Features
Lotto Palaver
My former classmate, Kwame Korkorti, told me recently that the symptoms of modern day diseases like unemployment and redeployment can effectively be stopped using herbal treatment. He also confided in me that if herbal treatment does not prove effective, then one needs to go the lotto way, to avoid weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Korkorti indeed has eleven and a half years practical experience in how to make ends meet. Although he was famous in the 70s as the best kpanlogo dancer of the decade, he was redeployed as a civil servant not too far back.
Faced with the dilemma of where to invest his redeployment benefits, he took the biggest risk in life. He used half the amount on lotto for four consecutive weeks and lost. He then approached a man called the ‘Lotto-Crocodile’ who gave him three sure tips, which were arrived at by the dictates of a ‘timing’ plan.
The calculations could not be doubted and the ‘crocodile’ was indeed revered, even feared, for his lotto prowess. Should Korkorti invest the other half of his benefits into the “3-sure” and damn the consequences?
If he lost, it would be a disaster for him. His wife would leave him, and the landlord would serve him with a ‘quit’ notice, and he would become a ‘Son of Man.’ Moreover, his friends would call him the biggest fool in contemporary times.
Investment
To be on the safer side, he told his wife about his investment plans. She flared up and called him an idiot and a fat-head John-Bull. Korkorti, therefore, recoiled into his shell but decided to stake just ¢1,000.
On Saturday, the three numbers were there in black and white. He promptly divorced his wife for having deprived him of millions of cedis.
Ever since this episode, Korkorti has become a lotto addict, a forecaster, a lotto magician, editor-in-chief of a lotto paper and the chairman of the Sikaman Lotto Winners Association (SLWA).
I heard there is also an association called the Sikaman Lotto Losers Association (SLLA).
Although it is the unemployed who are susceptible to the lotto syndrome, the business is also the pre-occupation of people from all walks of life-business executives, secretaries of state, assemblymen, fetish priests, pastors and evangelists, beggars and koose sellers.
In fact, lotto transcends all occupations and professions in such a way that both the rich and the poor are perpetually engaged in making money out of mechanised lotto, VAG-West or Lucky Scratch whose scarcity in the metropolis does not merit the numerous adverts on television.
Some people are born lucky and can win lotto 20 times in a year. Others like myself have been born to lose.
The last time I came close to winning was in 1983 when hunger in Sikaman was quite normal to the natives. It was the era of famine when man, wife and children had only one hard coconut for supper and got ready to develop jaundice. It was at that time that I got a “2-sure” tip from a very reliable but clandestine source. The mathematical solution of the problem was arrived at by permutation and combinations, backed by calculus and lotto matrices. The two numbers were unfailing.
I told two close friends about it and they staked heavily like I did. After I had kept the tickets safely in a notebook which l locked away in a fortified drawer, I quickly began figuring out a budget based upon the amount l’d win at the week-end.
I planned to purchase one maxi bag of rice, I’ll order yams from Kasoa, beans from Kordiabe and palm-nuts from Larteh. I’ll purchase a table top fridge (since l enjoy iced water so much), a portable sound system and a diplomatic shoe. I apportioned the amounts I’ll remit to my mother, my old-man, brothers, sisters and two friends.
I became so obsessed with this lotto palaver that I could hardly sleep at night. As the week-end approached, the excitement grew so much that I began feeling quite uncomfortable.
Come 5.05 p.m. on Saturday. My heart started beating violently when the Club Beer advert came clear on the air. It was only seconds away and I would be richest man in a time of scarcity and acute hunger. I dashed for my pen and paper.
The numbers were being mentioned by a deep-throated announcer: “And now, the numbers… “My heart beat like that of a marathon runner as I wrote them down, my fingers trembling. The first three numbers did not include my “2-sure” tips. But I was reassured when the fourth was one of mine.
I was ready to leap into air when the last number called was nowhere near my other number. I had lost, and immediately started thinking about where my supper would come from.
That was the day I vowed not to stake lotto again in my life. Lotto can be a good servant and also a bad master. It has been the fertile ground for some people and the downfall of luckless others. It has made some rich and also impoverished others. It has solved problems in families and caused problems in families.
Anyhow, it is the surest way of getting rich without getting into trouble with revolutionary laws. This is because with lotto, you can become an instant millionaire without dipping long fingers into public funds.
Some people say lotto is a vice. Well I do not consider it as such, but of course, it depends on the angle from which one views the game. Although I no longer stake lotto, I’ll be the last to advise anybody against it. It may be somebody’s saviour, who knows. Moreover, it is a way of taxing people for national revenue without, realising they being taxed.
In fact they pay the tax without force, and some gain therefrom. It has also been a source of employment for many, like lotto receivers and agents.
The only problem with lotto is that it is a time-wasting venture to which most workers concentrate all their attention instead of attending to official duties.
Productivity falls, because from the Managing Director to the cleaner, everybody is either busy calculating a certain mathematical progression or discussing the potency of a ‘machine’ number.
True to it, in an eight-hour working period per day, a typical lotto addict uses two hours to think about family problems, one hour for financial worries, and three hours to forecast winning numbers. The remaining two hours are shared between working on the job and relaxing. No country progresses with such work schedule.
Perhaps, it would be better if workers rely more on dream-numbers, car numbers and
house numbers instead of machine numbers, shadows, counterparts, addition 90, turning numbers and timing plans. We should not sacrifice productivity for personal gain. We are free to work lotto after closing hours, week-ends and public holidays. All the best in your lotto palaver.
This article was first published on Saturday, October 27, 1990.
Features
Just in time part 3
Esaaba went to her room, closed the door and sat on the bed. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she took her decision. If she was going to have her peace of mind and get along with her parents and sister, the only way was to find a place to rent and live on her own.
She picked up her phone to talk to an estate agent when her door opened gently, and her parents walked in, Esaaba following. ‘Esaaba’, her dad began, ‘we are sorry for what has happened. We are very sorry. But I wish you would understand that as your parents, we mean well.
We want a good future for you. Naturally we are concerned that you have been, er, a little late in settling down with a man. That is why we took the steps we did. We will continue to pray for a solution. In fact, it is possible that Stanley will realise what he’s missing and get in touch again’. ‘Dad, I’m not going to discuss this issue with you again. It is quite obvious that you don’t agree that it is my right, as a right thinking adult, to make my own choices. So I am going to rent a place as quickly as possible and move out.
If I don’t, we will continue to argue over this issue. I’m not prepared to allow anyone, even my parents, to choose a husband for me. And as for you Baaba, let me warn you, never get involved again in any issue concerning me, because apart from being very simple minded, you need to learn a few things in life.
Don’t assume anything’. ‘What do I care?’ Baaba snapped. What do I need from you?’ ‘Get out of my room!’ she shouted. Beesiwa walked out, followed by their parents.
Esaaba decided that she needed space to clear her head. She went to the bathroom, washed her face and brushed her hair and, after checking to make sure that she had her copy of the front door key, went out. The only place she could think of, she thought, was Jackie’s, the open air joint.
It was never too full, and they played mostly soft music. And the food was nice. It was just what she needed to clear her head. She decided against a taxi and strolled down, and took a seat.
She sat down, and as the waiter walked up to take her order she saw Marian Mensah sipping a drink. ‘Hey Marian! Where on earth have you been?’ ‘Look who is asking questions. I have been trying to find you for ages. Where have you been?’ ‘I live some two hundred metres from here. And you know I’m a TA on campus’. ‘I didn’t know that. And guess who has been asking for your number, almost desperately?’ The only person I can think of is David Essel, and apart from the fact that he’s not in Ghana, I don’t think he will want to call me’.
‘Well, it’s him alright. He came back a month ago. He called last week, and said he heard you had gone to do a Master’s programme on a university scholarship, and he also heard you were working with a drug company. But he obviously didn’t know you were on campus, because he would have fished you out a long time ago’.
‘Why, is he doing anything on campus?’ ‘Yes, he’s just got a job as lecturer at the Statistics Department’. When he called and said he wanted to contact you, I teased him that you hadn’t changed, that perhaps you were the same difficult person you were, and he replied that perhaps you had changed’.
‘Do you know what? I really liked the guy, but maybe I didn’t know him well because of the three year gap. Perhaps if he had taken a little time I would have agreed. He is quite good looking, always looking neat, and he had a great sense of humour. And you know, I was afraid of the girls who were always hovering around him. Do you have his number?’ Marian called him, and within twenty minutes David had joined them at Jackie’s. ‘Good to see you ladies. ‘Esaaba, it’s been ages. I thought I would never find you’. ‘Listen, you two’, Marian said, I’m sure it would be best for you if I vanished from here. So off I go. Call and let’s meet, this weekend if possible’.
They ordered food and drinks, and chatted for quite a while about their activities since they last met. David went to Denmark on a PhD scholarship from a food processing company that is well represented in West Africa.
He also spent some time working in the company’s research Department, for which he was paid rather well. Esaaba, on her part, told him about her experiences as a National Service person and Teaching Assistant at her department.
She was hoping to start a Masters Degree programme at the Department, but was also exploring the possibility of getting a university scholarship to study abroad. ‘David, I don’t mind hanging around a little longer because I live close by, but in your case you will be driving for a while, so if you like, we can meet again in the next few days’.
‘Okay, my car is parked over there. But first give me your number. Can we meet in the next couple of days?’ ‘We certainly can. I will be moving from my parents’ place very soon, maybe in the next few days, so I will tell you my location when you call’.
‘Why are you moving from your parents’ place, if I may ask? Something interesting happening?’ ‘How shall I say it? My parents think I am delaying in getting a husband, so they have been putting pressure on me to get married.
In fact they tried to force a guy on me, and it backfired’. ‘O dear. I was about to ask you a question on this topic
By Ekow de Heer
Features
The wahala of Sikaman MPs (1)
The arrival of the MP is an occasion
Some parliamentarians are regretting their MP status, because they find it difficult to visit their hometowns in broad- daylight. When they were nobodies, they spent every weekend at home, savouring the best palm wine somewhere in the corner, rendez- vousing with old-time girlfriends and reporting back to work on Monday with a hangover.
Today, when they visit home, they normally do so under the cover of darkness. It has nothing to do with security. Neither has it to do with the dregs of palm wine. It all borders on financial strategy.
The problem is that the folks back home see their MP as a bag of money. He is regarded as the only person who can solve their school fees problems, settle the funeral bills, offer free palm wine and pay for tobacco snuff so that the nostrils of the old folks can be sufficiently cleared noisily every dawn.
So the MP’s arrival in the village is an occasion in itself. He must be welcomed with drumming and dancing. The latest dance styles must be released in honour of the son of the town, the honourable of honourables, okatakyie MP, Nana-o- Nana!
A mini-durbar can even be organised post-haste in his honour and he would be expected to deliver a speech. If he has no prepared speech, he must all the same make an address extempore, like J.J. Rawlings.
Such a speech will be expected to be a sequel to the campaign promises, an extension to the good things promised on the political platform some one-and-half years ago. The MP had indeed brought himself; nobody asked him to come.
The master of ceremonies who is likely to be the town crier also known as gong-gong beater, will officiate. The town criers are noted for their alcoholic licence, their caustic tongue and their long memory. They can recall events, dates, speeches and resolutions. Most importantly, they can embarrass.
A typical gong beater is sure to take a quarter-size of ‘yayaaya’ before delivering his welcome address.
“Keep quiet, keep quiet!” he’d begin.” If I hear you talking. I’ll hit your buttocks with my coconut head.” That is enough to bring more mirth and noise than the man wanted to curb. Finally, a measure of silence will be maintained.
“We welcome our illustrious son back in our midst. We are all happy that he has realised that he cannot hide forever. Your hometown is your hometown. We acknowledge his busy schedule, but we also expect him to be among us to propel our spirits to heights unimaginable.
“We politely remind our son of the promises he made to us for which we exercised the power of our gonti (thumb) in his favour. The promises need to be fulfilled. Look at my moustache, it is overgrown. When a man’s moustache outgrows his upper-lip, it means he is overdue for poverty alleviation.
“We would not take the words out of the mouth of our dear son. May be the poverty alleviation fund is in his briefcase, who knows?”
At this juncture the entire crowd will be thrown into pandemonium. Different interpretations would be given to the briefcase palaver and speculations would be rife as to the contents of the magical briefcase.
At least one person in the crowd will volunteer the information that he actually ‘peeped’ into the briefcase when the honourable MP opened it to get a receipt he was looking for. It was full of Sikaman dollars.
The MP knows that the occasion is not auspicious for a long address. The people have grown wiser and are not impressed with long speeches and grandiloquence. What they want is money to buy mahogany bitters to cure their kooko.
“Ladies and gentleman, I’m glad to be with my kith and kin once again. My schedule doesn’t allow me to come home every weekend as I used to do. I must admit that I miss the weekly palm wine I used to have in times past.
“Nananom, ladies and gentlemen, the promises I’ve made are meant to be fulfilled. In fact, that is why I’m here today.”
The uproar must surely be deafening. The man had indeed arrived. He has brought the money to transform Owuokrom overnight. The excitement ends up in drumming and dancing.
The MP is quickly whisked to the venue of an outdooring. He donates to the couple. A funeral is around the corner and he is promptly made the chairman of the occasion. He donates heavily.
“Honourable,” an oldman will stop him in his tracks. “Don’t you recognise me? I held your legs when you were circumcised 35 years ago. When I saw your car coming I felt proud. I’m your uncle Kofi Badu.”
The MP looks at the oldman. None of his uncles is called Kofi Badu. He knows the oldman wants something for his afternoon and dashes him GH¢20, 000. The palm wine and snuff. The man is overjoyed and breaks into a native dance.
The MP must now run away. The briefcase is almost empty. Yet he has not remitted his old man and old woman, He does so in a flash and the next minute he is speeding towards Accra. “These people, they’ll kill me-o,” he will say to himself.
This article was first published on Saturday, July 13, 2001
