FROM SAKAWA TO SAFAWA

*The tale of how Ghanaian youth murder, swindle, live with corpses and sleep in coffins to maintain ostentation

It began as a cyber or internet fraud a little over a decade ago in the ancient commercial town of Agona Swedru in the Central Region. It was one masterpiece of how to swindle unsuspecting whites or foreigners on the internet. It became known as Sakawa, loosely translated as fraud on the Internet. But from Sakawa, the practice has moved a notch higher; it is now Safawa. The practitioners are aged between 17 to 25.

When it became obvious that their targets became aware of the fraud, the Sakawa practitioners went underground, invoking all kinds of mystical powers, including ritual murders, to get their targets fall to their bait or plan.

But with the monetary gains too good to let go and with the white “partners” becoming so sophisticated, the craze has now assumed occultic dimensions with the practitioners, mainly teenagers, abducting little children for ritual murder to maintain the ostentatious lifestyles they have acquired from the internet fraud.

The youngsters now travel to neigbouring countries like the Republic of Togo and Benin to seek voodoo powers to enable them facilitate their lustful desires. Certain conditions are prescribed for the practitioners. They are asked to eat from a refuse dump; search for old blood-soaked women pads from the refuse dump; sleep in coffins; walk bare-footed. Some are denied bathing and others prevented from sleeping sleep at night.

They follow the prescription and their desires are instantly met. It is a common sight to see many of the youth driving in some of the most luxurious cars like Ford Expedition, Infinity, Crysler etc. and live in plush houses in Swedru and parts of Accra. At Agona Swedru, their houses are found in an ultra-modern village-Woraba Estate- on the Swedru-Agona Asafo Road around the Swedru Secondary School area.

They often meet at a popular spot -Left Eye, situated on the Akora River at Agona Swedru, and the Nkubem spot in wealth exhibition bouts as to who possesses the most expensive cars; and who has the most liquid cash.

In Accra, the practice has become almost legendary in areas like Awoshie, Darkuman Nyamekye, Averno, Dome Kwabenya and Mallam. Practitioners often justify their action by positing that it was a way of paying back the whites folks for the dehumanizing slave trade which, in the estimation of most Africans, had contributed to the development of many Western Countries. It was a kind of a child play then, so no much attention was paid to it by authorities.

But the unsuspecting whites would not ponder even for a second to find out if there could be any ulterior motive for the open nudity of Black (Ghanaian Girls) on the internet. The whites could not withstand the exotic nudity of the Ghanaian girls on the internet. And they fell to any offer made by the ladies or the girls.

The white men would pay for anything to get the ladies hooked. The least vacation offered the chance for the foreigners to meet their suitors where elaborate wedding ceremonies were often planned or organized. Some of the ladies eventually fell in love and travelled with their suitors to the countries of origin.

Others stuck to the original game plan with the originators of what constituted the master plan. In most cases the master plans are drawn up by boys or guys, with the ladies only fronting for them. The ladies are later paid by the men, depending on the arrangement reached between the two parties.