Today, I am again hunched with emotion and enchained by sorrow so I am going to say it as it is, no matter whose ox is gored. Even though the truth brings me to tears, I will say it.
I am a Zongo boy, pure and thoroughbred. I know what it takes to survive in the Zongos. When I was growing up in the Zongo, I was trained to be very respectful to elders and also live at peace with my neighbors.
As young boys growing up in the Zongo, we seldom fought among ourselves. We rather mashed it up with those who didn’t live in the Zongo. If you dare touched a Zongo boy, you must get ready to defend yourself against all of us. We lived by the charter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): An attack on one is an attack on all.
Times have changed. The Zongo I knew has changed. The Zongo, where peaceful co-existence is the guard post has become a battleground of contending dooms. Sad indeed!
Even though all the Zongos in Ghana have almost the same problems, I am going to dwell my write-up in Nima, the most populous Zongo situated in the middle of Accra, the national capital. Nima can be likened to SOWETO in South Africa in some ways but unlike SOWETO which is a planned township, Nima is an eyesore and a disgrace to Ghana. Anytime I pass by Nima and compare the settlement to East Legon, Trassaco, Adjiringano and other affluent and beautiful residential places in the capital city, I have the feeling that this country, our country is committing crime against humanity by leaving Nima at its current state since independence.
I once spent a few nights and days with a friend in Nima and quickly concluded that Nima is sitting on a time bomb. With the population of Nima growing at a supersonic speed, it is a matter of time for its settlement to explode.
Drug addiction among the youth in Nima is a problem which needs to be surmounted. Able-bodied young men and women are hooked to hard drugs that if something is not done about the canker, it could lead to catastrophe in the foreseeable future. If someone is hooked to hard drugs like cocaine, heroin, marijuana, Tramadol etc, such persons start pilfering and stealing anything in order to get money to buy the drugs they prefer. These are the people who graduate to become armed robbers and social deviants. What is more serious about this scenario is that when the youth of Nima turn to arm robbers, they do not rob the poor. After all, what is in the pocket of the poor to rob? In fact, they rob the rich who are not living in there. Anytime armed robbers are arrested or killed in action, you will hear names like Fuseini, Mohamed, Issah, Yakubu, Mumuni etc., among the list. The Nima unruly guys are to terror what the Mafia is to crime. Their aim is to make Nima a fearful place to dwell.
Poverty in Nima is also a problem and it breeds prostitution among the young girls who should have been in school. Unlike girls who lived in the Zongos years gone by, the current crop of young girls in Nima shamelessly engage in this disgraceful and oldest profession. What is heart raking is that majority of these wayward girls have parents who are Muslims, a religion which vehemently kicks against prostitution.
The dress comportment of young girls in Nima has nothing good to write home about. You can see them virtually walking naked and that is something Islam hates too. Growing up in the Zongo, I never saw a girl wearing hot pants or exposing her thighs, navel and breast in public. Go to Nima and see how some Muslim girls expose their nudity. Yes, I do know pretty well that not all those who live in Nima are Muslims but the truth is that Muslims are in the majority.
Religious zealotry is also gradually rearing its head in Nima. Nigerians did not wake up one morning to see the Boko Haram dangling weapons and killing people. The movement started in Maiduguri in northern Nigeria where these hotheads used to preach in mosques and before the people of Nigeria could blink an eye, Boko Haram came storming with their ill-conceived interpretation of Islam. What happened and what is happening is as a result of complacency on the part of the government of Nigeria. The government acted rather belatedly. We have to be on the lookout. These religious zealots practise a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics. They pervert the peaceful teachings of Islam, a religion which has peace as its bedrock. In fact, they are in effect trying to hijack Islam for their parochial interest. We have to meet the threat of militant Islamic zealots who have started penetrating Nima and other Zongos now as they grow. Waiting for them to strike before we act is not a good strategy. It is suicidal. Modern policing is the gathering of intelligence and not Buga Buga and so, the BNI and other intelligence agencies should be up and doing as far as intelligence gathering is concerned. Now that Boko Haram, for example,e is being chased by the security forces in Nigeria and the Ansar Deen and Al Qaeda scatter brains are on the run in nearby Burkina Faso, their best environment to operate is Ghana.
The deafening silence of the Muslim leadership of Nima community about the threat of Boko Haram and other mad guys who operate in the name of Jihad is worrisome. The leadership of Nima should speak out against the threat and warn the youth not to follow them. You see, these Jihadists are funded by foreign elements who are very rich. With the serious unemployment situation in West Africa countries, the youth can easily be enticed with money to join them in their suicide missions.
Political violence is yet another problem that can lead to disaster in Nima. Anytime there is electioneering campaign or if the need arises for political parties to hire thugs and hooligans to do the dirty job, Nima is the perfect breeding place to go for such thugs.
The youth of Nima is always ready to be hired. For now, they are hired to do the dirty jobs outside Nima but a time will come when these thugs will slug it out in Nima among themselves since both the NDC and NPP, the two main political parties have large followers in Nima. That is when things will fall apart.
Now that hooliganism has reached a boiling point whereby, opposing gangs in Nima could use guns and machetes in broad daylight to terrorise the people in Nima, the time has come for the appropriate authorities to take a bold decision and arrest the situation once and for all. Nobody should tell me that the situation has been there for quiet too long so it has taken firm roots. I disagree with those who belong to that school of thought. There is time for everything and the time is now to subdue the hooligans, thugs and lawless youth in Nima. This is an era where every community is crying for good roads, water, and sanitation, among others, which has been denied the mall these years. The government is doing everything possible to restore hope and I think it will be in the interest of the people of Nima to have peace so that they can together, irrespective of their political affiliation, join hands and seek for development of the area.
I do agree there are fine, refined, responsible, wealthy and well educated men and women in Nima. In fact, if you visit schools, you will see disciplined students from Nima and other Zongos pursuing courses to better their standards. But should we sit down for the few who are unkempt to take Nima to the dark days of instant justice? The answer is a big NO. I know a lot of young boys and girls from Nima and other Zongos who are chasing the Golden Fleece abroad. The current government has given many of them scholarships to pursue education abroad and they are doing wonderfully well in their chosen carriers.
I sometimes pity them because back home, some of their colleagues who missed the boat to drink from the education fountain are being misled to tow the path of violence for survival. It is the buffalo who said it regrets that it is from the same family with the bull. According to the buffalo, no human being can dare put a rope around its neck and pull it to the slaughter house to be killed. Think about this! Which son of a bitch can convince Earth Angel Gabriel to join Jihadists? Tweaa, apuu!! Let me puff my Living Legend hand-rolled cigar, produced in Nicaragua and just be. After all, wetin?
From Eric Bawah