Kwabena
Brako-Powers (Author, Blogger, Life-Enthusiast, Traveler)
I
took my usual 30 kilometers walk to the dark skinned woman who sells my fav
butter bread in the wooden shop near the Kasoa traffic light. She smiles
anytime I get there as though she relished my presence or so. As I drew closer,
I realized that activities around have been brought to a standstill. The place
was fully armed with police and military men – an unusual scenery. No one was
moving except me or it looks that way. The cars from the four ends of the road have
been stopped. The phone repairers, market sellers, and children selling pure
water, rushed to the road in an expectant mood throwing furtive glances anywhere.
I saw a lady tossed the question: ‘who?’
on her lips as she chew her gum which look whitish than she first bought it.
She bubbled it with the help of her tongue. It produced a ‘ta’ sound and she
giggled locking my eyes into hers.
I
monitored my steps as I drew closer to my favorite seller. She smiles. I saw
her right hand reached for her left ear to adjust the headset she had on. I
shoveled GHC5.00 out of my pocket to her and called out: ‘3 cedis butter bread. I want the soft one’. She nodded as though responding
to me, but I realized her response was a consequence of what she was listening over
her phone. I was not excited with the bread she gave me, at least she saw that
herself. It was not the kind she gives me. I felt anger begin to gather in my
head for this woman who had no clue what was about to happen to her. I clashed
my teeth as she hands the change to me. ‘Thank
you’, she said.
As
I moved onto the road I saw motor riders’ sped toward where I stood heading for
Accra. The riders were soon to be followed by seven – as I took the count – black
V8 cars burying the president’s car in the middle with the Ghana flag and the
flag of the presidency sitting on the front tips of the car. I saw the
excitement on the faces of onlookers - beamed and tossed to others the way an infection
spreads. The police men and women were not left in the excitement. They each froze
their right hand midair saluting the Commander-In-Chief of the nation, while holding
their legs together until the president’s car sped past them. A boy shouted: ‘respect the old man’.
A
man who was then seconds away from me took a step closer to me. ‘Occupying a leadership position in Ghana is
sweet’, he said. I turned to his direction in acknowledgement of his
unsolicited opinion. He smiled. I replied with a smile. He looked at me. He
felt he’s found a friend in me or something like that. ‘This is our country, but the poor are left out in the prosperity of
the nation’, he continued. He went on to give me some solid analysis to stress
his points. As he talked, my mind went back to the butter bread seller. The
pile of bread she had arranged today looked enticing like the sunny thighs of a
woman. Who wouldn’t want a bite?
In
same fashion, building prosperity in this country must be socially engineered
to benefit everyone – the poor, socially disadvantaged persons, physically
challenged persons, and the rich alike. We cannot turn to the poor anytime we
need their mandate only to abandon them on the way. This is our country. We all
deserve a bite. The cake, when shared with justice, care, humanness, love,
patriotism and future-mindedness would be enough to satisfy the greed of all of
us and not some of us. The whole is better and active than the sum of all of
us. This country is our heritage, like the traditional butter bread, we all
have to taste it.
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