Peaceful Zongos Must Pray For Peace In Iraq, Libya, Palestine And Nigeria

Hajj Mohammed Amin Lamptey is at it once again, but 'hold on'; it is for a good cause. Please get connected to his 'facebook' wall, for the move you would make in this regard would surely pay off eventually. The stories being churned out by the young man are wholesome, factual or 'halal'.

Devoid of sensationalism, the stories range from the Ebola and cholera scare, death and funerals of loved ones, to international news on the current President of Uruguay Jose Mujica who works as head of state but queues for every service including medical care in public hospitals.

Interestingly he has also made a standing order by constantly donating 90% of his salary to charity. Hajj Amin consider this true “LEADERSHIP" and asks whether this can happen in Africa where leadership is considered an avenue for distancing oneself from the people, to bask in opulence, prestige and corruption.

Listen here; currently on Hajj Lampteys 'Facebook' wall, some Muslims at home and abroad beaming with smiles have painted the accurate pictures of Muslim settlements in Ghana as places of peace, happiness and constant worship.

Each of the hundreds of the Zongos in Ghana like Nima, Sukura, Madina and those in the cities and towns are basically Muslim settlements of all ethnic groups of the northern parts of Ghana and most of Ghana's neighboring nations. Never mind their origins, the forebears of these people all lived in the then Gold Coast for many years with other Ghanaians as one people in one nation with a common destiny. They are among builders of Ghana by serving in the army, police, and civil service and health services. Their current generations within the Muslim communities also provide similar services across Ghana at low and higher levels.

Even with the congestion and hustle and bustle, these people feel the Zongo settlements are places to be. 'Zongos' are places for all manner of persons high and low imbued with the communal and brotherly spirits. 'Zongos' are places where each person is required to be his brother's keeper with each elder to a large extent seen as a dad brother, sister and mum of the young ones.

People living in these settlements enjoy living in them to the extent that they find it difficult to move to live in higher level settlements in Accra like East Legon, Roman Ridge and Airport Residential Area. Nima and other Zongos are 'areas that never sleep' and where people can find affordable accommodations and food like 'koko' and 'kose' or 'massa' for breakfast and 'tuo da mia (tuon zaafi)' or 'fufu' 'nakiri' 'burkina'for lunch and dinner at affordable prices.

The leaders of the tribal groupings in these areas called chiefs command respect as they adjudicate on matters of marriages and inheritance. They appear magnificent in colorful clothing showing their leadership qualities during Muslim festivals and at functions where they give orders to Imams and Islamic scholars for the start of programs. People in Zongo settlements do encourage the young ones to pursue moral development by worshiping regularly in mosques and to give ears to sermons given by Islamic Scholars and Imams.

This has had impact on the Muslim youths who of late have shown interest in secular education. A tour round our basic schools and universities would reveal a large number of Muslim youths rubbing shoulder with youth from other religious and ethnic groups of the nation. However some of the youth from the zongos who are allowed to fend for themselves have joined the 'goro boy gangs' engaging in nefarious activities duping people who are applying for passports and driving licenses. However some argue that those young men do so due to unnecessary delays in our bureaucracies making it difficult for people to obtain documents on time and through the right channels.

A chunk of the idle Zongo youths who also dream of traveling abroad to work and earn good income often use the difficult routes through Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea often with tragic consequences.

The lucky ones among the youth have found themselves in the United States and some nations of Europe like Germany, Italy, and Spain and of late to South Africa. Even with the lucky ones life is no more rosy for them owing to the economic crunch in Europe and America. The difficulties the youth go through to travel must change with some effort by government and civil society organizations.

As a typical Nima or Zongo boy Hajj Lamptey recalled his childhood days that were full of activities included hunting for 'bera' rats. In recalling his past in Nima with other young ones he said that;

“We usually moved around Kotoka International Airport area then considered bushy areas to hunt for rats as a delicacy. Hold it, Hajj Amin is not alone in this exercise, many of our Zongo kids who have now assumed leading roles as doctors, military men, top civil servants were 'bera' rat hunters. Luckily these rodents did not carry viral diseases as Ebola to cause serious health problems. That would have been tragic for us.

Interestingly today he said, the republic of Cambodia has adopted rat export as an income earner. This requires that many men and women would turn to 'bera' or rat hunting.

The news is that a unique harvest is under way in the rice fields of Cambodia where tens of thousands of wild rats are being trapped alive each day to feed a growing export market for the meat of rural rodents.

Popularly considered a disease-carrying nuisance in many societies, the rice field rats, Rattus argentiventer, of this small South-East Asian nation are considered a healthy delicacy due to their free-range lifestyle and largely organic diet. What do you think? Do we have to go back to 'bera' rat hunting for export in Ghana? We thank God that Ghanaian Zongo dwellers are fine engaged in various businesses and industrial activities

Whatever the case the people in the Zongos are happy people as they go about doing things in common. They worship together in their numerous mosques and gather at marriage; naming and funeral ceremonies together. They live together in peace because in spite of the fact that they belong to different political parties and ethnic groups they feel that those things that unite them are more than those that divide them.

While those Muslims in Ghana live in relative peace we cannot say the same about those Muslims in other parts of the world.

In sharp contrast to the beautiful picture painted of the Zongos in Ghana , Muslims in other parts of the world including neighboring Nigeria, Libya, Somalia, Palestine, Iraq, to name but a few are in a hell. Unlike Ghana, differences of opinion have got some of the Muslims in those countries divided against each other. Day in day out one finds Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan who are seeking power are busy killing each other and destroying buildings put up many centuries ago. What is painful is that having lost millions of their citizens, these nations would require billions of dollars to reconstruct their damaged infrastructure as a result of the civil and religious wars in those countries.

With regard to the group in Nigeria known as 'Boko Haram' the least said about them the better. They hate secular education and have resorted to fighting a prolonged war to create Islamic state within Nigeria. This move has led to these people fighting and killing their own fellow Muslims in North East Nigeria.

Apart from kidnapping 400 girls in Borno state in Nigeria they have caused many citizens of the country to flee into neighboring Cameroon and other nations. This painful development has caused many Muslims who read stories on Hajj Lampteys 'facebook' wall to make comments as follows;

One of such readers wondered whether indeed Muslims of this very generation across the globe are early following the path created by Allah through Prophet Mohammed (pbuh).

He asked why Muslims allow differences and trivialities to divide them and asked the question; are Muslims known to be wealthy not in danger of losing everything through conflicts against each other in their own lands?

Another reader of Hajj Lamptey's wall said that Tolerance and non violent means of preaching must be the only way to end the conflicts in the Muslim countries. He said that unfortunately we find people in Muslim countries committing crimes and atrocities in the name Allah saying that this is not right.

Another person on Hajj Lampteys wall who kicked against religious violence said the wars between Sunnis and Shiites must end because it is senseless and ridiculous.

The war between brothers of the same faith is the source of our main problems, which makes our Ummah weaker and smaller and making it easier for enemies of Islam to attack the religion on all fronts, he added.

Muslims in Ghana who are bound together in one faith under God with Prophet Mohammed as its messenger feel bad over unfortunate happenings in Muslim nations. Muslims in the Zongos have a duty to get together to pray and work for speedy resolution of problems in Nigeria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Somalia. This way, all Muslims including those in the Zongos would live peacefully together to be able to worship God in peace and be able to contribute their quota to their nations and the world at large.

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