Feature Article : "The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Modernghana.com."

I was debugging a heavy-duty program when Kossi Gbade came in. I haven't seen him in a very long time and his abject appearance distressed me. A time there was when we see quite a lot of one another - it seems like ages ago now. How could life have tumbled so badly for him? Things are also very hard in the computer business today. Every job not only has to be fought for tenaciously, but it has to be finished and delivered right on time.

I asked Kossi to excuse me.

He sat down awhile, sporting a maimed look. “I just thought you could get me a white man.” He blurted out.”

Has my friend gone gaga? I regarded him anew. Those tattered raiment, my gawd! He looked so unkempt that I started doubting his sanity. And those shoes, from which trash-land did he rescued them?

“What did you say?” I shifted my gaze from the screen to look at his sad, humbled face.

“I need a white man.” He repeated with the same tired tone and injured expression.

Debugging is now totally out of the question. “Is it not too early?” I asked him. I quit the debugger, logged off from the network and switched off my machine to give Kossi my undivided attention.

“Too early for what?” Kossi wanted to know.

“Too early for you to be drunk.” I said, looking at his pathetic face.

His face was anguished. “Do I look drunk to you?” He asked, shaking his head. 'Anyway, it is not your fault. Is it not you Yorubas that say, 'Ti iya nla ba gbeni sanle, kekere a ma gun ori eni?' - 'If a great calamity befalls you, tiny indignities will be piling atop it.' Kossi had lived in Ibadan and he speaks faultless Yoruba.

“I didn't mean to insult you. But it is before eleven in the morning and here you are asking me for a white man. I didn't know that you've become a homosexual.”

Kossi bared his teeth in a very weak, forced smile. “Me, homosexual?” he cried in an injured tone. “Allah k'aye.” Kossi also speaks Hausa.

He then proceeds to tell me, once-again, the story of his calamitous life. Since graduating ten years ago, Kossi has not succeeded in getting a regular job. He'd majored in Sociology, a subject not particularly in high demand in Ghana. The few employers willing to consider his application demanded practical experience. How does he get experience if they were not prepared to take their chances on him? Few years ago, the new swan-song is 'computer literacy.' How does he get computer literacy if he cannot afford to pay for computer education? Things got so desperate that he decided to end it all by taking his life. He called his family together and gave them what amounted to ultimatum - they should help him, otherwise... He gave them a week to make up their mind. Their benevolent African hearts were moved. Meetings were called. Journeys were made. Friends were beseeched. Churches and mosques were solicited. What had to be sold was sold, what had to be borrowed was borrowed. The family raised twenty million cedis (the old one, silly) and gave it to the family head.

The old man called Kossi, and after much prayer and supplications to ancestors, he handed the money over. The family wished him to buy a taxi, get a wife, settle down and start to raise a family. Kossi was profuse in his thanks. Instead of buying a taxi, he'd other desires. Europe beckoned him. He got a passport and had it 'genuinely' visaed by one of the 'Travel Consultants.' in Accra. Europe here I come! He was caught and sent back from Schipol in Amsterdam. He had the marks to show where the Dutch police maltreated him. Going back to the family is totally out of the question. He has, since then, been depending on the generosity of friends.

“Now do you know why I need a white man?”

“Now I don't know why you need a white man. Are you intending killing one to atone for your maltreatment by the Dutch police, or are you going to use one for juju?”

He smiled another falsie. “ You're wrong on both counts. You know that as a born-again, I do no such things.”

“What then do you need a white man for?”

He forced himself to smile another of his rueful smiles. “I need one to act as a Kenkey Consultant.”

My friend must be getting delirious, indeed. Does hunger and deprivations lead to insanity? “Kenkey Consultant!” I repeated.

He scanned my face warily. “What's wrong with that?” He demanded in a not very friendly tone.

“Why do you imagine that the rest of humanity enjoy your country's unsavory sole contribution to international cuisine? Kenkey is not the name of a food, but of stomach indigestion. Kenkey is a gastronomic disaster. Why do you think a white man would like to be a consultant?

What does a white man knows about Kenkey.”

“Your malevolent put-downs of our food are really uncalled for. There are worse foods in your country. Anyhow, we're digressing. I am not here to argue for or against Kenkey. I only need a white man to act as Consultant in a neat deal I'm trying to put together. As to your question of what a white man knows about Kenkey, that depends largely on your point of view. 'Consultant' has become the new buzzword in town now. Streets- cleaners nowadays call themselves 'Highway maintenance Consultants,' the last time I heard you, you've promoted yourself from a common programmer to a 'Software Consultant.' That's not my biggest problem, though. I need a white man. That's why I came to you.” He then proceeds to open his tattered jacket and produce a manila file. He leafed through, took out some leaves, and handed them over to me.

I read the well laid-out sheets of papers. It was a Feasibility Survey grandiloquently titled, 'KENKEY: SOCIO-MEDICAL IMPACTION, NUTRITIONAL & SUBSISTENCE NOURISHMENT IN A TRIBAL\SUB-URBAN SETTING. A CLINICAL SURVEY AMONG THE GA\ADAMGBE PEOPLE OF GHANA. 2009. PROFESSOR VAN DER MERWE. I leafed through some of the sheets, but not much of the medical terms used made any sense to me.  Continued    Source: Femi Akomolafe

"The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Modernghana.com." To have your articles publish, please submit them to editor@modernghana.com.

Other Articles by Femi Akomolafe