In Defence Of Konkonte By Cameron Duodu

The former Ghanaian Minister of Information, Mr Asamoah Boateng

The former Ghanaian Minister of Information, Mr Asamoah Boateng, will go down in history as 'the Ghanaian Marie Antoinette.'

He is reported to have said that people who claimed to be hungry in Ghana should 'eat konkonte/ to assuage their hunger.

Like Marie Antoinette (Queen of the French King, Louis The Sixteenth) who is alleged to have said: “Let them eat cake”, when it was reported to her that the peasants of France were starving because they had “no bread” to eat, Asamoah Boateng (“Asabee”) is said to have suggested konkonte for the hungry people, in a snobbish reaction to complaints that some of his constituents could not afford to eat the fufu that is their normal plate of choice..

Now, if he did say such a thing, then Asabee is a very poor politician. In a democracy, where one's political opponents are always waiting for one to commit a verbal indiscretion so that they can use it to steal votes from one, to utter a line like that -- if he did -- was most unwise. You see, konkonte is made from cassava, and in the Akan areas of Ghana, where Asabee's constituency is situated, cassava comes a poor fourth, after plantain, yam and cocoyam, by way of preferred foodstuffs. That aside, Asabee should have known that once, when the leader of the Progress Party, Dr Kofi Busia (Prime minister of Ghana from 1969 to 1972) made a remark lamenting the fact that some people in Ghana's rural areas were forced to drink water that was “worse than the water in his toilet“, his political opponents never allowed him to live down that remark. Yet it was literally true, in that it was treated water that went into his toilet, whereas the water many villagers used -- and continue to use to this day -- is untreated.

Indeed, Marie Antoinette too, probably, did not make the “Let them eat cake” remark that has been widely attributed to her in history books. Never mind -- her political opponents were so intent on destroying her that they used that statement to incite hatred against her, when the French revolution broke out in 1789. Eventually, she was convicted of treason and executed by guillotine in 1793 -- nine months after her husband had been dispatched in a similar manner.

There are people in Asabee's constituency, of course, who, given half a chance, would string him up on the nearest tree, without sweat. People are touchy about the food they eat, you see, and it doesn't matter that few people can stand up and say, hand on heart, “I was present when Asabee said it.“.

That's why I am not going to waste time to delve deeply into whether Asabee said it or not. It would be a useless exercise, for people will believe what they like. Marie Antoinette, for instance, is believed by a lot of historians not to have actually said, “Let them eat cake.”

One popular rendition by her defenders is that she said, “Let them eat the remnants that gets caked up inside the ovens when bread is baked.” In the France of those days, these remnants used to be put out by bakers for beggars and vagrants to come and pick up and devour. So it would make sense for Marie Antoinette to have said that. But people wanted to accuse her of callousness and insensitivity by all means. So they made her say, “Let them eat cake” And it has gone down into history.

Asabee's troubles with the BNI alone should make him go into history. But that's not enough for his detractors. So do you know what they're saying now? They're claiming that when he was detained at the BNI for interrogation, he was offered konkonte to eat! And do you know what? He refused to eat it. Yeah -- he had suggested that his constituents should eat konkonte, but when the same thing was offered to him, he wouldn't eat it.

Now, I have no doubt that this is an apocryphal story. The BNI is not exactly fond of telling the public about how it treats its detainees. And furthermore, the story has, as far as I know, not been reported anywhere apart from a totally irresponsible website that publishes almost anything anyone sends to it about Ghana, whether it's true or not. I swear, the suggestions made on that website about the sort of things Asabee should have ben given to eat by the BNI would make you sick.

Apart from the disgusting sadism exhibited in the comments on the website, there is a lamentable lack of concern shown there about the legality or otherwise of Asabee's detention, and also about the way and manner the BNI and other investigative agencies should behave towards the Ghanaian citizenry, under constitutional, civilian rule. In a country that has endured military rule so often, it is extremely important that the difference between constitutional rule and military rule should be absolutely and clearly marked, and it is tragic -- no less -- that the BNI should be acting as if we were still under military rule. Especially, as our President is a law professor, and the director of the BNI is, I am told, a soldier who has taken the trouble to qualify fully as a lawyer. What is the use of his having taken time to study the law, if he had no intention of applying it in practice when he got the chance?

Anyway, a discussion of the rule of law is not the main purpose of this article. I am primarily interested in the konkonte issue. And ere is the secret: when I was a kid, I loved to steal away from home and go to the market to buy konkonte and eat it there! A woman called Maame Amma sold konkonte in the market, and I used to hunt around for discarded cutlasses and other ironmongery, which I sold to the local blacksmith for a penny, twopence or three pence. I would then smuggle myself to go and blow almost all of the money on konkonte.

The konkonte made by that woman was of such a quality as is difficult to describe. It was very smooth, and it was brownish-yellow in colour (not the dark grey, getting to black, that you sometimes see.) It was beautiful when it came out of her big pot and she cut it into smallish portions, each of which cost one penny. One penny's worth was enough to give me a nice breakfast upon which I could go to stand tall and face the day's schooling.

The woman used to make palm-nut soup to go with the konkonte. Occasionally, she made groundnut soup. One of the ingredients she used to give her soups its peculiarly lovely taste was the tail of a cow, which had been broiled over a coal-fire, and left to 'cure' for a day or two. As we used to say, it sweeted bad! Sometimes, too, she used the entrails of the cow. And to balance the taste of the soup, she put in smoked herrings. After one had gorged oneself with her soup, one needed to wash one's hands well with soap, otherwise one's teacher would ask questions when one handed in one's exercise book. Some of the really bad boys among us gave her soups a special name: Ebon, nso yedi. (which is to say, 'it pongs but we savour it.')

My mother never made konkonte at home, though she knew how to make it. That was its attraction --something one couldn't get at home. Other 'non-domesticated' stuff that we liked were fula, kafa and koose. Our parents frowned on them in much the same way that modern parents are always going on about how their kids prefer 'fast foods' like Macdonalds and Kentucky Frieds to home-cooked food.

Our fast foods had this distinction, though: they were healthy. Our foods were so non-fatty that when I look Back upon the entire ten-years I spent in junior school, I can't say I remember even one single child who showed any inclination towards embarking on the slippery slope that constitutes the road to obesity.

And, course, we would refute any suggestion that konkonte is such a sub-standard meal that if it is recommenced that one should eat it, then the person making the suggestion had behaved like a snobbish person. To any such person, all I for one would say is, “Charlie, you don't know anything, do you? Konkonte is 'low-cost'? Olee!”