Mr Black in Naija

i visited home country again on a work assignment and for a change i was in abuja the seat of power. i have visited abuja a couple of times but this was my first time staying longer than a couple of days. if i ever have to come back to live in home country, abuja is definitely one of the places i would choose, second only to my home state (after the current governor must have since finished the road projects). the roads in abuja are wide, the streets are well lit (at least in the maitama area where i stayed). transportation is affordable ( i guess because you can actually get to where you want to go in record time). food? well i was taken to a place where the average meal cost an arm and a leg and extra but i came to discover there were other places where you could get a good meal at a decent rate. sharwama or something like that it was called. they even had a delicacy from my home state a meal made from cocoyam wrapped in plantain leaves (ekpang nkukwo) .

a week may be too soon to judge abuja but i think like my host country, if a place looks good in the first few days, there is usually not much deviation a year or two later. the only problem i find in abuja is that it’s largely populated by nigerians. you easily notice this when you hit the road. there is an apparent confusion in the way people drive. wide roads and all but you get that feeling that a lot of the drivers have no clue about road rules. in my host country you can always tell a speed lane, the roundabouts are well marked and the speed limits and speed bumps signs are placed well ahead on the road not almost at the speed bumps. in abuja the speed bump signs jump at you almost as you arrive at the bump. and only when you are almost at the junction that you realize you were meant to be driving at 30km/hr and not 100km/hr. lest i forget we all know about phcn. light has been stable since i came, of course i can’t really tell since i’m in a hotel but from what i gather like the normal naija city, there are areas with lots of power and areas that have epileptic supply. anyway, we wait december ending for the promised 6000mw.

talking about power in naija, i have a solution which i think would work better than the endless wait for government to provide stable power (both in the polity and electricity). i believe if every nigerian pooled in their numerous generators we could actually power the country better. if one considers the number of households running generators as the most reliable source of power with phcn as the unreliable back-up power. either hooking them up in a parallel or series connection ( i forget the exact details of the physics) i’m sure we’ll be able to generate enough power to enable phcn function in its full capacity as a back-up ( during diesel/fuel scarcity). it still beats me though with all the sun in africa we cannot seem to figure out how to make good use of solar energy. if a malawian lad could power his village through a windmill one wonders…

abuja is definitely a nice city to live in once you can afford the overpriced leases.

Eden, Bethlehem & Boti Waterfalls

today i am offering a description on how to get to a chunk of paradise (if you are a fan of nature) , the boti waterfalls. i was given three options by a colleague and i daresay , i missed my way twice but commonsense , instinct, a question or two and a road map put me back on track. i will describe my own route here. to get to boti waterfalls you have to keep in mind some key names, starting with dodowa , adukrom and ofcourse boti. first you’ll have to find your way to afieya using the road leading to michelle camp or if you’ve ever been to aksombo from tema, that’s the road you would use. keep your eyes out for the famous blue and white signs that usually show you a town’s directions. within a few meters from the toll crossing into afienya you will see the sign pointing to dodowa to your left. turn in there and keep driving for as long as the road will take you.

if you are not too busy focusing on the road, you’d see a sign to your left with the word eden (no its not the garden). after thirty minutes to an hour of driving (depending on your speed, the traffic or the car) you’ll get to a cross road where you see lots of sign post but none of the familiar blue and white. take a right and enjoy the ride ( you might as well because it a long one). you’ll pass interesting sounding town names like …(memory skips me) . i can’t gauge how long you would have to drive but somewhere in that stretch you’ll drive past bethlehem on your left. here i’ll note that you wont see any manger just an abandoned concrete structure with no roof surrounded by lots of grass. drive on. after a long time of driving , you will come across a sign post that welcomes you to somanya , at that point you ignore the welcome and turn left because if you look left you’ll see a sign pointing to adukrom (something). take that road and keep driving.

you’ll find yourself going up hill and downhill and around curves but the road is tarred and only has a problem in one spot. up and down you keep going like one of those nursery rhymes and at the tail end of your journey you’ll meet with a T-junction. (a tee junction is one in which straight ahead is a dead end). at this junction if you are keeping your peeled you will see our famous blue and white sign with akropong (left) and koforidua (right). take right. after a short drive , take your first left and keep going. you’ll come across the up, down and curved roads again. then you’ll pass a couple of nice looking villages complete with the mud huts but the road is still tarred. you’ll meet with a customs check point and you can stop there and ask the really nice customs guy there if you are on the right track. he’ll tell you exactly what you will be reading in the next paragraph.

you keep going straight up the road. you will pass a village or three and still keep going. you will come to the only t-junction and if your eyes are peeled (and you had spoken to the nice customs guy) you would see a signboard directing you to the other waterfall (name withheld due to memory glitch) which is not boti but keep reading. you take a left at the T-junction and keep on driving. follow the road until you meet yet another customs check point. this time you don’t have to ask any questions ( i didn’t so i can’t tell if there’s a nice customs guy there). a few meters from the customs post you will see a signboard advertising the other waterfall but if you look very closely you’ll see another sign this time written in white chalk saying “boti falls, 7km (then an arrow)”. follow the arrow.

the other water fall is at a 2km distance but we are only interested in boti for now. at the two kilometer distance, you will see the signboard for the other waterfall ignore it and keep going in the other direction. after a few more minutes of driving you will find the gates of paradise. no angels there, just a young muscular well spoken guy collecting the 50pesewa toll for a ticket and an old guide , who would take you down the 250 steps to the base of the waterfall. please do remember to tip the nice old man.

Click here for a glimpse of the boti paradise

Oburoni And Opporn(twi)nity

i overhead the term opporn(twi)nity on the radio. the program called kokonsa (gossip) was a comical satire on the happenings in the electorate. it was in a mix of pidgin english (the ghanaian flavor) and twi. twi (pronounced 'chui' ) is a well spoken local language in ghana. i have come to understand that there are other dialects , ga, ewe, hausa etc but most ghanaians (at least those i have come in contact with) seem to speak and understand twi. i helped a neighbour out on some computer related stuff and he was taken aback by the fact that i had lived in ghana for over a year and i was yet to pick up twi. my handy excuse was that most people i interacted with spoke english (which is true) but it got me thinking. maybe its time i started a crash program on twi. i wonder if there's a twi for dummies available. i'll probably have to find a way to fraternize with the twi speaking public. probably would have to take a 'tro-tro' more often. i do have some words in my vocabulary though, primary of course would be 'pacho' meaning please.

i dare say my host are a very polite people. if the word 'the' is the most used word in the english language, 'pacho' is the most used word in twi. pacho is used in almost every conversation especially with an 'oburoni'. oburoni i initially thought meant white man (or person to be politically correct) but i got to know it actually means foreigner. so this is an oburoni writing. back to pacho. if you are discussing fares with a taxi driver, while you are driving at a bargain he'll use the term pacho very frequently even as he's disagreeing with your offer. still on the oburoni matter i discovered that we oburonis have an affinity for one another irrespective of color (or creed?).

on my way home from work recently, i came across this korean-chinese-japanese-chinko-looking person trying to hitch a ride. i guess the spirit of brotherhood made me stop to see if i could be of help. after some back and forth exchange trying to break the language barrier using the universal but complicated english language ( for the first time , i could appreciate semantics and syntax). my colleague ended up acting as a translator. he seemed to be better at understanding the chinko english. we found out the fella was trying to get somewhere in the vicinity but didn't have any money i figured that was why he was trying to hitch a ride. in the spirit of the obruni (i think i've used this before) i asked him to hop in and we tried to find where he was going and then dropped him off at his destination. as we dropped him off i and my colleague couldn't help wondering if we would dare take such a risk back in home country. would we stop for him on third mainland or what? and even if we did have the good heart to do so, what guarantees would we have that some area boys wont jump out of nowhere to harass us. the aspect i really couldn't come to terms with is how a foreigner would be without the necessary cash to move him to his destination in a strange land? are people so helpful around the world? given my colour would i have received similar help in his country china, korea, japan etc... well those are rhetorical questions no point in bothering with them.

in addition to their politeness, my host seem to have a very high awareness of their politics. unlike, in home country where there's a lot of political apathy (i subscribe to it too), here in ghana the majority is aware of what's going on and have one or two opinions. i think this contributes immensely to keeping their leaders on their toes. i have listened to one too many mps or ministers trying to defend themselves over the radio. it is also very interesting how the leaders are always ready and willing to answer phone calls from journalists as early as 8:00am in the morning over something printed in the papers about them. it's interesting to hear leaders talk without prepared speeches or outside of press conferences. i really can't recall any impromptu interview with the press by any of the leaders in my home country. sometimes, i find myself taking the side of the harassed minister or mp sure its about accountability but i guess they are used to the system and it certainly keeps them on their toes. the education minister was recently given a hard time because she was supposed to have said that current education system kept girls in school for too long and hence they would have difficulty finding husbands. the poor woman was forced to defend herself saying something similar to being quoted out of context and that she has said other good things which wasn't reported.

Kwesi Frempong – Black through Ho, Capecoast, Kumasi and Sunyani

i got to see more of my host country this week. i was on official assignment to the volta region, brong-ahafo region, central region and the ashanti kingdom. as usual i’ll take a swipe at my home country. some of the places i visited where tertiary institutions and i daresay they are better run and better equipped than those in home country. for the first time in my entire life , i was able to use the loo in a tertiary institution. and it flushed! i also found something interesting about the tertiary institutions we visited; the students had more say in the running of affairs. fees were negotiated. any proposed increase in fees was discussed with the student body first and agreed upon. the authorities always had to explain in great detail any actions they were going to take that would affect the lives of the student. the press provided a check and balance. it appeared the authorities avoided by all means any unfavorable attention from the press. any student agitation would attract the press.

i got to learn some interesting things about the people of some of the visited regions. the people of the central region were laid back. it was joked that the dutch took all the building materials to kumasi and left the eggs and bacon with the people of the central region. it was said that their women could cook very well and their men were very romantic but lazy. it was joked that if you wanted a romantic man and were prepared to live in penury you married a man from the central region however if you were interested in the finer things of life and could forgo romance you married from the ashanti region. thus, the industrious business people were the ashantis (kumasi i could see was a bustling town). the ashanti king, king otumfuo osei tutu ii, recently celebrated his 10th anniversary. the occasion was graced by obasanjo and igbinedion (esama of benin) amongst a host of others. i gather it was pretty grand. yes, i also got to know that the ashantis were big on burials. they took out large bill boards for obituary announcements (saw a couple in kumasi). burials were a week long affair; i did see a lot of people in the traditional black wrapper.

i guess you would be wondering at the title of this piece. those are the places i visited. ho is in the volta region, capecoast in the central region, kumasi in the ashanti region and sunyani in the brong –ahafo region. i passed through koforidua (eastern region) on my way to kumasi. ghana has ten regions and so far i have visited five and live in a sixth one (greater accra). sometime in future i hope to visit the rest. now for the name kwesi frempong – black; i figure that would have been my name had i been ghanaian. kwesi because i was born on a sunday, frempong because it was on of the first of local names i saw on a signboard on my visit here (frempong water works) and the black aspect because i would like to have taken my ancestry from the central region. there are a lot of white (dutch, english and portuguese) sounding surnames from there because of the influence of the slave trade. some intermarriage had happened between the locals and the ‘traders’ and the descendents took on english names. interestingly, ancestry is matrilineal in some areas similar to the jews.

The Darkside & Road building

this time i had planned to write about the bad side of my hosts. i have been searching for something to write for over a year now. i’m not sure if i’ve found it . let’s see, there’s also corruption in government (nothing compared to naija). the teens wear their trousers around their bums, the decent ones showing their boxers; the crass ones showing the crack of their behind. yes and ecg (their nepa) has increased the frequency of light taking to about once or twice every weekend. i’m still thinking. don’t get me wrong its not that this country is perfect but in comparison to naija this guys are in heaven period!

i have heard of road repair and maintenance. this happens when a road is ridden by pot holes and the government finally wake up to their responsibility and give one of their cronies the assignment of patching it up. that is maintenance. repair occurs when the road has become un-motorable for years on the end and the government now issues a fat contract to julius berger (if they really want it repaired) or one of their cronies. over here i think they have a totally different idea of maintenance. else why would there be people checking on the status of the road when i cannot see any pot holes?

the tema motorway which i hear was built during nkrumah’s time (meaning its approximately 50 yrs old) is by all standards a highly motorable road. no cuts, breaks or pot holes exist on it. no bumps either and yet there was a team of road workers checking up on the status of the road. clearly companies like julius berger wont be making much cash in this country. why can’t they wait for a road to spoil before trying to maintain it. haba! to worsen it, they build their own roads during the rainy season so they can see how water flows will affect its durability. i think that is taking it too far. in naija we build in the dry season when its cheaper. if the rains come and erode most of it, it simply means a fresh contract all in the spirit of chop – i – chop.

Tok Tok & The Credit Crunch

i guess coming from nigeria makes me wonder about my hosts. my nigerian brothers would say there is too much ‘tok tok’ in this country. then again it reminds me of something i was told about a place in london where you could go to let off steam. the concept of the place was that if something really bugged you, you could go there and shout about it at the top of your voice until you felt better. i was very young when i was told this so i couldn’t quite verify its authenticity (this was long before google was invented). the idea anyway is that if people do more of talking or had a forum to talk they would be less inclined to acting in an otherwise unruly manner. winston churchill was acclaimed for making the statement jaw-jaw instead of war-war.

i think except for the boku area, ghanaians do a lot of talking about issues. over the past few days, there has been some excitement about the new president as he approaches 100 days in office. i am of the opinion that there’s not much that can be done in a 100 days given the credit crunch and all. there are claims that there were promises made during the campaign that were to be fulfilled by the first 100 days. the opposition wait gleefully for the 100 days to pass and they have prepared a forum where the government and ‘experts’ will sit around and discuss the progress. well i am a guest here but if you ask me, with two downward adjustments in the pump price since the new government came to power i would give the government a thumbs up. but then i am an outsider, the ghanaian people know better. but i prefer ‘tok tok’ any day.

i have not written anything on the credit crunch. i guess it’s because i haven’t really felt it yet. well i don’t own a credit card and i am not in debt. like the true african, living in africa , you are only given something when you have paid for it or can provide fool proof guarantee that you will pay for it in the very near future. if you can’t afford something you can’t get it period! notwithstanding, there is a credit system but it works on individual bases not like in the mass marketed western credit system. the buka lady can allow her favourite customer run up drinking bills because she knows that when he gets paid, he will come to her first to pay up his drinking debt. this he does religiously because he would need the services for the next month. some landlords who own low rent apartments would accept month by month payments and sometimes are owed up to six months in arrears. the two scenarios are typical examples of the african credit system.

with the encroachment of western culture, the credit system has also gotten a measure of adaptation. the salary advancement scheme is one of such adaptation. the bank in which your salary account is domiciled would offer you advances in lieu of your salary. you are allowed to borrow up to a certain percentage while the bank gleefully awaits your next pay check and you sorrowfully wait for the remainder. of course as the typical african credit system, the payment is guaranteed in that; the bank has access to your money before you do.

Home is... II

once again i had the opportunity to visit my home country. it was an eye opening and pretty pleasant trip. i met with some interesting changes especially in lagos. seems the state governor has a vision (a rare thing for nigerian leaders). it was actually on my way back to the airport that i got a feel of the man’s vision. he wants to solve that age old problem of transportation we face in the overcrowded city. the statistics stands at forty thousand danfo buses and one million okada (motorcycles) servicing over thirteen million people, i guess excluding the seven odd million who own their own means of transportation. i must add here that his game plan is to eradicate the use of okada because of loss of life and the general nuisance these cause.

his approach is different from a host of his peers who think an outright ban on okada riders automatically solves the problem. he has more or less given 2011 as the time when the state will be rid of the menace. the plan being that by 2011 a functional train service and water transportation system would be in place. work has started on those already. so the okada drivers have two year’s notice to begin planning on finding alternative employment. the work on the road networks are continuing. places like oshodi that was both scary and slummy he’s clearing up. under bridges around the third mainland – ikoyi axis are being given a new look as per landscape. the green in the flag is once more showing brighter. i often wondered about the green on the flag when everywhere looked dirty and smelly.

the few nigerians i have spoken with feel the change coming. and they seem to be in support and believe in it. they talk of people queuing on the pedestrian bridge in oshodi with glee and wonder. i guess we were so rowdy a country that organized behaviour is shocking. its early days yet, like all good cynics (built over years of broken promises and failed projects and most importantly haphazard power supply) we keep our noses wrinkled until it happens.

Home is ...

i’ll probably get hate mail for this post but i cant help it. i heard a story some days back that made me weep (well figuratively) for my home country. i was in conversation about the recent kenyan fuel wahala . i was like don’t these people watch cnn. in home country on three ocassions in a six month period, there have been fire outbreaks caused by people going a fuel siphoning from a ‘vandalized’ pipe. like clockwork it follows well known steps.

1. news about the vandalized pipe spreads
2. first arrivals make a killing by scooping and going off to sell
3. late arrivals get killed because a fire breaks out
4. police arrive
5. fire service arrives (optional)

the cause of my sadness was the story about a similar situation in ghana. a fuel tanker fell and it would be expected that the items above are followed to the letter but then its ghana , things are different here.

1. a fuel tanker falls and news spreads
2. police are on the scene to keep off miscreants
3. another tanker comes to the scene for a transfer of contents
4. no body dead

i don’t have to explain my sadness do i? my home country , my beloved naija, full of smart intelligent and aggressive people. a hundred and forty million strong and nothing still ‘werks’. the giant of africa. most populous black nation. ok i better stop here before the hate mail is upgraded to kidnapping for ransom.

once again i must mention customer service here. my dstv was deactivated and i called. the guy at the other end first greets me, asks my problem, gets my account number, asks me to hold on while he checks my account. he then tells me to flip the channel and inquires if i’m now activated. i was so grateful i thanked him and hung up. this took just about 10 minutes.

now here's the contrast: in nigeria (ok so they kidnap me? they’ll get nothing). you don’t dare call. you have to physically go to multichoice office and get into verbal wrestling (its our aggressive nature) with the people. when you have overpowered the sales rep by your eloquent argument (showing him the receipt of your online payment which for some reason they haven’t been aware of) and he finally agrees that you should be reactivated. even though the system isn’t updated you go home to wait. day one, you realize you should have gotten the sales rep’s number. day two, you think of the lekki-ekpe traffic to vi and develop a sudden reluctance to take the trip to the dstv office. day three, you have had to watch the match at soul lounge. day four you have no choice you head back to multichoice and finally you are back.

nevertheless , nigeria we hail thee. there’s no place like home. home is where the heart is. i rest my case

To Home And Back

i went visiting the home country after a couple of months away. i did visit for sometime earlier in the year (last year that is). a lot had changed. sure lagos was still lagos, saw more street lights, the road signs were clearer , ozumba mbadiwe was all but finished, the roads were wide enough but traffic filled it all the same. the expansion work on lekki-ekpe road was serious business as usual it caused some more bottle neck. the real changes in the country was in my home state.

the shock began when i saw a julius berger sign in what used to be a very bad part of the road joining my home state to calabar. usually, our half was the bad part but this time around the cross river end was the bad part. a lot of work was going on on the road i was really impressed. i was in for more shock as i got into town. i heard about fly overs, an airport, a 5 star hotel and taxis! my home state invented the 'okada' system, we'd been using it a decade before it became a mainstay of transportation in other parts of the country.

apparently, the new government were either very resourceful or had found some hidden stash of cash and decided to put it to good use. i couldn't quite get where all the money to execute the projects were coming from. an airport, road networks, taxis? taking a trip to ikot ekpene from uyo in one of the taxis was an experience. for the price of an average mtn recharge card , i took an air-conditioned, comfortable trip to ikot ekpene. at ikot ekpene i got more shock because some inner city roads had actually been worked on and hence were motorable. sure enough changes were coming to the country. if my civil service home state was finally trying to get out of the civil service then there was certainly hope for naija. to cap it all, i got to my village and there was electrical power! life was back, welding work, hair saloons etc were all back in operation. who knows maybe it's because i've been away for a while so the changes are more pronounced to me.

while i was away, ghanaians once more gave africa some lessons in electioneering. the opposition successfully won over the incumbents. now this was done without any need for power sharing or bloodshed. i still harbour the theory that beneath their dark skin there's some caucasian blood flowing in their veins. its one thing for the opposition to actually win an election and its another for their victory to be accepted by the incumbent. this country gives me hope that after all its not the the lot of the african to be unruly and inefficient. someday there shall be order in the whole of africa, someday...not today.

a bbc radio program further reiterated my theory about the caucasian blood in ghanians. their equivalent independent electoral commission was very similar to the one in my home country except for the 'independence'. though the incumbent government could appoint the head of the commission he could not fire the person at will. the law was such that after the appointment the commission head had no allegiance to the incumbent. his allegiance was to the people and of course to his conscience. since the president couldn't sack him or sacking him would require some major constitutional wrangling he indeed could act independently. i guess my home country needs to borrow from the ghanaians in the electoral reforms they're thinking of.