probably out of madness, I ate pepper-induced soups. It was a Saturday in 2014. The following morning, just when the driver of our Yutong bus horned that we were good to go, my stomach started dancing. “Yehowa [God], do I get down!?” I asked my confused mind.

I decided I will soldier on as the urge to attend nature’s call abruptly subsided. Then, after we passed the Tyco City Hotel on the Sunyani-Kumasi Road, the whole uncomfortable experience revived. When we got to Bechem, now in the Ahafo Region, I got down to use the washroom at a lorry station there. However, luck eluded me. They had locked the washroom with the supervisor of the place nowhere to be found.

I got back into the bus, bought a soap named SDAfoͻ Samina that a man advertised in the bus when we got there [Bechem]. I had for long heard of the soap’s efficacy so I didn’t hesitate buying it. I needed to soak it and drink the solution as that would tame my stomach from further acrobatics. It was then that I got to know that when one was in serious trouble, the mind usually went on vacation.

“Why don’t you buy a sachet of water, drink a bit of it and cut it [sachet] large enough so you put the soap in it and get your solution?” a woman who sat by me and witnessed my ordeal told me. That sense was pumped into my head at Abrepo in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, about 10 minutes before the driver could park at a fuel station for me. Mind you, from Sunyani to Kumasi is about 122 km. The rest of the story is history.

Having passed through this experience of promises that one knows it is hard to keep- as I promised my stomach- and my mind basically going blank thereafter, I don’t really blame President Akufo Addo’s led NPP government. They seem to have that ‘runny stomach’ hence running here and there and mostly sounding confused.

The New Patriotic Party made so many promises to Ghanaians before election 2016 that they are now trying very hard to keep. You remember the one village, one dam? One district, one factory? Free SHS [which is somewhat satisfactorily implemented]? One million dollars per constituency among a host of others and its quest for infrastructure. That [infrastructure], which they jabbed former President John Dramani over.

“Infrastructure development under the Mahama-led NDC government has been characterized by massive corruption through contract overpricing, opaque and shady contracting processes, and gross abuse of the sole sourcing provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663),” the NPP said in its 2016 manifesto.

Today, in 2019, did the NPP not equally sole source the freedom of actively engaging in illegal mining to the Chinese Galamsey Queen Aisha Huang? Did they not whisk her away from our law court, where she stood trial, and deported her to China because they went cup in hand to that country for some ‘peanuts’? And, can we fault those who say the Nana Addo-led government sold Ghana to China for an amount of $2 billion?

Can we ask how much the Galamsey Queen made in mining our gold? Could we have made use of that worth of gold― no matter how small or huge its value rather than letting freely her go with it and later we going back to her country for assistance? Are we really serious?

When one ponders over these questions and remembers that the government in power has been making so much noise on its ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ mantra then you realise that there is absolutely no hope for this country of ours. Our cocoa is basically not ours. Gold? Bauxite? Timber? So, we cannot sit down as a nation and own our destiny as China did and is doing?

“We have a very good relationship with China. The main company that is helping develop the infrastructure system in Ghana is Sinohydro, it is a Chinese Company. It is the one that is going to help process our bauxite and provide about $2 billion to us. So when there are these kinds of arrangements, there are other things behind the scenes. Putting [Aisha Huang] in jail in Ghana is not going to solve your money problem. It is not going to make you happy or me happy,” the Senior Minister Yaw Osafo Marfo is reported to have said at a townhall meeting in the US.

In my estimation, the freeing of Aisha Huang is the greatest betrayal I have ever seen as a Ghanaian and an act of brazen wickedness by the Nana Addo-led government. Why do you terrorize your own people who got themselves involved in illegal mining [Galamsey] and pamper a Chinese national caught in the same act because of a deal with Sinohydro? Was it because students of international relations say such is right in their books?

Headlines in relation to the Operation Vanguard’s task had been screaming in the past years. “10 Excavators Burnt In Anti-Galamsey Operation,” Daily Guide reported on August 2, 2017 with Citinewsroom reporting on July 20, 2018 that, “41 illegal miners arrested by Operation Vanguard” among others. Clearly, government was vehemently punching the throats of the [Ghanaian] illegal miners. But, unknown to them [the miners], their tormentor was but a toothless bull dog who would kowtow to a command from China.   

Mr. Osafo Marfo unashamedly added that: “The most important thing is that we established regulations and we are protecting our environment. That is far more important than one Chinese woman who has been deported back to her country.”

But, will the NPP be protecting our environment with its deal with Sinohydro?  If so, why has the Non-Governmental Organization, Arocha Ghana, persistently told government and its Chinese counterparts to stay away from the Atewa Forest?

The Atewa Forest, we are told, provides water to over five million Ghanaians and it is said to be the headwater for three key rivers in Ghana being the Densu River [flowing into the Weija Dam as it supplies water to a huge number of residents in western part of Accra], the Ayensu River and the Birim River.

Surprisingly however, the NPP in its 2016 manifesto says: “We will comprehensively protect our water catchment areas, through the Clean Rivers Programme (CRP).”

If despite the cacophony of noises the NPP made on the Gitmo 2 saga while in opposition, it does not find anything wrong freeing Aisha Huang, then I pray unto God to let the cry of the Ghanaian galamseyer fall on Nana Addo’s government.

Like the woman in dire of a child who sleeps naked at night, Nana Addo’s government stands readily ‘naked’ before the world inviting them for a shameful bilateral intercourse so it gets some amount of money to finance promises made to Ghanaians.

Anyway, if I were a galamseyer, I would arm myself, go out there and mine and meet the Operation Vanguard team head-to-head. After all… ‘all die be die.’

The writer is a broadcast journalist with Media General [TV3/3FM]. Views expressed herein are solely his, and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organisation whatsoever.

Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: Exams on chalkboard, new school uniform; “Awurade bɛ gye steer no!”

A teacher writes exams questions on the chalkboard

I completed Ghana Institute of Journalism in 2016, receiving an award of Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. Three solid years after my completion, I have seen a number of my classmates and schoolmates getting their masters done. That’s impressive, I tell myself.

At times, I feel I should get my masters done, too. So, I have since applied to a number of foreign universities, got admissions but could not take them up because of lack of funds/scholarship. A very close friend of mine, Edward Balami, on ‘academic asylum’ in the UK, keeps sending me links to schools to apply, too. My desire sometimes to climb high the academic ladder, however, takes a downward turn like a pregnant woman’s breasts.

Frankly, it is not the lack of scholarship that kills my interest. After all, if I mean to even study here in Ghana, by hustling through the system, I can foot my bills. The reason rather stems from the thought pattern and attitude of some of our so-called leaders.

These supposed leaders, who have attended all the big universities in the world, end up with attitudes that wreck our nation. You ask yourself if those of us with a mere first degree will be able to offer constructive inputs if these leaders with ‘big’ certificates barely make any sense. Probably, these certificates are only to fatten their salaries.

Education must better the lives of the masses; anything short of this is robbery.

The other day, we heard that some basic schools across the country had their end of term examination questions written on chalkboards. Then, pictures went viral on social media in which teachers wrote questions to even cover the bare walls. I was shocked. “Are we serious!?” I quizzed.

Again to my surprise, I read a story on Starrfm.com.gh that almost quenched the flickering hope I have for our country.

“Why the dramatization? Is it because teachers were getting some money from what was being paid earlier and now they don’t get? So they are angry? Writing on the board is not a new phenomenon, how did they write their class test.  If that is the only way the poor can get education, then so be it,” the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education, Ekow Vincent Assafuah, was reported to have said.

Clearly, when you have such people at the helm of affairs, you realize that Chinua Achebe couldn’t have said it better― things are, indeed, falling apart! So, Vincent Assafuah vested with power as that of a tethered he-goat could speak this trash to teachers? He could ask teachers ‘how they wrote their class test’ when he knows that the world has moved on? Lord, have mercy!

As a trained teacher myself, we were taught at the teacher training college to ‘improvise’ when the need be. Nonetheless, it is totally balderdash to improvise in the classroom when there is a clear means of adequately getting the teacher resourced. Vincent Assafuah had told Starrfm.com.gh that it was the capitation grant that delayed― a stupid answer he gave.

If government knew the capitation grant would delay, why did it give an order to some heads of our basic schools not to take money from parents?

“It [not to take printing fee from parents] was a warning so we went according to what they said and we started examinations yesterday and we wrote on the chalkboard, according to their directive,” a teacher told Citinewsroom.com.

Now, the question is, why do you deliberately reject parents’ money as payment for printing fees when you know you cannot foot the bill of printing for the pupils? Our wobbling government does not think parents must be able to assist her give their children better education? Who does that?

When we thought that, perhaps, the national shame – justified by the Ministry of Education – would eventually find a resting place so we cool down our tempers, another ‘wahala’ popped up. They say it was the revision of the basic school curriculum. That’s fine, but what is contained in it?

When President Akufo Addo said at the State of the Nation Address to Parliament in February 2019 that the new curriculum will focus on making the “Ghanaian child confident, innovative, creative-thinking, digitally-literate, well-rounded and a patriotic citizen”, I said that will be marvelous. Today, however, if what we know as the key features of the new curriculum remain the same, then I would humbly withdraw my word.

I read the key features would be to reduce the number of learning areas from seven (7) to four (4) at the kindergarten, greater emphasis on literacy and numeracy at the Lower and Upper Primary and history of Ghana which was going to be compulsory for each child from Primary one to Primary six among others.

So, basically, nothing substantial was introduced. We used to learn history in school, they took it away and now it is back. As for literacy and numeracy, we have learnt them since Adam! Touting this so-called new curriculum, I expected we would be teaching our kids something that will make them smart, independent and forward-thinking so they could compete with the outside world.

I, personally, would have wished we introduced intensive ICT training, agriculture, financial intelligence and life skills [as we had in the days of old]. This, then, we could add the history of Ghana to.

You travel to Eastern, Bono, Ahafo, Bono East and Northern Regions and probably the whole of Ghana and there are vast lands. But, who is farming such? The school trains us to cap files under our armpits in search of jobs while we import even tomatoes from Burkina Faso. Did you ever have a school garden? Did that not inspire you to see farming as a decent occupation? If we had state farms in every region, would we not have had all the     youth loitering about aimlessly at Kwame Nkrumah Circle accepting to be farmhands? Do we forget that he who feeds you controls you?

A week or so ago, I listened to a powerful documentary on BBC Radio. Journalist Mariko Oi went to both Singapore and Japan where robots serve as teachers in the classroom and caretaker-assistants of the elderly, respectively.

Again in Singapore, Ms Oi spoke to the Chief Executive Officer of Duck Learning, Hozefa Aziz, who teaches children as young as six and seven years old coding in school.

“We are in an era now where children do not know the kind of job they will be working in 10 years from now. So, we want to equip them with the skills that are necessary for them in the future,” said Aziz to Oi.

Do we sincerely believe that 25 years from now our students of the new curriculum could match their counterparts in Singapore and elsewhere ‘boot-for-boot’? Why are we letting our children behind in the era of technology? I only thought we would learn from China as it has set 32 years ahead to vigorously train to win the World Cup in 2050. What is Ghana’s biggest goal to achieve?

All these rants aside, the last straw that broke the camel's back was the introduction of the new school uniform― a highly bogus and misplaced priority of an intoxicated government. When I told you that teachers recently wrote on the chalkboard the end of term examinations questions, Ghana Education Service [GES] ordered head teachers not to take printing fees from parents. In a sharp contrast, however, the same GES foolishly says parents will be paying for the new school uniform for their wards. This can only happen in Africa, precisely Ghana!

The new school uniform 

And, the reason for the new school uniform is just crazy. That: “The idea is for them [JHS pupils, wearing the new uniform] to start seeing themselves as secondary school students; they are in lower secondary [now],” said the Director General of GES, Prof Kwasi Opoku Amankwa.

I never knew the people referred to in Galatians 3, who were asked ‘who hath bewitched you,’ were Ghanaians until I started paying attention to the happenings at the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service.

As 2pac once said, ‘I see no changes!’ Some educated folks in our country implementing unpalatable policies deserve to have their certificates taken from them. They are more dangerous than armed robbers.

The writer is a broadcast journalist with Media General [TV3/3FM]. Views expressed herein are solely his, and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organisation whatsoever.

Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: Hello CID boss, promotion in commotion?

COP Maame Yaa Tiwaa

When Tilapia, 3news’ cartoonist, penciled a beautiful but thought-provoking art about you, I declined writing an article on the topic he captured. I felt he told the public whatever I needed to say.

It was about the press conference you had, briefing the general public on the whereabouts of the missing Takoradi girls. Tilapia captured you in his piece standing on top of two buildings saying you [the police] knew where the girls are. In the building under your right foot were the kidnappers― presumably― attempting to further obliterate their footsteps as they heard your pronouncement.

“Away,” the kidnappers said.

Whereas Tilapia’s work was/is merely an art, it was based on the reality after you ‘generously’ told the public your seeming gains into the search for the girls.

Dear Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, if I am to call a spade a spade and not a big spoon, I was overly mad hearing you utter those words. Yes! I know that if I were at that press conference I would have been behind bars by now. I would have asked you where you got trained as a police officer and whether you sincerely think you know your job and whether you think you deserve your salary after that announcement.

Which police force in the world announces they know the whereabouts of suspects/criminals when they have not arrested them? If it is done in the Americas and Europes, please, let us leave it to them as they have the state-of-the-art facilities to really effect arrest. To what extent was that announcement of good use to the public? Would it not have been ideal and prudent had you secretly dealt with the affected families by, first, briefing them on the state of their daughters and cautioning them not to open up to the media on that?

Maame Yaa, if you care to know, our police force became a cheap bowl for the world’s spit following that unwarranted announcement. In my estimation, you gave the suspects a free exeat!

Last week Friday, April 5, 2019, news broke that you, DCOP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department, had been promoted. According to a statement that was signed by the Director of Public Affairs at the Police Headquarters, DSP Shiella Kessie Abayie-Buckman, Maame Yaa Tiwaa and five others had been promoted to the rank of Commissioner of Police (COP). Others also jumped from one rank to the other.

My worry here is not about who was fit for promotion or not as some Ghanaians have expressed. My worry rather is about how the Ghana Police Service feels awarding and promoting themselves in the midst of the commotion surrounding the missing girls, the police brutalizing civilians [journalists in particular], political party vigilante groups raining terror on citizens among an avalanche of such chaos. 

Truth be told, none of the officers who got promoted would have rejoiced had any of the missing girls been their daughter or relative. But, here they were all joyous.

Had Ruth Love Quayson, 18, said to be a graduate of the Fijai SHS in Takoradi; Priscilla Blessing Bentum, 21, a student of the University of Education, Winneba, and Priscilla Mantebea Korankye, 15, a student of the Sekondi SHS; been any of our politicians’ daughters, would the police not have gone beyond mere words?

As it stands, I think our government and security forces must always commend the Nigerian government and its security forces for brokering a deal in rescuing the Chibok Girls from the hands of the trigger-happy army of Boko Haram. Our CID, together with the Bureau of National Investigations [BNI], can’t effect arrest of probably three or five kidnappers but only locate their whereabouts. That should tell you there is no room for celebration or whatsoever yet.

Dear Maame Tiwaa, if indeed you have located where the kidnappers are and you think the police are not strong enough to arrest them, what about involving our men at the Burma Camp? Did we not see soldiers displaying unimaginable acrobatics at the 62^nd Independence Parade in Tamale [in the Northern Region] recently? This is the time we need those acrobatics if indeed the kidnappers are in sight!

I feel like there is a knife in my heart whenever I remember that news report had it that there were seven police officers on duty when the kidnapper in custody, Samuel Udotek Wills, broke jail with a hacksaw. In my article on the issue dubbed “Takoradi jail break, a case of criminals in uniform” published in January 2019, I called those officers who were on duty criminals.

I was not surprised later Mr. Udotek said a CID officer assisted him in breaking jail. Maame Tiwaa, the fact that the alleged kidnapper broke jail in less than a day after he was put behind bars should tell you he is one of the criminals. I was mad when the police were pampering him that he will not talk.

I am getting heated as I write this piece and, perhaps, I need to check my blood pressure. Nonetheless, I will leave you a simple plan to really get the criminals arrested after which you can award yourselves with ranks.

Once you still have Samuel Udotek Wills in your custody, sit him down and let him tell you where really his colleagues are. If he shuns your good counsel, get a box of candle, light one, gently open his nose and drop in it the candle’s hot liquid. He will even give you information you did not ask for. But, if he still proves stubborn, get a used bicycle tire, cut a string of it, light it and drop the burning solid at his back. Please, forget about what the human right lawyers and activists would say.

Our elders say if you bite me on the butt, despite the danger of sinking your teeth into fecal matter, then if I bite you on the head, I will disregard the danger of sinking my teeth into cerebral matter!   

The writer is a broadcast journalist with Media General (TV3/3FM). Views expressed here are solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organisation.

Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @aniwaba

TALKING DRUM: Of an ‘imminent earthquake’ & a bogus entity called NADMO!

File photo

No! Asaase Yaa [mother earth] could not recently annoy me by shaking itself in some parts of the Greater Accra Region much more than National Disaster Management Organization’s [NADMO] hollow commentary on the incident— a commentary of vain Christmas message to persons living in earthquake-prone zones and Ghanaians at large.

“With the recent earth tremors happening, we caution the citizens to prepare for any imminent occurrence of earthquake disaster,” a statement signed by the Director General of NADMO, Eric Nana Agyemang-Prempeh cautioned.

The caution, I must say, is somehow welcoming as the earth tremor was frightening enough. It felt as though someone had the earth in his/her hands, rigorously shaking it left and right— the way a music quartet of the Seventh-day Adventists Church shake their maracas.

It was Sunday, December 9, 2018, and it was the tremor that woke me up from my slumber. The said earth tremor occurred with the swiftness of a duiker leaving residents of Kasoa-Nyanyanu and Weija— the most susceptible spots— and other areas in fear.

“Massa, what was that?” said a friend of mine, Oye Yaw Addofoh.

Oye Yaw Addofoh, publisher of the online news portal, The Probe, had visited me then and would enquire from me what that shake was when I woke up to see him already by his laptop.

“That's certainly an earthquake,” I said.

“Really? Earthquake here?”

“Yes.”

As the wave of shakeup could be felt even in Oyibi, Greater Accra, my area in Ga South had its fair share. This, when NADMO sends a caution that residents should be on the alert, is considerably good. However, it beats my imagination that NADMO sent out such a vague statement.

How do citizens “prepare for any imminent occurrence of earthquake disaster”? Are they to stand by their houses, go sit on top of their houses or abandon it all together?

Without mincing words, NADMO’s 2018 statement of a Christmas message to Ghanaians was the most bogus of press statements I had read last year.

Clearly, the said statement revealed that perhaps the people appointed to ‘manage disasters’ in the country need to be managed themselves.

“NADMO and its partners are ready to mitigate the effect of any such occurrence [referring to the earthquake] on the citizenry, especially those living along the fault line,” a portion of the statement read.

Is this not nauseating to have come from NADMO? Is NADMO waiting for the disaster to strike before they mitigate its effect or what exactly did they mean? Did NADMO’s Eric Nana Agyemang-Prempeh write this statement himself or it was written for him to sign? If we are to go by the latter, did the Director General read through what he appended his signature to?

This is a country where many of our leaders had their education overseas or lived there. Yet, these same leaders refuse to implement what they saw and marveled about abroad.

"THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed," was a message sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to people in America in 2018.

US' message to its people in 2018

The message dubbed Presidential Alert went to some 225 million people at the same time. A friend [Ghanaian] there told me it came with loud notification tone and vibration on phones. The alert was designed to warn the public in the event of a national emergency such as a missile attack.

“All smartphones in Japan have an earthquake/tsunami alert system installed, hence, about 5 to 10 seconds before a disaster strikes the warning system should give people a precious few extra seconds to escape to a safer place or duck under the table. When the alert goes off a buzzing noise is heard, and a voice keeps saying, “Jishin desu! Jishin desu” (meaning “There is an earthquake”) until the earthquake stops,” reports jpinfo.com.

Japanese kids are taught natural disaster drills from pre-kindergarten 

That is Japan’s story, too. This tells that the Asian nation has learnt its lessons as taught by earthquakes. Now, Japan builds resistant houses, raises awareness on disaster prevention and trains housewives on what to do [rush to the kitchen to turn off the gas] when disaster strikes among others.

This is what any serious country does. They think deep and plan ahead.

Does NADMO have the data base of persons living in areas likely to be affected by any occurrence of an earthquake? Could it have constantly— at least once a week— sent these persons SMS to relocate [if they could]? Could it have teamed up with radio/TV stations to broadcast such messages as part of these media houses’ corporate social responsibilities?  Could NADMO have sent these Ghanaians messages of what to do should the disaster occur?

Indeed, it is heart-throbbing that NADMO does not have any strategy to ensure lives are not lost should an earthquake strike. Please, forget about its bragging about being prepared. Not even has the organization a relocation plan for citizens living on the fault lines.

Should NADMO now decide to talk about relocation plan, it must not merely be telling residents to relocate. NADMO and government must find temporary shelter for those who cannot afford the cost involved in relocating.

In 2015, I wrote an opinion piece for Radio Ghana’s News Commentary [a segment on the station’s bulletin] arguing that government must find residents of Old Fadama a place when it made moves to eject them from Agbobloshie. My argument was hinged on one pivotal point. That, once we [the nation] allowed the squatters to settle at Old Fadama, it was morally right to find them a place if we meant to eject them from the land they occupied.

Similarly, if we allowed people to settle and build mansions at Kasoa-Nyanyanu and Weija among other areas, NADMO and government cannot look unconcerned but help relocate them if, indeed, there is an imminent earthquake.

Did history not tell us that in 1615, 1636, 1862 and 1939, the then Gold Coast experienced earth tremors? Did history, again, not tell us that the 1939 tremor claimed at least 17 lives with 133 others sustaining injuries? Did we not know from these tremors that there are some areas in the Greater Accra Region earmarked as ‘fault line of earthquake’? Where were the Lands Commission, our chiefs and district/municipal assemblies who gave out lands and supervised residents to build mansions there?

Let’s assume without admitting that the aforementioned institutions were oblivious of citizens building on the fault line. Why did the Electricity Company of Ghana and the Ghana Water Company Limited supply these areas with utilities? Do we not collect tolls from businesses in that enclave?

There are a number of ways we can, as a nation, employ to ensure that we do not lose a single soul should an earthquake strike. I will suggest two of such.

NADMO must push for the Ghana Geological Survey Authority [GGSA] to get state-of-the-art facilities to monitor the situation. At least, by this, we will get real time data on how ‘angry’ the earth is to beat the unpredictability of earthquakes.

Secondly, NADMO must get government to make the so-called affordable houses temporarily habitable for residents living on the fault line. These houses, we know, would be the reserve of the foot soldiers of any government in power when they are fully completed. The ordinary Ghanaian must have a feel of it while death, so said to be urgent, knocks on their doors.

For those who find themselves renting in the shakeup zones, relocating might not be a big deal. But, the question is, will it be easy for people leaving their mansions behind for nowhere?

The earlier we solved this puzzle, the better. Lest I forget, there is the Weija Dam in the enclave. Any occurrence of earthquake affecting the Dam could be our customized tsunami. This is the time to harness the best of our engineers to work things out.

NADMO, you have this moment to redeem yourself of your gross incompetence for the sleep that lasts till death happens!

The writer is a broadcast journalist with Media General (TV3/3FM). Views expressed here are solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his organization.

Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @aniwaba