Folks, for some strategic reasons please permit me to recycle one of my favourite jokes which I believe will help to have the needed impact on my story.
In this modern times one could be appalled that some people are still insanely superstitious and attribute any ill-luck or misfortune to the doing of witchcraft; and Nana Agyekum, a rich cocoa farmer who lived many years ago at a village in the Brong Region, was the veriest gullible of all such like-minded people.
It happened one day that, Nana Agyekum after a very successful cocoa season bought a VW Beetle car. In those days very few people in the whole country were privileged to own cars, and so he decided to visit some friends in a neighbouring village to show off his newly acquired asset, but the car developed a fault halfway through the journey. VW Beetle car is one of the few vehicles with the engine at the rear.
He quickly went in front of the car and opened the bonnet in an attempt to check the fault. Unfortunately, no engine was found. He thought that some witches have removed the engine in a blink of an eye! Sweats began to run in rivulets down the sides of his face, his jaw dropped involuntarily, and he spoke in brong: “Kai, nkrɔnfuo no bɛtu engine no.” (the Witches have removed the engine.)
Nana Agyekum waived furiously for the sporadic oncoming vehicles to stop, and because he was quite popular in the area, a couple of drivers with their passengers alighted from their vehicles and went to his aid; and after narrating his story, some enlightened ones among the people, with suppressed laughter tried to convince the old man that engines of VW Beetle cars are positioned at the rear, but he wouldn’t listen, so they took him to the back of the car and opened the engine compartment.
On seeing the engine, he exclaimed, “Aah, you see, I knew it! These people are wicked and fiendish, after removing the engine from the front see where they’ve brought it.”
Interesting story, isn’t it? The NPP government seems to be facing the most difficult situation unimaginable — COVID-19 and its related issues and the parliamentary primary election which is threatening to tear the party apart at the base. But that is not all, Nana Akufo-Addo’s re-election bid is replete with more danger signals, most frightening is the incessant cry of over four million people whose money have been locked up because of the banking crisis.
The victims of the collapsed financial institutions are starving, and they are livid. When hunger and anger work together the results are spectacular; kikikikiki, no, they are terrifying. This is an awful, ugly truth.
So, when I recently read from the media that aggrieved customers of defunct financial institutions are threatening to besiege the Jubilee House if their money is not paid in two weeks, I said to myself, ” Kai, nkrɔnfuo no bɛtu Nana engine.”
In conclusion, I want to request Awura Ama Badu’s “Medofo Adaadaa Me” for all victims of the banking crisis, especially those sympathetic to the NPP.
By: Anthony Obeng Afrane
