basic skills...

BECE is done again and happy hour is here. I saw a couple of junior high school graduates dancing to 5five’s muche baya in Accra central, opposite the Kinbu Secondary Technical School. Boy, were they having a jolly good time and rightly so. I mean, they have endured 9years of conventional classroom education; assignments, home works, projects, competitions and the just ended examination. Who is to say, hey, hang on, you are not done yet, you just put yourself on flight to a world of the unknown. Whoever does that, needs sensitivity training. So let them be for now, let them celebrate.

I was glad, my heart went out to them, but then I remembered, there were others still who couldn’t read or write, do basic arithmetic or analysis. Close to the euphoric students were others who plied the streets for their daily bread. It was the sharp contrast that broke my heart. What are we doing? How are we helping them as a people? Like Kojo Oppong Nkrumah asked on Joy 99.7 fm, what can we do, just the two of us (you and i) to help these kids?

Frankly the pocket of street children I saw next to the excited graduates is just a semblance of the prevailing situation plaguing the entire country. These are the ones in the cities. There are million others in the rural areas. Some might grow to become extra ordinary farmers but mainly at the subsistence level. And how much will that contribute to the national income?

We take education away, we take healthcare away from our children and we leave them with nothing. They have no alternatives. If we gave them choices; education, healthcare, entrepreneurship, sports, arts, among others and they missed it in their decision making, we could be sure they would whip themselves back into line the moment they find that they have fallen short. But if we fail to give them room to make choices because we have not provided alternatives, we would be in a better place if we just shut up and take any contribution they can give to mother Ghana.

I guess what I am saying is, we are mighty proud of our fresh junior high school graduates, they have done us proud, but wouldn’t it better if the percentage of students who sat and passed the exam was about 80% of children of school going age in Ghana.

God bless Ghana.

'kwashe boys'

Three of my friends were followed closely, I’m talking bumper to bumper (no three seconds breaking distance) for close to an hour until they were robbed at machete point when they stopped and were getting out of their car. An uncle was made to lie prostrate on the bare red soil while he was robbed of his mobile phone and mp3 player (big deal). My dare devil friend, Mr. Tahil tried some counter attacks and fortunately came out with only a few battle marks (without the laptops and handsets he was carrying of course).

These are just the ones that happened to people close to me, or better still people close to me who voiced out. To the many other “unsung heroes”, cheers!!! Kwashe boys, as they are popularly known are the renegades you might just meet if you decide to stay out a little too long. My neighbourhood in Alajo used to be a very safe place until the advent of “kwasheing” (robbing). I mean five years back you could walk down the road without thinking of anyone even so much as following you. I was more frightened of ghosts then. Now I would rather meet a ghost than a cold blooded kwashe boy who is not holding his weapon to induce fear (ask my friend, Mr. Tahil if you don’t believe me). These boys do not discriminate, be you black, white, old, young, Ghanaian, Ivorian, you fall victim and you are deadly prey.

A few of them hide behind the veil of unemployment, the increasingly rising high cost of living, lack of leisure, the internet café industry, to name a few. I like to think of myself as a liberal, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot understand the criminals. The victims share my school of thought. They believe the culprits are just plain lazy, they refuse to work knowing they can bully the unsuspecting and unexpectant hard working Ghanaians. Ghanaian culture is to a certain degree shrink averse so we stomach our emotions in the interim and find our own windows with which to let out the experience in the immediate future.

All I’m saying is, this is the menace in society now, these are the kids that run the streets, the spirit of violence, anarchy and non conformity to the rules of the land is fast harvesting our productive youth. They have succeeded in creating an atmosphere of trepidation, panic and uncertainty. Perhaps we need to make an example of a perpetrator when apprehended, and maybe, just maybe it might be enough to draw the attention of the peace officers and media to the aid of the helpless. In an area such as Alajo or Tabora the frontier of safety might just be your front gate. Silver lining: victims go ahead to get updated assets of the ones taken from them earlier (hehe). It just highlights the fact that life is not fair, and no matter how big or tough you are, life will knock you down. It’s not how many times you are knocked down that matters, but how many times you get up and fight again…..even if your opponents are 'kwashe boys'.