Features
The need for a paradigm shift in attitude
The mentality of our current youthful generation is that of get-rich-quick and this is very dangerous for our future, as a country. The average young person wants to have a car as soon as he finishes the university, a nice accommodation and all the luxurious things in life. They want to get immediately what took their parents many years of hard work to obtain. This is what has led to an increase in the 419 crimes involving the youth.
Society has become part of the problem because it no longer questions the source of people’s wealth anylonger. When you go to the churches you cannot find an Elder or Deacon who is poor. If you have money, the chances of being made a leader, is quite high no matter your level of spiritual maturity.
Church leadership has now become the preserve of rich people. When the church, which is supposed to be the moral compass, loses its focus, then may God help us all.
When I was growing up fetish priests did not have sign posts or bill boards advertising their trade and presence. In fact,those who tried to seek spiritual help from fetish priests and priestesses, went about it under cover of darkness (what some people term as doing it Nichodemously).
What is even more worrying is the media attention being given these spiritualists who in complete disregard for the laws of the land, go to promote the claims of these spiritualists that they can produce or is it conjure, for those who patronise their services. When somebody claims he can produce money, clearly it falls under the counterfeiting or money laundering yet I haven’t heard of even one of these so-called spiritualists being investigated for their activities which they boldly display on television.
Some even have their own TV stations meaning that the state accepts their activities. What are we teaching our youth? Are we saying it is okay to acquire wealth quickly without sweat and is it any wonder then that criminal activities involving the youth are on the rise?
Morality seems to have been thrown to the dogs and is no longer on the list of priorities of our national discourse. The number of various forms of lottery, “Chacha” as it is known in our local parlance is alarming. Very young people are so addicted to betting on soccer results and every Saturday, their whole attention is focused on the English Premier League to bet on the results of the various matches.
Is it any wonder that we are not developed as a country, when the youth instead of coming up with innovation are focused on betting? The Bible says in Joel 2:28 that “..your young men shall see visions” but how can they come out with innovative ideas to transform our economy when their whole focus is on betting for quick money? They need to be taught that in life, wealth acquisition is a process not an event.
In my early days as a child, young people were engaged in a competition to see who would come first in class. There were not many role models at the time but nobody told us to go pick up a book to study. We just knew it was the right thing to do if we were to become useful and responsible adults someday.
There are a lot of rumours of proprietors of Junior High Schools facilitating cheating during Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to enable their pupils perform very well, to enhance the reputation of their schools. What they fail to realise is that they have by their wrong action, introduced the children to corruption and has put it in their minds that it is alright to cheat.
When any of these children, gets to the University, would you be surprised she can use her body in exchange for grades? What happens if any of them becomes the head of a financial institution or becomes the minister of Finance? Your guess is as good as mine.
Young people these days see studying like drinking of Quinine, so bitter for them yet they want to enjoy the good things of life. It does not work like that. These days when students are going to write the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE), they are thinking of how they can get “APO” (leaked papers), instead of trying to learn hard.
Rumours abound in the universities where lecturers demand sex for grades and some young girls also offer sex to lecturers in exchange for grades. I went to a barber’s shop late last year and overheard a conversation about a story of a lady, who out of shock forgot that somebody could overhear her while checking her grades on the notice board of a university and was saying to herself, “ This lecturer is wicked, having used me like this, still gave me a C.” Why should this happen? Moral decadence is on the ascendancy in this country.
These days you cannot listen to Radio and TV adverts without hearing of Bitters ”Alcoholic Herbal Concoction” being advertised and how it can empower men sexually and give them an erection for a long period. Medical personnel have attributed the death of a lot of young men to these bitters. Alcohol, we are told, poses a danger to the kidneys, yet because of these adverts and the lustful behaviour of the young men, they are hooked on it and the result is kidney problems leading to premature death.
In addition, alcohol according to research increases libido and dulls the senses. A combination that can easily lead to unprotected sex, which can result in HIV infection and can also lead to an early grave. Obituaries posted on walls show ages from 19 to 45, the most productive age group of the society and this would clearly impact the economy if not addressed.
There is an urgent need to intensify education for the youth to appreciate the need to do the right thing. Young people have to be persuaded to have a desire for right values which would gradually inculcate in them a sense of patriotism. Patriotism brings to mind the story of Stephen Akhwari, a marathon runner representing Tanzania, in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. The story has it that he fell along the way during the marathon, wounding his knee and smashing his shoulders against the road surface.
After receiving treatment, he continued the race and came in about an hour later after the first man had crossed the finishing line. Asked later by journalists why he decided to continue the race when he knew there was no point in doing so, he said “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.”
Unfortunately, the shepherds who are supposed to be a moral guide, themselves are guilty of immoral values. Their moral authority is lost so the message from the pulpit, most of the time, lacks conviction because the message is as good as the messenger.
Secular leaders are equally guilty of this moral decadence. They would like to sleep with young ladies before employing them. Promotions will have to be obtained through sex and if you do not want to play ball, you will be stuck at one level for a very, very, long time. Men and women of conscience, need to rise and make their voices heard from the pulpits, from the corridors of academia, industry, civil society, the legislature, the judiciary, the media and finally from the corridors of power. A national crusade must be waged against moral decadence andunpatriotic behaviour so God can bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.
Writer: Laud Kissi-Mensah, a social commentator
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
Leakages and academic dysentery
Student life just prior to GCE exams is as interesting and adventurous as it is tragic. It is a period during which recalcitrant finalists are tempted to break into backyard poultry outfits of senior house-masters, so that they can enjoy chicken-soup while “ghosting.”
And in mixed schools, it is during this revision period that boys and girls alternate studies with romance in such a way that at the beginning of the long vacation, the girls can clandestinely approach unscrupulous doctors to scoop out growing babies from their bellies.
A few weeks to the beginning of the first paper, many students develop physical and imaginary illnesses ranging from amnesia to kpokpomatics (nervousness). The budding finalist who is serious and level-headed plans his study time-table and allots time for bath, meals, siesta and snoring.
Such candidates follow their own regimented programme to the letter and enjoy normal life while studying for their exams. They are health-conscious, do not take drugs and they enjoy rest to avoid brain fag.
There are other serious students, however, who are not concerned about health. They are so busy, or claim to be, that they refuse to take their bath, comb their hair, wash their hands before eating and sometimes, simply refuse to go to “toilet”. This is quite revolutionary and I wonder how they manage it. But that is not all.
They take ‘caterpillar’ to keep awake, fail to wash their cover-cloths, and have air conditioners permanently installed in their armpits. These are students who are on the war-path towards academic distinction but ironically very few of them do well.
Some are so over-zealous that they pack and carry books for all their eight or so subjects to the classroom swearing to ‘chew’ all before day-break. They end up learning virtually nothing because they prefer the rhythmic snoring using their books as pillow to cramming Abbot.
The following morning, they will be the first to impress their colleagues: “I swear my father’s moustache that last night I did what Napoleon could not do.” For sure, Napoleon did not sleep that much. Ninety per cent of such students end up in the academic grave with grade 9s, subsidiary passes and FAIL as their lot.
Incidentally, however, those category of students are more acceptable to organised society than the happy-go-lucky ones who regard academic excellence as sacrilegious and, therefore, include discoing, wee-smoking, chasing form-two girls and stealing gari from frail chop boxes in their study programme.
These are the students who are so intellectually deviant that they keep on praying papers should leak so that they can prove to their ‘book-long’ fellows they are a force to reckon with.
A month to exams they go hovering about West African Examinations Council (WAEC), forcing tete-a-tete with crooked officials some of whose faces look hungry enough to accept money in exchange for exam papers.
Others trot from school to school contacting friends of similar feather to obtain information about possible leakage points. The girls become unusually liberal to the Assistant Headmaster who may, as a reciprocal gesture, be tempted to ‘peep’ two or three Maths questions from one paper to offer as sure tips after carefully changing the wording. These assistant heads, therefore, become alphabetical surgeons; a very infamous occupation.
In the 70s, the incidence of leakages and exam malpractices became so rampant among the WAEC countries that Nigeria swore to rid its territory of the epidemic.
They did succeed. Sikaman authorities also swore same, and for some time, ears became free from news about leakages, impostors and ‘copiato’ (copying during exams).
But just as we had begun the last decade of the 20th Century, the plague re-surfaced and today some students and their allies are under lock and key for the part they played in this scholastic uprising.
Papers leak right from WAEC strong rooms, police stations and assistant headmasters’ vaults.
When papers for instance go into transit at the police station for onward transmission to the exam centres, surgical operations are performed on the sacks and the papers extracted and put on sale on the open market.
Sometime ago, the situation degenerated so much that Makola women were seen hawking. Additional Mathematics papers just like tomatoes and garden-eggs.
One interesting but unfortunate thing about leakages is that it does no one ultimate good. To a brilliant student, a leaked paper in his possession makes him unable to justify his intellectual capacity and his scholastic worth is over-shadowed.
To the brainless, it is simply a disaster. He has no brains whatsoever to imbibe solution to the answers. He has to choose the alternative of entering the exam room with copied answers. And there, he becomes a copy-writer and proof-reader. Speed is his best asset, but he is most likely to be caught.
One block-headed student who acquired a leaked paper was faced with the problem of choosing between ‘chewing’ the answers (which was virtually impossible in view of his deficient IQ), and turning himself into a speed copy-writer. He however decided to do neither of these.
In the exam room he considered his plight. All his friends and enemies were also in possession of the paper and had prepared so well that they were going to clock beautiful grades. And he, the only JUDAS in the lot will surely wind up with a grade 9. What!! God forbid!
On the answer sheet he wrote a very brilliant letter to the examiner in clear hand-writing and similar to this:
“Dear Sir, this very paper you are marking is under massive leakage, and I know that people are going to blow it paa-a! But as for me, although I also had all the questions, I am as daft as a live sheep. My father had no brains in his big head. As for my mother, the least said about her, the better. And as you know that a dog does not beget a cat, I was born an idiot.”
“So when I got the questions, I didn’t know what to do with them. Will you please therefore consider me and pass me too. Otherwise, I alone will die of academic dysentery. Thanks for your usual cooperation. Yours faithfully…”
The paper was cancelled, and students had to suffer the expense of re-registration and frustration, not forgetting the loss of time.
The only solution to this grave problem of exam leakages and allied criminal offences is that the law must prescribe stiffer punishments for those who perpetrate and or collaborate to further these criminal practices.
Those convicted of these offences must be packed away for as long as would be possible to make them forget about exam papers. Such a deterrent measure would help minimize the problem. Proper security arrangements must be organized by authorities of WAEC to rid Sikaman of this recurrent menace.
We must all endeavour to prevent the situation where outsiders will feel inclined to refuse recognising our dear certificates which many have toiled for, but which a dangerous few want to obtain without sweat.
This article was first published on Saturday, June 30, 1990.