WHAT IF BAWKU SWAPS PLACES WITH THE ACCRA

By :Quansah Ebo John

Date12th july,2011



WHAT IF BAWKU SWAPS PLACES WITH THE ACCRA

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I was just a village boy holed up in my serene village,Enyan-Maim,near Mankessim in the central region of Ghanain.All I knew was my immediate environment and It was a circumscribed world of sorts, save for relatives who came back home during major festivals from Accra and other cities to serenade us with tales of life outside our hallowed news center at Enyan Maim Market. At this market where I often assisted my proxy mum,thats my Aunte who catered for me to sell fried dougnut after school since my biological mum left the shores of Ghana to Europe to seek greener pastures.



It was in this village setting that I spent first 5 years of my life except for occasional trips wt my aunte to the nearest city Makessim where she visited for religious or social reasons. And I never knew what Accra,Tamale,Kumasi and sunyani looked like those 6ys years until my world turned around to fulfill a prophecy that seemingly hung over my head during my primary,secondary school and now tertiary school days where I travelled around the country.



For the most uncanny reasons I am yet to fathom, my JSS school mates usually nicknamed me 'Rosemary' while my secondary school classmates nicknamed me "Mallam Adamu".The name 'Rosemary' died out earlier but "Mallam Adamu" despite my protestations, lingered and hung over me like a plaque until I stopped showing how offended until it later changed and I was called then called 'aboki mallam". How dare they call me a common mallam- those "stupid and brain-less" itinerant shoe repairers, cattle rearers and 'gworo-chewing' knife sharpeners that roved around my village to collect coins for the services they offered.



Was I suspicious and disdainful of the Northerners as a kid? You bet! And how do you expect a little innocent village boy to not grow up with such prejudice and biases when I learned that aboki mallams called us 'cowards". Worse still, they see 'rulership' as their natural right and would useforce to assert their views.



Bt entering Univ Of Ghana Medical School as a fresher, I met more Hausa boys...they wore the same dress like we the southers and fantes did thus well sewn satorial trousers and shirts wt tie and neatly polished shoes wt their sthethoscopes strapped around their shoulders heading to or from lectures and clinicals!.So my first shocker was that a large horde of this aboki mallams even passed university entrance exams like us 'intelligent geniuses' of Fante, Ewe ,Ga,Nzema extraction and some are even in a higher distinction marks in the medical school than us southerners. And when we did tests, some of them even scored higher than some of us southerners....what an abomination!And some even dated some of my southern girls yet they wont let us even shake their hooded girls, and their Alhajis entice our sisters with rolls of 'kwudi' to marry them!



These Hausa boys even spoke English with a funny ascent that made us southerners crack up but there was something about their girls. Ahh they looked so delectable and their angelic voices rattled out Hausa in a romantically poetic way even though they were shrouded in hoods of clothing. But you won't fail to detect their graceful mien shielded by that shy giggle when they said 'Sanu' and when they are in pain, the scream of 'woyoooo allah' would melt the heart of a continent man.



No sooner, Ahmed and I would sit and gist after lectures; Gariba and I would exchange clinical notes and Musa my snr in the med Sch would cheaply sell his anatomy textbook to me after passing his 2nd MB exams. And Jamila would exchange a smile with me when she and her bevy of beauties stroll pass me by the physiology library. The mallam at 'Korle-bu Apatase Market' would sell his stuff to me once he says 'gaskiya' and even would give me some 'jara' in addition. And with time, he would call me 'Mallam Ebo'



Oblivious to me, I had changed from the prejudiced 'Fante boy' to a more accommodating 'Hausa-bakwomi-mentaility-influenced-Fante boy who had fallen in love with the northerners.



But the pull for me visiting the northern region for the first time upon a request by my mate Gariba during one long semester vac exactly a year ago saw me berth at Bawku for a week visit. So one freezing cold Tuesday morning , the passenger I had boarded with Gariba at Kaneshie terminus coughed and hissed to a stop after meandering through forests and unknown lands for almost 7hrs . The harmattan breeze seeped through my cotton shirt into my bones; the lowest of temperatures I had to face in my teenage life. Everything looked different and it was my first experience of what vastness of a city meant and I saw hundreds of men who wore batakari dresses which were typically of the ones I mostly saw in Afganistan,Pakistan and in most muslim countries whiles I watched BBC or Aljazeera news



After barely two days of my stay there,I really liked the food and the ppl especially the way they associate with visiters,their camaraderie,joviality and their mien countenance and etc.The hausa merchant in Bawku who owns businesses and shops in the market etc would never slash the throat of a Southerner during a riot, but there is a kinsman of his who does. The medical doctor and physiotherapist Snr,Musa who sold his anatomy text book to me at a cheeper price who may now be a consultant surgeon or physician may never slid a dagger into the heart of a Southern Christian except he mistook the dagger for his surgical knife,blade or scarpel. My Northern guy and coursemate,Gariba, who composes romantic poems for his 'poetess,Rukaya' which he recited to my hearing during my one week stay with him at Bawku would not poke the end of his pen into my heart because he sees me as his 'Medical school Mate and Poet friend' as the same Muse speaks to our quiet hearts in within same decibel range!



So who is this northerner that keep fanning the embers of 'Abudu Andani' conflict in Bawku and keep sparking reprisal attacks from angry relatives whose brothers and sisters had gone to make money in the North.Could the stick-carrying and machete-wielding northerners be the dis-empowered young man who had been chanting 'lets go and kill' to the whims and caprices tummy-bloated politician who has been in government all his adult life and has eaten fat of the national cake on behalf of his northern kinsmen?



But why doesn't this riot-causing and angry northern youth have a replica in southern Ghana who would first do the same to inflict wounds on his northerner/Muslim at no seeming or obvious provocation that has ethnic, religious, political and other nuanced backgrounds. Maybe understanding this anthropological and sociological dilemma would be the greatest contribution that social science research and humanities towards ensuring the collective existence and sustainable development of Ghana where no group(s) will have any plausible reason to lift a hand on another because he had a Mallam, Mazi, Alhaji, Chief title.And I wonder, when will all this madness and endless killings end when I have buddies that wont be caught doing such in the north!



This is the poetry I did in whiles onboard the passenger bus that tuesday wt my Hausa friend and coursemate Gariba to his hometown Bawku.Do hope it'll stir something in you:have a good read



MY BROTHER's BLOOD

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I heard the moaning cry of blood

which was spattered on our desolate streets

and exalted houses now turned into achives

whose substance have eyes gorged by bullets

with walls plastered by rough strokes of grenades



I heard the cry of my brother’s blood

a voice singing his own dirge in monotones

of blood once streaming hot and red

and flowing through conduits from his heart

but has now gone pale, dark and crusty

his body ripped apart and tattooed with bullets



My brother’s blood has spilled into gutters

and has formed an alchemy of mire

so cold, with a putrid scent

now invaded and embalmed by maggots

to whet the flickering tongues of dogs

and the scavenging beaks of vulture



His life was in his blood

his blood hosted his life

yet we watched as death gloated over him!



I heard a voice crying for vengeance

unlike Abel’s, no one came in rescue

‘twas a voice that suffered aloneness

in the desolate wilderness of death

to join the voices of orphans and widows

who trudge as luggage-humped refugees

groping for life in the valley of death



I heard a disturbing wail all night

‘t was my brother’s lurking behind a megaphone

and how my heart bled when he asked in tears:

“ARE YOU MY KILLER OR MY KEEPER?”



So I killed my brother and wasted his life?

with bullets and cudgels and home made rifles

with machetes and swords, bow and arrows

with my conspiracy of silence

when he had cried out for my help?



My brother’s blood cries with deep pain

at the brutality of coronated violence

of brothers killing brothers

of blacks killing blacks

of death in exchange of precious lives

on the serene streets of Bawku



His voice’s been stuffed and muffled

his life’s been snuffed out too early

his lofty dreams have gone with the wind

his space in our history chart is empty

hence we are incomplete without him

yet no one cares a hoot

and no one quits buck-passing

nor mud-slinging…!

The Author is Quansah Ebo John