Bawumia: praising the wrong people
Posted by By Akogun Akomolafe at 22 February, at 03 : 15 AM Print
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A satire by Femi Akomolafe
My Books on Amazon
- Africa: it shall be well: https://tinyurl.com/sn64ocd
- Africa: Destroyed by the gods: https://tinyurl.com/vglfk7w
- 18 African Fables & Moonlight Stories: https://tinyurl.com/s7qrp4p
Try and get your copy. And, please, help me share the links.
Kind regards,
Femi Akomolafe
Heavy traffic, nauseating dirt and noxiously polluted air are among the reasons I try to avoid going to Accra. But it had been a long while since I last met the comrades, and I dearly needed to catch up with the happenings on the Pan-African Front. I reasoned that Sunday might be a good day to meet up and talk, learn a few new things and solidarize.
I was wrong, dead wrong. We ran into impossibly heavy traffic as soon as we crested the hill to enter La Paz. Rather than sit in the Trotro and breathe in the foul air, I decided to put my legs in motion and walk the rest of my journey. It was still some way to my destination, but with the traffic as it was, I figured I surely would be better off walking.
A heavy din of uncoordinated music assaulted my ear drums as soon as I alighted from the vehicle. As it was a Sunday and most of the traders were off the street, I was intrigued as to the origin of the clangorous merry-making.
I soon ran into a large crowd of singers, drummers and dancers who had taken over the highway and were swinging it out with loud music supplied by traditional beats mixed with a brass band. Obviously happy people were dancing themselves silly as they pantomimed different styles of dances. A very beautiful woman with a Northern Ghana face peeled herself away from the group and pirouetted to where I was standing, mesmerized by the dancing. She shook heavy buttocks in my face. I was impressed; I beamed to her. She showed me her wonderful ivories. Nice!
“What is the occasion, Northern Star?” I wanted to know.
She showed me her wonderful ivories once again and said, “Wow, my brother, we are happy, very happy.”
I smiled back.
‘I can see that, Beautiful One. What are you guys celebrating?”
“We are coming from the church,” she proudly announced, then executed some fanciful dancing steps. I loved it.
I looked at the half-hijab on her head. “Are you a Christian?” I asked curiously.
She beamed another knockout smile in my direction; wonderful dental works. She replied, “No, I am a Muslim. But today is inter-demoni…, ah, ah, ha. I cannot even pronounce the word. It is too long. But it is a church service.”
“Inter-denomination service,” I helped her. Sometimes, I am a nice guy.
“Yes, thank you.” She showed her appreciation with another beautiful smile. I ogled as she shook her heavy bosom in my face with some dexterity. She turned around and deftly jiggled her curvaceous, industrial-sized ass sensuously. Nasty thoughts assailed my consciousness.
Wow. Wow. The Lord is good.
“What is the occasion, Beautiful One?”
“Ha, you paaaaaaaaaaaa!” I love the way she stretched word. “We are thanking God for the safe return of our vice-president from his medical treatment abroad.”
“Really?’
“Yes, why do you look so surprised?”
Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
She executed another sensuous dance move and beamed at me. “We have to thank God for saving his life, don’t you think?”
“Don’t you think that you are thanking your god at the wrong place?”
“Wrong place? What do you mean? Where should be thanking him, then?”
“From what I read, when the VP fell ill, he was not rushed to a church but to a medical center. From there they rushed him to the UK where he was successfully treated by a team of doctors, not priests. So, why are you people going to a church to listen to a priest’s vapid sermon and come out to dance to a god? Should you people not be at the hospital to thank the doctors who saved his life?”
She suspended her dancing and regarded me like a chemist studying a difficult compound. She told me, “Please, I don’t understand the question.”
I very gently told her, “Oh, it is quite simple. I did not read in any of the published reports that the VP was rushed to a church; he was rushed to a hospital. My question is why thank pastors and gods instead of thanking the good doctors who did the job of saving his life.
“We are not thanking gods, we are thanking the Almighty God.”
“Whatever. What role did the Almighty God play in saving the VP’s life?”
“You! Are you NDC?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It looks like you don’t like our organizing thanksgiving for the VP’s return.”
“No, no, no. I have nothing against your people organizing thanksgiving or whatever. I’m saying that the thanks are being given to the wrong person. Go to the hospital and thank the doctors. That is all I am saying.”
“Are you a Muslim?”
“No. Why do you ask?
“Maybe you have something against our mixing with the Christians.”
“No, I am not a Muslim and I honestly do not care with whom you decided to mix. That is none of my palaver. I just find it incredibly irksome how we go about things in this society.”
“What do you mean?”
“It looks to me that we continuously allow ourselves to be bamboozled by inanities and utter stupidity. We preoccupy ourselves with frivolities. Whoever organized this stupid jamboree knows that it is incredibly foolish. But the person obviously understood our psychology very well. He knew that we are simple folks to whom the simplest of critical thinking is a major encumbrance. Before you decided to join this charade, did you ponder or ask yourself what would have happened had the VP been rushed to a church instead of a hospital? Did you ask yourself if all the prayers in the world could have saved his life if he had not been sent to receive medical attention abroad? No, you didn’t ask. Here you are, occupying a major highway and dancing yourself silly in order to praise a god that did nothing when the man fell ill.”
“How did you know that God did nothing?’
“What did he do?”
“God works in mysterious ways.”
“Really? We are in deep trouble in this country when we have so many citizens with obvious logical and cognitive disabilities.”
“Are you insulting me?”
“Oh, no, Northern Sunshine, I am not insulting you. Please, do not personalize the issue. You obviously did not organize this hopeless jamboree. We have a country where most people refuse to do elementary reasoning or interrogate their brains to see if their actions accord with elementary logic. What do you think the hard-working doctors will feel when useless charlatans in priestly garb are being celebrated for doing nothing and taking all the credit from the doctors who did all the grunt work?”
“I don’t think that they would mind.”
“You thought wrong. They are human beings and they must have feelings. But that is not even the issue.”
“What is the issue, then?’
“I don’t need a Trump to tell me that many places in Africa are veritable shitholes. A recent study by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (presented in Accra on Wednesday, February 14, 2018) found that there are 265 slums in our capital, Accra, a city of 2.27 million people. That is a very serious indictment. A shithole, to me, is a society, any society, where the leaders shamelessly rush abroad to receive services they fail to provide to their citizens at home.”
About the Author
Femi Akomolafe, a passionate Pan-Africanist, was one of the PCs Pioneers and ran a Computer Consultancy firm in Amsterdam, the Netherlands for several years, where he also set up the first African Bulletin Board System (BBS), the precursor to the Internet. He also established the first Black Newspaper, The African, in the country.
Femi has been very active in the Pan African Movement since the early 1990s.
A columnist for ModernGhana and a Correspondent for the London-based New African magazine, Femi lives in both Europe and Africa and writes regularly on Africa-related issues for various newspapers and magazines.
Femi was the producer of the FOCUS ON AFRICANS TV Interview programme for the MultiTV Station.
He was also the Man and Machine Coordinator at Alaye Dot Biz Limited, a Kasoa-based Multimedia organization that specializes in Audio and Video Production. He loves to shoot and edit video documentaries.
He is currently engaged in vegetable farming.
His highly-acclaimed books (“Africa: Destroyed by the gods,” “Africa: It shall be well,” “18 African Fables & Moonlight Stories” and “Ghana: Basic Facts + More”) are available for sales at the following bookshops/offices:
- Freedom Bookshop, near Apollo Theatre, Accra.
- WEB Dubois Pan-African Centre, Accra
- Ghana Writers Association office, PAWA House, Roman Ridge, Accra.
Where to buy them online:
On Lulu Books:
18 African Fables & Moonlight Stories https://goo.gl/Skohtn
Ghana: Basic Facts + More: https://goo.gl/73ni99
Africa: Destroyed by the gods: https://goo.gl/HHmFfr
Africa: It shall be well: https://goo.gl/KIMcIm
Africa: it shall be well
on Kindle books: https://www.createspace.com/4820404
on Amazon books: http://goo.gl/QeFxbl
on Lulu Books: https://goo.gl/SQeoKD
Africa: Destroyed by the gods
on Kindle books: https://www.createspace.com/4811974
18 African Fables & Short Stories: https://goo.gl/s9tWAf
on Amazon books: http://goo.gl/1z97ND
on Lulu Books: http://goo.gl/KIMcIm
My Lulu Books page: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FemiAkomolafe
Get free promotional materials here:
- Africa: it shall be well: http://alaye.biz/africa-it-shall-be-well-introduction-in-pdf/
A FREE Chapter of ‘Africa: It shall be well’ can be downloaded here: http://alaye.biz/africa-it-shall-be-well-a-free-chapter/
- Africa: Destroyed by the gods (How religiosity destroyed Africa) http://alaye.biz/africa-destroyed-by-the-gods-introduction/
A FREE Chapter of ‘Africa: Destroyed by the gods’ can be downloaded here: http://alaye.biz/africa-destroyed-by-the-gods-free-chapter/
Contact Femi:
Femi’s Blog: www.alaye.biz/category/blog
Website: www.alaye.biz
Femi on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/author/femiakomolafe
Femi Akomolafe’s Lulu Books page: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FemiAkomolafe
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ekitiparapo
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Femi Alaye;
Gmail+: https://plus.google.com/112798710915807967908;
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/femiakomolafe;
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/fakomolafe
Email: fakomolafe@gmail.com
Profile on New African magazine: http://newafricanmagazine.com/tag/femi-akomolafe/
Kindly help me share the books’ links with your friends and, grin, please purchase your copies.
Comradely,
Femi Akomolafe
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