When the system is hot, that is when you see a young guy who is not financially ready for marriage sending you a wedding invitation stating the D-day as Saturday, 33rd August, 3025! E hard o. You would never know what people are going through till you see invitation cards like this. You cant blame him, anaa?
Did you know that one of the best places to raise a child in Ghana is Takoradi? And that Kumasi is next? That is my opinion o, yooo. Dey there and be insulting me in your head if you were brought up in Kasoa and East Legon, the Ashaiman Branch. No bi my problem. Me sef, I was born and brought up in Kisseman where a friend could punch you in the face and still be smiling and then you also start to smile and shake hands with him in great joy! It is not an assault; it is for fun! You see what poverty and f**lishness can do? You can’t do that at Cantonments! Anyway, those guys who lived there those days were boring; all they knew were video games. Tweaaaa!
If your house is close to a KVIP, you better get used to the stench and ‘enjoy’, not endure. This statement is not about your house o. I am talking to the men. Wherever there seems to be some manageable ‘stench’ or ‘aben woha tsotso cream-flavoured nice smell’, those are the places we want to spend momo on entering sometimes with our mouths too! Chai! Men? Yabr3!
God is a merciful to us. Even biblical David and his son Solo didn’t do that – they went straight to the ‘point’! Male goats know how to do it better – they would first of all smell the ‘back place’ of their partners and once you see them raising their nostrils into the air in excitement, it means, it is good to go! That is called environmental scanning!
On May 1, 1994 my old man was admitted to the hospital. Papa was doing fine as he even shared some jokes with us and we promised to visit the following morning. On our way back from the 37 trotro station, the song the trotro driver kept playing was Daddy Lumba’s ‘Odo beba na mewu’. He played the cassette repeatedly. I personally enjoyed it because part of the song was in Ewe!
My big brother, Abraham and I went back to the hospital the following morning to visit Papa as expected and were told the old boy was gone – sadly! Was Lumba a prophet of realities?
Any time I hear this song play, I enjoy it with a lot memory of the then Chairman of the Poor People’s Association of Kisseman (PPAK). Papa and Poverty? They were paddies though he worked so hard but, you isokay! Who said I should have said ‘my Daddy’? ‘Daddy’ is for rich people. For poor people, we call them Papa! Daddy for where? Abeg, give me way make I pass.
His brother Uncle Ganyaglo is still alive even after being diagnosed of a damaged liver from excessive akpeteshie consumption. Now he has even progressed into akpeteshie distillation. The police recently stopped him for reckless driving as he ran into a gutter and he denied he was drunk, and that he was in his lane when the gutter came to hit him! They checked his alcohol level with that machine. All they asked him to do was to say ‘Ha’ with mouth open. He hadn’t even finished opening his mouth and the machine crashed! Polisi aborka! Uncle Ganyaglo spoil the machine!
The one-week night vigil was held in honour of the legendary Daddy Lumba. Just when we were celebrating him, the country went ‘dark’ after that August 6, 2025 tragedy. Hmmm!
Prior to the DL vigil a couple of weeks ago, I was just imagining the Katangees, Vandals and Casfordians having their own night vigil in honour of Daddy Lumba. We would need at least 300 thousand Police Officers to control affairs because these guys? Hmmm! If the ‘Aboagyewaa jama boys’ from Unity Hall join them in the vigil di333, ei! Abeg, this is just a wild imagination o. We just love Lumba!
On the morning of that fateful Saturday, I was listening to my friends, the ‘Weekend Doctors’ – Kofi Heyford, Langabelle and Rubbin on Joy! I couldn’t help laughing. Apparently Daddy Lumba’s 1992 Gospel song ‘Enye Nyame den’ (to wit Nothing is too hard for God) that we have been singing and corrupting the chorus to sound like ‘Shati badi’…shatii baadi… is actually SHOUT ABOUT IT! Kayhay, thanks for the education.
It only drew my mind back to the days we used to sing ‘Sambeeyi—we are going na home, summer holiday…do you want to go with us? Going to London….Adabraka boys and girls’! Ei! We can spoil songs o, Ghana boys and girls.
You know we love each other in Ghana paaa o, regardless! In spite of our tribal differences, every Ghana person loves Daddy Lumba. I always maintain that some of the most ethnocentrically tolerant people in Ghana are Ashantis. Most of them take jokes without feeling offended. In fact, they will join you so you can laugh at them believing in themselves that jokes about them would not take anything away from them and truly nothing gets taken away from them too. I lived, ate, studied and shared jokes with them so these are matters of fact.
It is only in Kumasi Stadium that I once heard some Kotoko fans arguing: “For Hearts to score Kotoko in Kumasi, nevertheless’. Meanwhile, this ‘nevertheless’ means something totally different o. When I drew their attention to it, they started laughing at themselves…they no vex la! These are people who would generally help you without looking at your tribe…my personal experience though!
Until I went to Tech in the mid to late 1990s’, I never knew Kumasi had more Hearts of Oak supporters than one could imagine. You doubt this? Check it out in the next clash between the two rival Clubs at the Baba Yara or ask any Sports Journalist!
Daddy Lumba was a native yet he sung in Ewe [chorus in his 1992 hit song ‘Odo beba na Mewu’]. He loved all. Through music, he united all of us.
How I love my Kumasi people! In a marketing class some 16 years ago, we were to give some practical marketing examples on the topic ‘Marketing Communications in different geographical locations’. There was a case study about how telco green, Glow should effectively be launched in Ghana on billboards. Without wasting time, I raised up my hand and proposed that ‘when Glow is doing its signboards in Kumasi, they should write on it ‘Grow’ so that by the time my Kumasi people change it to ‘Glow’, it would have been in line with the way it should actually be pronounced ‘Glow’. If they failed to do that however, the people would still change it anyway so why not change it for them now! If it remained ‘Glow’, you can be sure they would change it to ‘Grow’. So let’s change it from the beginning so that when they do their own change it would sound p3p33p3 as ‘Glow’.
We all laughed laughed laughed but my Kumasi friend Kofi Adomanko actually planned a counter attack and gave me strong punchlines in a friendly manner later on.
During lectures, he came with his own idea as to how Glow should be launched in Keta, my homebase. He proposed that since my people by nature would often add the letter ‘A’ to precede a name where there is no “A’ and take away the ‘A’ where there is actually an A’, the billboards in Keta should read ‘Aglow’. His argument was that if that was done, Keta people would take out the ‘A’ leaving it with ‘Glow’, that is the way it should actually sound. He cited an example that a typical Ayigbeman in Kumasi-Anloga instead of saying ‘I am travelling from Aboabo to Konongo’ would rather say: ‘I am travelling from Boabo to Akonongo’! Don’t mind us; e bi so we dey! Hahahaha!
Ghana is a beautiful place to be ooo. We make fun of each other and co-exist peacefully. After all, do you think all my numerous girlfriends are all Ewes? Frafra dey inside, Ashanti, Bono, Nzema, Ahanta, Ga, Ada, Ningo, Builsa, Wala, and Nsaba, Buem Babis all de inside. They gave me balanced diet. After all, is it not only the manhood of a man that can take him to the land of the unknown? I have never stepped in Wa but ‘I was in Wa’! Hahaaa! Let’s keep tolerating each other like this and it shall be well with us wae!
Daddy Lumba’s sad passing which was followed unfortunately by those of the 8 Ghanaian Patriots had really made Ghanaians demonstrate to the rest of the world that we love each other regardless of where we come from as we mourned together.
On this ‘shaati badi’ note, may their gentle souls rest in perfect peace till we meet again!
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