THE GIRL WHO ‘GBAA’ED, AND ‘THAT GROUP’ STORY

The only thing more annoying than long queues is joining one. It was during one of such frustrating moments that a very nice young lady walked up to me and asked,

“Did you came before me?”

I stared at her as if to ask, “Did I WHAT?”

I only gave a half smile and allowed her to have her way in the queue, while in my head, I laughed out loud. Having treated my mind to a good laugh, I continued reading the news headlines and sharing opinions on each social or political issues to myself before she had interrupted me with her grammatical incompetence. Afriyie Acquah slaps wife with divorce; she should be thankful he didn’t slap her with his bare hands. KNUST graduate joins ISIS, the headlines read. I was taken aback immediately. ISIS? If only people knew how dreadful that group is, they wouldn’t call it ISIS. They should just call it That Group.

The operations and objectives of That Group is so destructive that I would rather die in my crush’s friendzone than talk about it. Perhaps the only description I can give about That Group (that would put me and my sixty-something year old father on a safer side) is that, they are a group of brainwashed Islamists who are so extreme in their practices and doctrines, some of which beat intellectual analysis. What kind of doctrine endorses manslaughter, racism, rape amongst others? This kind of extremism is so extreme that, it would need the extreme use of extreme understanding to get to the extreme bottom of this. And extremism, is very dangerous.

Why would handsome Nazir join That Group? It was then that I looked at it from another perspective and realized there could be more. First of all, we are in Ghana. Wasn’t it this same Ghana that a certain graduate had to break security protocol just to submit a (common) CV to the first lady? Isn’t it this same Ghana that girls are more favored than their male counterparts in the job market just because they (the girls) are endowed with soft protruding features which in some cases give them competitive advantage? Isn’t it this same Ghana that people have to bribe their way into job securements? Isn’t it this same Ghana that a certain entity is sending thousand university graduates (who have toiled real hard to successfully make it out of the tertiary system) to go and direct traffic for a whole year after which they would be practically jobless because some smart person who didn’t collapse while studying in the Balme or UCC or KNUST library would be coming to replace them at the traffic post? I can’t even imagine how directing traffic for about a whole year makes one any innovative for the job market.

Isn’t it this same Ghana that has lots of young people with brilliant ideas, but because of financing among other factors, have nothing but big dreams and would resort to teaching primary schools in order to make some cedi in the right way? Isn’t it this same Ghana that prices of fuel keep going higher like StoneBwoy’s music career? Isn’t it this same Ghana that boys must engage in fraud or sakawa to be at peace with their demanding girlfriends? What else would unemployed people do apart from feeding their minds with all sorts of things from the internet and then later on hope that the countless job applications they’ve submitted would be given due consideration?

One reason why I believed President Mahama John won last elections was because he appealed to the youth population in every manner. Because he was far younger (I doubt if he still is) than Nana Akuffo Addo, we believed he would understand the concerns of the youth with less difficulty. Do you remember how he used to dance ‘azonto’ at some point, and how he spoke to the youth issues? Then one day, long after he had won the elections, he said our destinies are in our own hands. Our destinies are in our own hands yet ECG and NSS are toying with them for a while. Well, since Nazir’s destiny is also in his own hands, he decides to join That Group! The moment Nazir agreed with himself that the kind of destiny our president was talking about can’t be realized on earth, he decided to pursue the one that can be realized in the afterlife. That’s one hell of a destiny you know. And now, the one word that shadows everybody else’s destiny is fear; the fear of That Group.

-         TONY AFUTI EYRAM,

KNUST.