I’ve seen a number of posts on social media and heard a couple of radio presenters chastising people who took Ebony to the cleaners for mourning her demise ‘as though they loved her’
Some read like this:
1. Hypocrites, you called her all sort of names, why are you crying?
[ads1]2. Look at them, they’re acting as though they loved her. You say bad things about her and cry my heart my heart now that she’s dead.
3. Eii, Ghanaians are fake oo, look at how people who attacked Ebony just 3 months ago are now crying.
MY POINT
I don’t think those who criticised Ebony did so out of hatred for. Many Ghanaians felt the lady was talented that using nudity to sell her brand was only shifting the focus from the talent she had
Even though I never made my view about her public, I felt same, I thought we’ve found a gem who can go beyond the shores of Ghana if marketed beyond her sexuality.
In view of this, it will be most unfair to use criticisms that sort to make her better against people who are hurting as though they wanted her dead. In truth, those who criticised her style probably loved her more and wanted her to build a lasting career.
It is even generally accepted that those criticisms influenced her song: MaameHwe. A song that is in every way one of her finest.
20 years from now, if God grants me life and for some reason have to tell my son about Ebony, I will show him the song: MaameHwe.
That is what strong people do, they get better when pushed. Your best friends are not those who sing your praise even when you’re on the wrong path, they are those who call you to the corridors of common sense.
I have critics, I don’t think they want me dead. We all have people we criticise because we feel they are not doing something right. Does that mean we want her dead? This is not the time to take the moral high ground on the lady’s death and behave as though others have no right to feel sad because they disagreed with her.
What we should be talking about is how we kill people before their time simply due to negligence. Today, we have lost 3 important young people to accident at a place that is said to have become a death trap for the past 6 years. A heap of sand in the middle of a road that remains uncompleted after 6 years is said to have caused the accident. We should be asking the right question, people should be made to answer them. Did they provide a signal to direct people about the heap of sand ahead, why was the project abandoned for so long? What about overspending, can we learn something from this too?
This is what killed Ebony and her friends and not the criticisms. This is not a matter of God has taken, God didn’t take anyone: bad leadership killed them (A smart person will look at this beyond politics).
The police who went to rescue them took over an hour to take them out of the mangled car. They had to cut and break the car with a cutlass. In 21st century, police use cutlass to open a mangled car. These are the problems. Who knows that a timely intervention would have saved at least one of them?
We can’t blame people whose power doesn’t go beyond their Facebook walls when those paid with tax payers’ money are sleeping on the job at our collective detriment.
Ebony is gone, she made her mark though she could only be with us for 21 years. It is sad, it is crazy, parents shouldn’t bury their children.
Now to you, how are you influencing your small corner? What’d you be remembered for when you die? Think.
Finally, pray you don’t die with a popular person, your death will mean little. 3 people died, only one matters. We can’t blame it on anyone: it is natural to empathise with the one you know.
The same way a suicide bomber killing 20 people in Iraq means little to a Ghanaian as compared to a knockout killing 2 people in FaNkyiniKo, so is an unknown person’s death treated as just another death.
The effect of death on us is mostly determined by proximity, relationship and knowledge of the person.
If we learn to appreciate life though, every soul will matter.
Isaac Kyei Andoh
