kriskotei

the 'dead' streets of the Ghana Police Headquarters

corpse was taken out of this hearse and carried home

wedding car and its bride

I woke up from bed on Saturday July 11, 2009, filled with joy: one, for Barack Hussein Obama and his family touching down successfully on the soil of Ghana, two, for God being kind to me and my first daughter by adding another year to her life.
Since I was not been given any VVIP invitation to see the first African American president of United States of America and had no major role to play in his visit to Ghana, I decided to occupy myself with my daughter’s birthday party.
“Mama Mia”, was the exclamation from mouth, haven been hit with the rudest shock of my life as I reached the main lorry station in La to board a vehicle to Danquah Circle to pick up my girl’s birthday cake.
No vehicle was moving in or out of La due to the fact that all access road to move out or in had been closed to traffic as policemen dotted the streets to Accra and Danquah Circle.
Market women, by day workers, people attending programmes, etc. had no option than to walk to their various destinations because the US president was visiting the La General Hospital.
With my daughter’s happiness in mind, and her party as well; I had no option than to join the walking crowd to Nima Junction from La to pick up the birthday cake.
My anger gradually gave up to smiles, sympathy and laughter as I encountered different people on my two-hour walk.
The first incident was a wedding car with its bride to-be jammed in traffic. One gentleman retorted as we laughed out, “the groom is going to be delayed again for his honeymoon after waiting all this while to have this lady”.
As if that was not enough, another drama unfolded as a hearse from the mortuary had to stop all its siren noise at the roadblock. The mourners took out the corpse in the van and carried it on their heads to the funeral grounds, alas; it might miss heaven if not buried early.
With anger and depression written on the faces of the ‘walkers’, they started saying all sort of things such as, “should Obama bring money to Ghana, the ministers will be using them to buy ‘pampers’, ’chi-chin-ga’, mouth wash etc. they (the walkers) will not see any of it. The MPs will also call for more monies to buy ‘big cars’, chase after their girlfriends and daughters and drink more tea”.
I became more emotional as I saw a man carrying his son at his back to enable him get the child to the hospital for eye care treatment. “Massa, even if you want pay a taxi driver One Million to get you to hospital, you will not get any, all access roads have been blocked. What kind of sick arrangement is this? Is Obama going to use all these roads you have blocked,” he fumed.
All businesses and other activities came to a stand still between 7:30 am and 2 o’clock pm before the roads where opened, as no vehicles were aloud to move.
Obama is come and gone, but car owners will be very annoyed with their drivers and employers will have a bone to pick with their employees. His visit will forever bear an indelible mark on our memories, not just for its historic nature but the walking sacrifice we did on his behalf.
Should we have another Obama coming to Ghana, the security agencies should do their homework well not to repeat this mistake they did to the people of Ghana.
By the way, I got home with the birthday cake broken to pieces, with the six candles that my small girl is to blow off its flames mixing with the icing on the cake.
Happy 6th Birthday, Kezia Naa-Dei Kotei!