Dumsor – Dumsor

Over the past months, our country has been plunged into load shedding (what we call in Ghana “dumsor dumsor”) that is actually grinding our very essence to a halt. A single day never pass without hearing the citizens of this nation insulting and cursing the workers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). While politicians as usual are agog and apportioning blames and scoring cheap political points (even if there is something like that), the citizenry are left to their fate devising ways and means to get things done, with or without electricity.

One thing that the managers of this economy seem to have lost is the fact that, this load shedding has a tremendous impact on the production cost of producers and the multiplier effect on the prices of goods and services leading to high inflation (enough of the economics – let me save that for another write up).

Back to the dumsor – dumsor (I learnt now it is dum-dum), the ECG decided to come out with a guideline or time table which will enable us plan our activities in terms of our use of electricity. This was supposedly done but as to whether they follow their own time table is another issue for us to analyse.

Last month I had a deadline to meet, I remember I had to do some write ups and submit. I calculated my ECG timetable and realised I had light the next day up to 6pm. However, early that day at 7am, I was “dumsorised”. I could not believe it, I got so furious but what can I do – nothing except to lament, lament and lament. Then it dawned on me that my light can go off anytime so I need to be prepared. Jesus said in Matthew 24:36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (NIV). Again, in Revelation 15:16, it is written “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and shamefully exposed”.

What am I driving at?
We needed the ECG timetable to plan our daily activities. Some of us even anticipated that ECG will not go strictly according to their timetable and therefore decided to make judicious use of the periods we had electricity.

Interestingly, as people created by God and appointed unto us to die once and after that judgement, we are not making good use of the life we have now. We live our lifes as if there is no ultimate purpose for us. We have lost touch with our Maker and we think there is nothing like heaven or hell. No life after this world and as some even sing “me wu a, na asa” translated to mean “it will all be over when I die”. Some even argue that, it has been two thousand years since Jesus said he will come again but these people have lost sight of this scripture, 2nd Peter 3:8-10:

“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night …”

My dear friends, there is nothing like delay in the sight of God, this life, this world, the beauty of it and all that will come to an end one day, it can be now, it can be tomorrow but while you wait for it remember you can also die at any point in time. But unfortunately, unlike ECG load shedding where there can be a timetable, there is no timetable for our life.

We can pass away as and when our Maker wants us. Hence, we need some level of urgency in the way we do our things. As the year comes to an end and we are doing a review of our life activities in 2014, let us be guided by this, the lights in our life can be taken out any moment and at any time but while it has not, let us make the best out of it - live a life that pleases our Maker, so that when we are called to give an account of what we did with our life, we can give a better one. Then He will say to us – “Well done, good and faithful servant ….”

Peter Anti Partey
Department of Arts and Social Sciences Education
College of Education Studies
University of Cape Coast, Ghana.
(+233) 243319730