I heard that the “flying coffin” almost became your real coffin the other time. I don’t know why anyone would fly in an airplane that has been tagged as such but you still do. I guess you can say for the love of the country. I remember that when your government came into power (I love that phrase- came into power), you adamantly refused to fly in this coffin. I don’t know who finally convinced you that it’s not only Dracula who travels in a coffin, but whoever advised you is “playing chacha” aka gambling with your life. But like Dracula, you always escape death. I understand that this is not the first time that the pilots had to do gymnastics in the air to save your life… and theirs too. I hope the u-turn they did in the air was legal and that you did not have to bribe any policemen if it wasn’t. Did you give the pilots medals too the other time? I would really be miffed if I was asked to do such a dangerous job and not get a medal. Ei! What would Auntie Theresa do without you?

Please take care, otherwise you’ll become former president… sorry ex-president. Or you don’t like that title too? Those NDC people seem to want to always refer to J. J as former president Rawlings or ex-president Rawlings. Why they always insist on adding a title I cannot understand. Since you are not a fan of Rawlings and he’s already taken those two titles, I hope you can find a suitable title after your presidency.

Were you going for another “fund-raising” event for motherland Ghana? Back when I was in Legon struggling for a degree, we called it “intellectual begging”. I don’t know what is intellectual about the begging, but if the beggars at almost every traffic light knew that formula, I think that maybe they can increase their daily returns dramatically.

Come to think of it- every time you and other African leaders go for all those meetings called by China, India and others, (they call them donor meetings right?) it always reminds me of the hordes of beggars who seem to crawl at every junction where there are traffic lights. But since you guys go and beg on our behalf (really??? {smiles}), I guess I better shut up. But what happens to all that money? Is someone taking too much kickback for linking you with the right leaders?

Aah, kickbacks. I remember when the issue came up some years ago that some big men in your party were allegedly taking kickbacks. That was the first time I came across the word. During the NDC time I was only made aware of the nice phrase “bribery and corruption” and they are the ones who said probity and accountability right? And you said zero tolerance for corruption? Hahaha!! Anyway thank you all for enriching my vocabulary.

This reminds me of the police service. Their motto says “Service with integrity” but I don’t know about the integrity part. The service part we can pretend exists, but policemen in Ghana don’t have integrity on bit. Not when you can bribe them and get away with virtually any crime. Or you don’t believe that they take bribes? Perhaps like allegations against other government officials, I should substantiate what I just said with evidence? How about if I take a photograph of a police man taking a bribe from a taxi driver who’s just jumped the red light? Would that be enough evidence or do I have to also add documentary evidence like papers or receipts given by the policeman to the taxi driver. I hope if the policeman is smiling in the picture, it won’t be taken as a fake.

Even if I manage this photographic evidence, I doubt it would hold in court. You see Ghanaian policemen have developed Houdini-like methods of extracting the money from the taxi drivers and slipping it into their pockets. Or we should call it Copperfield ticks after the famous David Copperfield who could make things magically vanish into thin air? Integrity indeed!

My kid brother jus t turned 18 and registered to vote for the up-coming elections. But like him and my sister, I’m also confused about who to vote for as your successor. As for the way the Electoral Commission went about the registration process, I won’t say much about it in this letter. You may get angry and beg the Commissioner to fire some people. Oh, I forgot. Sorry, over here in Ghana, we don’t fire for incompetence, especially in public service.

Back to our confusion regarding the elections. The person standing for parliamentary elections for your party in my constituency may not get our vote because the last time we saw her was 4 years ago. How can she claim to represent our views in parliament if the only time we see her is every four years? We don’t even know her house and even if we did, I don’t think we could visit. Anyway if she does win, I hope she gives me a ride in the brand air-conditioned new car parliament gives her. Or won’t she get the “car loan” parliament gives every four years?

For your party’s presidential candidate too, we are also confused. He’s jumping around doing a dance I understand is called the kangaroo dance when the majority of Ghanaians don’t even know what a kangaroo is. But we like the way he can speak English. Wow! But he really doesn’t seem to say much. He just talks. Apart from that we are afraid that since he was the Foreign minister, he may start missing his friends at the UN and start travelling plenty to visit and beg for money like you’ve been doing.

As for the man in the big opposition party (opposition??), he’s also not saying much. All he does is to go around reminding everyone one that we are hungry (dammit!, we already know that) and don’t have money in our pockets (as if we don’t know that too) while not telling us how he’s going to solve those problems. That tells us that he also has no solutions to offer, so we are just there.

Mr. President, we don’t know exactly how much the presidency pays as salary, but from the way your party and the other parties are campaigning, and throwing cash around with glitzy campaigns, surely, there must be a lot of people to pay back when it’s all done and over.

I hope this letter wasn’t too long as you probably may have a letter from the queen to come to tea so that she can convince her prime minister to lend you some of the tax money of the British people.

Sincerely yours.

PS: Do you notice that all the campaign paraphernalia is all stamped as Made in China? How patriotic!

It’s election time here in Ghana and air is full of political nonsense and hot air.

Instead of tackling issues of relevance, the different parties are busy with name calling and blaming each other for all the evils in this world. Of course we don’t expect them to do anything once they come into power (it doesn’t matter the party) but at least the best they can do is try and make us think that one day we’ll get there. Hopefully. The only thing these parties seem to agree on is that the amounts charged by the electoral commission to register candidates has gone up. They even went to the extent of calling a press conference to complain to the press. And they did it together. That should give us a hint of where these parties seem to be interested in- when it affects their pockets.

We all know that in Ghana parliamentarians get car loans every four years, and those who know the right minister or MP get the contracts. It’s as simple as that and honestly we don’t expect anything to change because we know you guys spend a lot of money and time in campaigning and like any business man, you have to recoup what you invested in your various political adventures.

As for those people up north who are burning each others houses in the name of politics continue. I hope you know by now that when they become MPs and presidents that no one would remember how you hacked your own family members to death to show your loyalty to your party colours. You’ll spend the rest of your miserable years missing them. Ask the Kenyans who hacked each other to death whether the politicians who they helped there have even visited them to ask how they are coping. I heard in the news that some chiefs were saying that they would protect themselves if the state is not ready to. I wonder what they’ll be protecting themselves from. Each other?

And the Electoral Commission has muddied the waters even more. Does no one notice that a considerable number of young ones who just turned eighteen were unable to register to vote? What kind of electoral register is the Commission keeping? So how about those whose birthdays fall after the end of the registration period till the election time. What happens to them? They have to wait another four years before they can vote? Someone sue the EC for disenfranchising all these tax paying citizens. How can the EC have a registration that has a limited time offer? Maybe the passport office, the national identification folks and other state agencies should also issue cards or register people in such fashion as that would save them from a lot of stress.

But in the plains and deserts of Africa, no one seems to care. Those big mouth politicians went to the world and said that we should be left alone. Africans are capable of solving African problems- African solutions for Africa problems. Nice slogan but they forget that Africa at this moment cannot adequately manage its myriad of problems at national levels, lest end conflicts in neighbouring countries. And nice slogans don’t end conflicts.

So here we are with people dying in Darfur and Somalia, with no help in sight. In the case of Darfur, troops and resources have already been promised by various nations both within and without Africa. It’s almost a year now and nothing has been seen. Now imagine this: if even only twenty persons die in these places everyday, I wonder how many world trade centres that would amount to and when the number would be enough for the big nations to stop the rhetoric and jump in to stop the carnage happening on our streets. When the US went guns blazing into Iraq, maybe they shouldn’t have just stopped there. Hasn’t it been alleged that there are what are know as “terrorist elements” in Somalia. And didn’t some of these elements have a hand to play in 9/11? And isn’t the Sudanese government also being accused of killing its own citizens? So why is no one helping? Is the world deliberately turning a blind eye and helping to perpetuate these crimes. Wouldn’t that make everyone then accomplices?

As at now, no one has been able to give a very good reason why the troops and equipments have not arrived in Darfur. Meanwhile China is busy supplying its government with arms in exchange for oil.

The few African peacekeepers in Darfur- who were just told to change their names and call themselves UN peacekeepers- are just sitting ducks, and indeed it seems, have occasionally been used as target practice by unknown rebel thugs. We hold nice funerals for the murdered soldiers and give nice speeches. These soldiers don’t even have prescribed UN uniforms. Some of them, it has been reported, have to tie blue plastic sheeting over their old helmets so that the population would now identify them as UN peacekeepers. But wouldn’t it make them more vulnerable and visible to those seeking target practice? I wonder what kind of peace they are keeping there, considering that they are out-gunned and overwhelmingly outnumbered by the warring parties. And those warring parties are yet to implement the tons of paperwork of agreements signed. It seems these agreements are just worth as much as the paper they were signed on. Or maybe less. And just in case you were wondering; there are African Union soldiers too in Somalia. They are helping keep the peace at the Airport.

Haven’t enough people died, enough women raped and enough of the small ones denied of normal life and education for us to do something? Why are we standing by while these rebels and governments kill and terrorise their own nationals? Why all the diplomatic shuffling and nice speeches when people are out there dying as they make those speeches? Do they stop to think that by the time they finish any of their speeches enough children would have died to fill a nursery classroom?

And then there is that African Union thing we have here which is of no relevance to its citizens but just some sort of an old boys’ club where the despotic leaders of the various African states meet once in a while to exchange notes on who has the latest cars and who is plundering their national assets in more ingenious and creative ways. They meet and talk and talk and waste a lot of money and press time announcing nothings because they have nothing to offer.

So while we are being bombed and shot at, they sit in air-conditioned hotels and conference halls, drinking tea and coffee and showing us their irrelevance. They are the ones who started this slogan of African solutions for African problems. Well it’s time the speeches stopped and they started tackling the real issues that affect us on a daily basis. It’s time we stopped the madness in Darfur and Somalia.

MEND represents a lot youth in present day Africa who are disappointed by corrupt, lying and thieving politicians and raped by irresponsible foreign investors who are in cahoots with our uncaring leadership. All these foreign firms care about is the bottom line and for the politicians, it’s the 10% kickback they get in their bank accounts at the end of the month or at the signing of every contract.

For me, what is happening in Niger Delta should tell those investing in Africa that you cannot go on getting fat deals with our corrupt leaders and not expect a backlash. A time would come when we’ll be asking questions. And you better have the right answers.

Africa has a lot of natural resources yet we are the poorest continent plagued by hunger, disease, wars and several forms of terrorism- it’s fashionable to call some rebels and the others as governments.

The Delta is one of the richest regions of Nigeria and its people should be walking on streets paved with gold. But those streets are among the most polluted you can find anywhere and the noxious gases thrown in the air on a daily basis has rendered the place a no-flying-zone for birds, like the kind the United States gave Saddam Hussein’s airforce before his neck was broken. And the government has turned a blind eye to what the oil companies were doing to the environment and the people they are supposed to represent. Their own kinsmen. These people should be stinking rich, instead they are stinking poor. The kind of pollution happening in the Delta would never be accepted by Western governments if it happened on their own soil. Yet here are Western companies, this time in Africa, polluting the land and making this land of greenery and beauty look like scenes from a horror movie.

So the youth of the place, having been disappointed by leadership, took matters into their own hands. They blew up a few oil pipelines, mounted raids on a few oil rigs and captured a couple of oyibo aka white men for ransom. Even though their methods have been rough, it’s gotten their government sitting up and talking. Or they’ve had enough phone calls from the big shots in these oil companies complaining about how difficult life is becoming for them.

Over here in Ghana or any African country, the story is not different. Indeed when Angola discovered oil, a lot of people thought that their problems were coming to an end. Instead only a few people at the top have gotten fatter and the people at the bottom have gotten thinner. Little did they know that such natural resources are yet to change the lives of those of us living on this continent.

When you look at the trading receipts of some African countries in terms of exports of the main commodities you are amazed at how the money seems to vanish once it hits the treasury.

So, back home, we just discovered oil. And I have a lot of doubts that this oil money would make any considerable difference to life here. Currently, you can find us in the top ten of most of the commodities traded on the international market- gold, cocoa, timber… just name it. We are blessed with tonnes of bauxite, clay, diamonds, and so forth but these things have not had much impact on life here. The oil is just making the politicians smile the more. Maybe its time we all joined the politicians. Or formed our own MENDS.

So its that simple- mix corporate irresponsibility and greedy politicians, its groups like MEND that you get.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s about this man in Nigeria who, saying he’s been blessed by God to be able to perform his duties- both to wives and 170 kids. I wonder if he’s able to recall their names when addressing them.

But wait, for that’s not the funny part. The authorities in Northern Nigeria just woke up to this fact. Or maybe the man built a very large mansion and hid wives and kids until they started overflowing. Whatever the case, they are asking this man to divorce all but four of his wives. He’s been told to choose four of his favourites. But with 86 women, I wonder how he’s going to manage. And no one is saying anything about the kids. Maybe he can disown them too. Over here, its very easy for a father to pronounce you as being “disowned” from the family and no one would bat an eyelid. Especially if the child is perceived to be the guilty party.

Being a Muslim (preacher), he is entitled to four wives. Just four. No more. Therefore his other marriages are now deemed as unlawful. But if these marriages are unlawful, why is it that he’s being asked to choose any four? Shouldn’t only the first four marriages be the ones seen as “legal”? The fact that he’s being asked to choose means that the other marriages are deemed as valid of sorts.

So our guy here has to select only 4 of the wives or he may face death. I love these people. First, he was threatened with being banished. I wonder where they had in mind when pronouncing the banishment judgement. Maybe a hut in a remote forest somewhere, minus wives and kids. That would have allowed him to reflect on his “sins”. That failed. As I write this, this has been downgraded to the risk of being evicted from his house because he’s refusing to sack the wives.

But I’m still wondering, how he was able to elude the traditional authorities with all these kids and wives. Maybe the 86^th wife kept picking quarrels with the other wives and this drew their attention to the happenings in their neighbours house. And all those kids too.

Sometimes, the best we can do is just laugh at ourselves.

(This page would be updated as and when new terms come to our attention.)

Abroad
Forget any country in Africa.You travel abroad when you’ve been to either Europe or America

African Movie
A joke played on Ghanaians by local television stations. No other African country is featured in these movies. Mostly Nigerian movies with a few Ghanaian movies sprinkled in to silence the critics.

Bend Down Boutique
Where everyone shops occasionally but pretends they don’t. It’s the largest informal clothing retail franchise in Ghana where second hand clothing of all shapes, colours and sizes are found. I guess it’s called bend down boutique because you actually have to bend down to select your clothing choice. More upscale bend down boutiques are now appearing in proper shops so those who want to buy second hand with a bit of panache. Locally known as fose. (Hope I got the spelling correct). (pronounced like pose)

Blowman
The protagonist, champion or good guy in usually an action movie/ thriller. Blowmen generally are not supposed to die and should be able to withstand all sorts of unimaginable torture and beatings to kill all the bad guys. Movies like Rambo or any movie by Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee can give you good examples of what a blowman is. See also killer below.

Boys Boys
Your good pals, usually the kind you can get drunk with. There is also girls girls but its not really taken off.

Brutal
No, has nothing to do with violence. When somebody is brutal, they are just very good at what they do. So the football team could be brutal during the match.

Charley
Everyone in Ghana is called Charley. It’s like the Americans with their dude or the British with mate. Just that in Ghana mate is something you call the trotro driver’s assistant. Or the person you went to school with. *Trotro = shared transportation- not really bus but let’s call it that for our purposes here.

Chilling
To be seen as living the good life. Also refers to having a good time. Eg: We chilled at the party last night.

Concert
In movies any comic or funny situations or statements. So if a movie is full of concert, it means its has a lot of funny parts or its a comedy. Almost every Ghanaian movie you decide to watch is full of “concert”.

Going to come
If someone tells you they are going to come, it means they’ll be right back. In effect, he is stepping out and would be back right away. This term like a few other Ghanaian phrases and words are as a result of trying to literally translate local thoughts, ideas and ways of speaking into english.

You can also have someone telling you “I am coming” when they mean I’ll be right back”.

GTV News
Missed any conference, meeting, workshop or any talk shop? You can catch it on GTV’s evening news. That is all the news they so if you have some spare time, you can hear about the latest conference in town, who the keynote speakers are and what they said.

Guy guy
(Not in wide use. Mostly used in Kumasi)
A show off. A pretentious person. Can be used in place of too known (see below) depending on the situation.

Jah Rule Jah Rule
(Not in wide use. Mostly used in Kumasi)
To dress like an American gangster rapper, big flabby attires with or without bling bling.

Pepsodent _________
Toothpaste. Any brand of toothpaste. The people who make Pepsodent have had a good marketing campaign over the years and as such the name is synonymous with toothpaste.

Cello tape
Any adhesive. Refer to Pepsodent above.

Omo ________________
A.k.a detergent. Refer above.

LAFA
(Not in popular use)
Locally Acquired Foreign Accent. Wondering whether that guy is speaking in an American, Australian or British accent when they have never stepped outside the shores of Ghana? Also popular with those who have spent a year or two outside Ghana. Sometimes referred to as slangs (see below)

Killer
The opposite of the blowman. The bad guy in the movies who does all the bad things and always seems to be the last person to be killed by the blowman. The antagonist in a movie.

Tea
Generic term given to any dark fluid taken mostly as breakfast or a beverage. Indeed, you can say you had cocoa tea for breakfast if you want to be specific about the kind of “tea” you had for breakfast.

Tape
Any radio, whether it plays a tape cassette or not.

Too known
Someone who is seen as being arrogant, or a know-it-all. See also guy guy above.

Slangs
Speaking with an accent, preferably American or British. (See Lafa above) So if you are a foreigner, please don’t speak with too much slangs as we may have difficulty understanding you.

Not only did China host the Olympics but they set themselves high standards in the different sporting events- participating in virtually all the events, with the hope of topping the medals table.  And they did that too. Even though the Americans had more medals in total, China took over the top spot in the gold medal slot, and in so doing broke the hold of the Americans on the medal table since the fall of the Soviet Union.

However, and once again my beloved Ghana went to the Olympics and came back …with no medals. I guess for us the Olympics has become a sightseeing affair. It is one of the opportunities where instead of begging foreigners to visit our nation, we visit them. Consistently too, we always seem to go with more officials than athletes. It’s nothing strange here. I’m sure if the organisers had offered wooden medals to the top losers at these Olympics, Ghana would not have gotten even one! Nope, not a single one. And this is too is not strange. We have never taken sports seriously in this part of the equator.

Over here, the words “National team” means only one thing. Football. We don’t have any other national teams. Well, we do but when referring to other sporting disciplines at the national level, you have to qualify it. So national hockey team would let other people know that you are not referring to the “national team” but hockey. Indeed, sports news in the media almost always means football news.  And we love to hire expensive foreign coaches to train our “national team”. No local coaches please. We believe in Ghana, but not local coaches.

But football has brought us little in terms of international honours outside of Africa. Even within Africa where we are touted as one of the powerhouses of football, our performance in recent years has been suspect.  When talking about football, its always about medals we won before our parents conceived some us. And apart from the one bronze medal in football, all our Olympic medals have come from boxing. And if you are outside Ghana, don’t fool yourself into thinking that we pay much attention to boxing. Boxers don’t even have decent places to train.

So it was no news back here when we heard that Vida Anim had decided that enough was enough. She claimed to have unpaid bills, and the local Olympic committee had refused to settle those bills. Therefore, she was not competing anymore. She narrated how her hospital and physiotherapy bills had to be borne by her anytime she has medical problems. And she’s not the only one with those complaints. It seems that in Ghana, if you don’t do football, you are not considered to be involved in any serious sporting activity. Incredulously, I heard an official of the local Olympic committee on Joy FM accusing Vida of presenting dubious receipts, and of being ungrateful and unpatriotic. And other officials had no kind words. She was the villain.

Already, the Chinese have no plans of stepping down from the medals ladder come the next Olympics in London. And the Australians are miffed that the British beat at the medals table for the first time. And so they have started putting in plans to rectify this anomaly. No less a person than their prime minister is announcing their displeasure and their new plans of upsetting the Brits in their own backyard.

So with the little time I could spare, I watched as other nations had their national anthems played over and over again as they stepped forward to pick up their medals. I once wondered whether the organisers in China even had the faintest idea of where they had thrown the CD that had the Ghanaian national anthem.

I wondered why we didn’t go to the Chorkor beach and taken along a couple of the boys playing in the sand to compete in the canoeing, swimming and other water sports. The idea is not to really compete, but to fill up the numbers and give these boys some sort of travelling exposure.  I’m sure that a few surprises would have materialised. You can never tell.

He was christened Nii Ayi Aryee Aryeetey - no name can be more ultra Ga than that.
Your Ga man, from the standpoint of history falls into one of three categories - those who belong to the sea (James Town, Bukom, Teshie and Chorkor), those who belong to the sand (Nungua, Labadi, Accra City itself), and those who are lost and about (Adangbes, Hausas, Yorubas, Sierra Sierra Leonean etc., born and bred in Accra).

If you are yourself a lady prone to picking quarrels, never fear, for in the Ga man you have found your lifelong bodyguard. At first sight, he tends to be somewhat gentle - that is, until provoked of course. Of all the men in other Ghanaian tribes, the Ga man is the most fearless - moreso after his balls of kenkey and red pepper. But tread softly. Because of their horrible sense of humour, every joke on him is a personal affront to his manhood. And since he applies the same code of honour to women and men, please for heaven’ s sake, if he says.. “Ma yi bo eei” (I will beat you), don’t stand to challenge him, thinking it as empty threat. Woman, wife, lover, fiancee, he will turn you into a punching bag! But that is the core of the Ga man.

The icing on the cake is the educated Ga man. He is of a breed you can always count on. For even though he is capable of chewing his sponge to the airport to meet his cousins on the early morning Ghana Airways flight from London, he has gone to Achimota School and speaks the English language well. If he is from James Town (British Accra) and has a surname like Bannerman, Reindorf or Bruce, he has extremely good taste and mannerisms and is worth the ride. That is until a taxi driver crosses him at Bukom junction. Then his spirit of sexual frankness comes out. Expletives of descriptions of the various parts your relatives spew forth in a torrent from his well-trimmed moustache. These insults, too private to mention here, invariably begin with “Onyaeeeeeee…………………………………………”

If Nii Ayi has any ambition, it is suppressed, perhaps for fear of failure. His faith is in the white collar job, where he fights with Fanti man over posts in the civil service. But the Ga man hardly ever gets to the top, because he will surely forgo his transfer related promotion to stay put in Accra - you see, he has the firmest, transplantable roots in Accra and for him Accra is the only place to be.

If you are a young ambitious lady who wants her man to get everything, forget it. Even though they can (with a little training!) make the most docile and obedient companions, his lack of drive will drag you down. But if you are a bit on the lazy, labour-saving side in the kitchen, rush for a Ga man. Not for him the elaborate three course meals - he is more than satisfied with kenkey and kenkey and kenkey, fish and pepper (N.B just vary slightly with sardines, tilapia, corned beef, etc.)

Ah! One problem though, he is already married to his grandfather’s family house! So if Mr. Aryeetey has already started talking about matrimony, ask him where you are going to live after the wedding!

By no fault of his own, the regular Fanti Man has been born with a pre-independence White Man’s name hanging over his head. Some of them love to pretend it’s a burden, (though they love it!) and redeem their nativeness with indigenous first names. Paapa, Fiifi, Yoofi and Kojo are all time favourites. Kweku, Kwesi and other weekday names are also favored.

Kwamena Smith, or Yoofi Van Dyck are examples of such a curious combination. Your potential Fanti Man is pompous and self-opinionated and believes that the biggest offense committed against him is ‘accusing’ him of belonging to another tribe. His answer to a question like “Are you from X town?” invariably is “Of course not! I am Fanti, a Fanti from Dutch Komenda!”

Seeking education, meaning higher education, to the Fanti man is as natural as seeking rain after a long drought. In the days of the ‘Matric’ Exam, they were the Greek and Latin Scholars - leave the Sciences (physics, maths, add. Maths) to others, theirs was the Humanities. Even the Post-Matric Fanti man of the 2000’s still believes that nothing is as good as a University Degree, any degree from Legon or Tech will do -Cape Vars is out. While on Campus, they still behave like they used to in Adisco and Augustines. In nobody else is the old boy feeling deeper than in the Fanti man. This is one of their fewer good points, for they are very loyal to old friends (even when they are down).

This ‘old boy’ streak is carried into the Civil Service, which is the Fanti Man’s mainstay and Principal Secretary in a Ministry or General Manager in a private firm is his ultimate ambition. They are very rarely businessmen and even so their business achievements are commonplace and mediocre. If you’re a lady who believes in wealth and all its trappings, steer clear of the Fanti man because so long as government bungalows exists, the Fanti man will not build a house. When they get around to build a house, like their business acumen, their houses are uninspiring.

Your average Fanti man is stingy, and mean with chop money, even though he enjoys his food. If after reading this article ladies, your heart is still set to get your Fanti man rush into the kitchen and start frying. Fry anything, he’ll love it, as long as it is fried! As the Fanti proverb goes “a Fanti man builds his mansion in his stomach.”

In relationships they are dictators and act like domineering feudal lords. They tend to colonise their women. In appearance, speech and taste, no detail on his woman escapes his attention. Stubborn and authoritative, the Fanti man can be cruel if you so much as change your hairstyle without consulting him. On the plus side, he has a terrific sense of humor and is incredibly cheerful, though he can be petty, quarrelsome and can really sulk.
To know if you are the perfect match for the Fanti man,

1. Did you go to Wesley Girls High School? (Upper Six mind you!)
2. Can you cook very well (and bake pies?)
3. Are you Fanti yourself or at least a Ga lady from British Accra (Chokor is out!)
4. Do you wear hats and gloves to weddings (and enjoy it?)
5. Are you ready for picnics, packed lunches and sandwiches (for afternoon tea?)
6. Can you pretend to be his slave (forever?).

If you couldn’t tick any of the above, please don’t waste the Fanti man’s time, or yours. On the other hand if you do have one in mind, please act accordingly and as they say, book early to avoid disappointment and Good Luck!

There is another one for the Ga man just in case you are interested.

Last week, we were told that the Basic Education results were in and once again a good proportion of the candidates did not make it, and another chunk had their results cancelled for various examination offences (570 we are told).

Of course no one has to take blame. No one will. Well, apart from the poor kids who desperately wanted to pass even though they had not been adequately prepared? They were all lazy students who did not learn. That is the verdict out there. The real reason? They were inadequately prepared by those who made them sit for those exams. Simple as that.

You would think that with such high failure and cheating rates over the years, some persons at the education service and education ministry would take responsibility and would have resigned for these perennial happenings during examinations. Maybe it’s happened so many times that when failures and disasters to occur in the system no one is expected to take responsibility. Ghanaians it seems, do not require anyone to be accountable. National institutions and their heads are not made to sign performance agreements of any sort and so we just trudge on.

It’s also amazing when you hear these heads of institutions mount the podium and blame the students for their poor performance. Right now, the mantra is that Ghanaian graduates are of low quality. Maybe true, but which factories are churning out these low quality products? Is it that the raw materials are so bad or there is a fundamental flaw with our educational system?

I am yet to meet any student who wants come bottom of the class. Of course there would the ones who may have academic challenges of sorts and so may not meet the standard pass marks set by academic institutions but could such students not have alternative ways of instruction and leaning methods- alas, there is none; you are either in or out.

The real issue is that leadership over the years have consistently failed group after group of students. You see right after independence, the educational sector has had lots of its fair share of reforms. We endured the British educational system, which we inherited from our departing colonial masters.

Then a bureaucrat somewhere had a brainwave! You see the British system was designed to churn out clerks and scribes to enable them effectively conduct their trading activities. Now that we are independent, we needed to over-haul the system and make sure that the current educational system was in tune with our manpower needs. Brilliant idea! But then that’s how our problems started. Fifty years on, we are still reforming. Yes, the devils of the old system are such entrenched and multifaceted beasts that over all these years we still trying to exorcise them.

So the GCSE system was abandoned. A and O levels were no more. We became the experiments of these new systems. In came the Junior and Secondary School Systems. New subjects were introduced, others were dropped. In the end, some of us had to write twelve (12) papers at the Basic examination. And woe unto you if if did not get twelve ones. (The results were graded from one to nine, with one meaning excellent and so forth). The original idea of going through these grueling twelve papers was that no matter the grades a student got, these were just basic examinations and so no one was considered to have failed. Indeed the examination council does not offer retakes of these exams. The best?? senior secondary schools in turn started selecting prospective students by first going through the list of twelve ones and gradually working their way down. So if you had six or five ones it meant that you probably had to kiss your preferred choice of “good” secondary school good-bye. Of course if your parents could push a fat brown envelope under the headmaster’s desk your name would magically appear on the admissions list even if they had a large notice at the school gate which said no admissions. And it helped if your parents or an uncle were old boys, went to church with the headmaster or knew the right persons in these schools.

But it didn’t stop there. Some of these new courses did not have syllabi. Subjects that had any didn’t have textbooks. And those which even had textbooks did not have qualified teachers for the subjects concerned so we had to struggle with what we had. And when whoever happens to be in charge of education had a dream- like the type Joseph had in the Bible about drought in Egypt, changes were made to save us all. These were holy visions from the great gods and ancestors and had to be obeyed. I wonder when the dust would finally settle. Currently there’s another saviour for the deformed educational system. There has been a new remix of sorts of the educational sector again and we are all singing a new chorus. Secondary school is now four years and by the way there are no more secondary schools in Ghana. They are now called High Schools. Every school is frantically trying to change their signpost to reflect the refreshing new change. It’s probably a good time to be a signpost writer. I just wonder what’s next.

But if I go on, I don’t think I’ll end this piece.

Its amazing that students of yesterday, who went on demonstrations because they ate too much free chicken at the canteens, were showered with too much milk , had unending choices of rooms to sleep in, had good allowances (note: not loans) and other items should turn back and say that the quality of graduates coming out of Universities now are of low quality when they have failed to provide even a hint of what was provided them to successive generations.

But you know the funny thing about this whole mess? The big people in society who were the DJ’s of our wonderful academic musical chairs did not school their children in this mess. No. They all bundle their children unto planes and gain admission for them in Ivy league schools somewhere in America or their counterpart schools in Europe. When asked how they finance the expensive schooling of their wards, they blame their rich friends. It seems Ghanaian politicians whose salaries are not much suddenly get super rich friends willing to school their children in expensive schools and buy them expensive houses all for free.

So the next time someone mounts the podium to complain about the quality of students coming out of universities in Ghana just let them know of one of my favourite computing terms- GIGO- Garbage In Garbage Out. We did not educate ourselves. We were brought up by a society that expects brilliant graduates after these students have laboured through a ghastly educational system that provided both teachers and students with the wrong tools (that is if any tools were provided) from day one.

Maybe it’s a tacit admission of their failures. They are ashamed of what they have turned us into. Maybe it’s their way of saying sorry for in Ghanaian society, adults don’t apologise to kids no matter the offence.