‘Report Them To Kwaku Sakyi Addo!’

Cameron Duodu

K1–Koo, do you know one thing that surprises me about Ghanaian society today?

K2– No!
-        It is the fact that people are still on speaking terms with one another!

-        What do you mean by that?
-        I mean that the mobile phone companies have willy-nilly, turned everyone into a liar!

-                              Ah? But a liar is a murderer not only

in the physical sense but in the moral sense as well? I mean if you cannot rely on the word of a person, can you do business with him? And if you don't do business you will starve and die, will you not?

-        Precisely!
-        It is 'indirect murder', though, is it not?

-         It certainly is.
-         Hmmm - it'd be difficult to prove in court. We all know from recent events that courts  can render 'bold' decisions that allegedly 'mis-tally' judges' own decisions…

-          'Bold decisions' that can win praise from those with a predilection for bugabuga methods?

-         Bonus point! But bo, please make una make your case without resorting to insinuations, abi?

-         Ah, bo, make I talk some oh! My mouth be gun? Look, na like you have some girlfriend whom you trust otherwise. And you say, 'My dear, I go wait for you at Spot F at 6.30 pm, and she says, 'Ok, but I shall have to go home first, because my mum wasn't well when I was leaving for work and I shall have to make sure she's ok before I go out with you', and you say, 'Yes', and you go to Spot F, and she doesn't show up. And she doesn't phone… And YOU can't get her on the phone either, because each time you phone, you are told her phone is 'switched off', or she 'doesn't answer', or 'the network is busy; please try again later!', or that she is 'busy on another call, please try later!'…

-         - You will get angry oh!
-         - Charlie, the biggest mistake you will make is that you will believe some of the crap oh! Especially if you suspect that you have not totally won her love! Yet!

-         You will wonder whether she's not playing you for a sucker!

-         -Absolutely right! Your own feeling of insecurity will not just make you angry. It will make

http://www.dailyguideghana.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/kweku_sakyi_addo.jpg

Kweku Sakyi-Addo
-         You hopping mad. Because you had to endure heavy traffic to get to Spot F. Yet, by driving 'like a taxi driver', you made it to the place at 6.30 pm on the dot! So adrenalin is still pumping through your veins when you make those calls that do not go through! Yet everyone will tell you that adrenalin-plus-frustration-equals-irrational conclusions! Worst of all, you know you will have to endure that heavy traffic again to get back home. All for nothing!

-         Ha, suppose she shows up after you have left?

-         Yiee? The heavy traffic SHE has sat through to come, will inflame her emotions. She will blame you for not trusting her, and therefore not exercising enough 'patience' to wait an hour or even two longer!

-         - You say 'But'…
-         And she cuts you: 'Don't give me any 'but's! You don't really love me or you would have waited. I had to go through heavy traffic;;;

-         Me too!
-         …. to go and  call my sister to go and sit with my mother and she wasn't willing to do that and I had to promise her my new expensive blouse before she would do it and - and –  all for nothing! ?

-         Baby! Please calm down!….
-         Don't call me baby! I am no baby!
-         You know I love you!
-         If that is what you call love …hey! take your hands off me! …. !'

-         Koo, this is a calamitous situation you are describing.

-         Koo, it not just calamitous. It is apocalyptic. Close to a romantic nuclear meltdown.

-         And all because the phones didn't work!
-         Chum, I don't think the phone companies realise just how deeply we have become dependent on them.  You are late for a meeting? Phone up. You want to cancel a meeting? Phone up! And because it is so easy to tell people what's happening to you, when your phone is working, you assume that if someone is not fulfilling a pledge to meet you and he or she hasn't phoned, then you are being deliberately slighted.

-         Yes. No Respect!
-         And yet, they too are sometimes disappointed by YOU?

-         Yes! That's the irony. Everyone probably suspects that the other is fibbing!

-         That is life, isn't it?  Etua wo yonko ho a, etua duam! (If it's happening to another person, it might as well be happening to a tree!)

-         Charlie, what can be done about it?
-         Hmmm - I don't know oh! Everyone agrees that a licence to operate a mobile phone system is a licence to print money. The licences are awarded to the operators by the Government, on behalf of the people. Now if the Government's regulating authority doesn't care whether the service provided by the operators frustrates and maddens their customers, what can the private citizen do?

-         Indeed! For how can you prove a negative?]

-          So, many people try to subscribe to several services at once. If they can afford it!

-          
-         Ha - they lie! I know from experience that your own 'second phone' could be lying beside you and yet when you call it with another lying beside it, you'd be told it has been switched off… Or is out of range! …Or the customer is not answering! Or you will be asked whether you want to accept some atrocious ringtone before you are told to bugger off!

-         I tell you what - why not report the companies to their smooth-tongued spokesperson, Kwaku Sakyi Addo! Warn him as a fellow professional that they are making him a laughing stock, what with all the rationalisations of their poor service that they regularly ask him to put over to the public!

-         That is, assuming one can get through to Kwaku! Hahahahahahahaha!

Hehehehehehehehe!
-         Hohohohohohohoho!
-         Hihihihihihihihihihihi!
 By CAMERON DUODU