Happenings In Ghana- My Letter To Opana

Dear Opana,
I am excited you are finally coming home after a very long time of being away. I am confident your stay in the other world has not really changed you much and I hope you still speak your mother tongue fluently. I believe you are doing very well my dear friend and that dark skin you were born with is still intact. Back here it's almost the same old story; The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the foolish get more foolish. It's so irritating to note that but who cares? After all there's nothing new under the sun.

How is Opanawaa, your sister? I have been trying in vain to reach out to her of late. I sincerely hope she has not become one of those foolish ladies of her time, blinded and led astray by so-called love to do stupid things. How on earth should a lady film her naked self and send to her lover somewhere? Why should a lady allow her partner to record their private sexual encounters only to be leaked online? It breaks my heart to see such things on social media but the daughters of Eve in this our part of the world learn no lessons at all. I wonder if she will ever get any serious husband if she goes that way. Tell her to expect my letter soon.

I hope your little cousin Opanaski is doing well too. The last pictures you sent clearly shows she is now a fully grown lady. She told me sometime ago that she wanted to be a star and I think that's a wonderful idea. I wish her well but I hope she does not become a desperate gal who will be willing to do anything for stardom. Most upcoming gals like her will likely yield to the crazy demands of directors, editors, producers and even cameramen just to be on the limelight. Haven’t you watched video clips of so called movie and music stars? The females expose themselves as if all we want to see is their bodies meant for their husbands. As for the female dancers of the male artists, the least said about them the better. They twist their waist and make seductive moves in seductive dresses as if it's nobody's business but is it their fault? Is it not what the world wants? Am yet to see males in boxer shots in movies or music videos but some ladies are willing to even be in panties and worse of all topless and pantless just for fame! Do you know that some media houses in the country were cautioned not to show pornography on their stations? I wonder if what I see in those videos is not what I think it is. A bunch of hypocrites I suppose.

My friend, how is your religion out there? Well, things have taken a new twist over here so don’t ever think in our days the church is influencing the secular world. It’s rather the other way. Most churches and so-called gospel musicians are now saying they have to brand themselves in a certain way to attract the youth to Church rather than Christ. Is that not nonsense? Tell me, was your grandmother not once a youth? Wasn’t she the hottest cake in her time? and wasn’t she converted a youth? Hasn’t she been a christian to today? Very soon girls will be encouraged to come to church in bikinis all in the name of attracting the youth. No wonder some churches are filled with women in dresses that make it possible to even count their beads and males wear unkempt hair like the mad man I see down the streets. I doff my hat for Muslims in this regard. You just cannot change their old perfect ways. Trash bins will always need trash and I hope Opanaski does not go that way.

Opana my friend, armed robbers have taken over the country and now they no longer operate in the night but in broad day light. They steal, they kill and they destroy just like the devil himself. Some say it's because of joblessness but these same very people rally behind corrupt people who have stolen millions of our legal paper to enrich themselves and few at the expense of the vast majority. Couldn’t those millions be used to create jobs? Why should people who steal with their positions and influence they hold be treated differently from armed robbers? I sincerely think if a thief is beaten to death, then a corrupt official thief shouldn’t be spared either.

My good friend, morality is also on the lose so don't expect any respect from the youth or anybody in your beloved country. Without any provocation, they will rain insults at you to make you regret the day you were born. I don't blame them because there are no good examples to learn from. Parents are disrespectful towards one another, leaders openly insult leaders and you expect any different attitude from the youth who are the future leaders? Nothing pains me more than the people who claim to be honourables. Although some perfectly deserve the title, I just don’t understand why most of them should even be permitted access to the house. They spew venom, register their displeasures with insolence and talk trash yet they say they are honourables when infact the real honourables are walking down the streets in my little village. Just one day a child will show ‘something small’ to a so-called honourable in public and I will be very happy and dine and wine like a king.

Talking about dining and wining, my friend, there is the need for me to tell you the new trend in town. There is no single day without the emergence of a new brand of drink. Yes! drink to make your eyes blurry and red. Drink to make you stagger like a sleepy giant and increase your sexual drive. A drink with the bold inscription “drink responsibly” and “Not for people under 18 years”. It seems the main problem of your country men is impotence or sexual problems so there is no wonder everybody is producing bitters. Today it’s mountain bitters and tomorrow it’s stool bitters and so on and on. Why wouldn’t rape and teenage pregnancies increase? Why wouldn’t someone in the so-called house of honourables even propose the free giving of condoms to students? The country is really sick and with the upsurge of bitters on the tv and every street corner, there is no wonder why the country is so bitter. The old are bitter and the young are also bitter. Almost everybody is bitter. A bitter nation indeed!

Opana, more about what some people call ‘the devil’s box’, don't be alarmed by what you see on almost every channel. If it's not pastors leading or misleading desperate people in need of supernatural help then you will see desperate fetish priests and priestesses wooing clients to come for spiritual money. At times I do wonder what our mandated body backed by law to regulate these things is doing. There is high rate of ritual killings in the country largely in my perspective due to the upsurge of these individuals on our media yet it seems those paid to put sanity on the airwaves are themselves crazy than I tend to think. I guess they are waiting for their children’s heads to be chopped off for rituals before they begin to take action. Claims of fraud by these magicians have been reported several times but of course nothing is ever done! If you can’t stand them then there are few options: listen to politics, listen to music or watch football. If you find them boring as usual then go to bed.

My childhood friend, should a pig tell a monkey to stop playing on trees and join it to wallow in the mud? Should a certain person call us myopic because we fail to join him in his stupidity? Yes indeed he is wise. He built the mighty ship and airplane. Yes he has even explored the universe and landed on the moon and he is greatly advancing in wisdom too. He can transform you into any sex of your choice and in a split second he can launch a missile to destroy the world. He has made another discovery that there is pleasure in same sex relationships and regard their affair to be legal and wants us to accept it. Well, let him come and climb our trees, chew our cola and perform our dipo rites; then we will accept his customs. Let him allow his children to have our tribal marks so we know we are truly one people and accept his senseless practices. It is only in the human world that men sleep with men and women sleep with women. I sometimes wonder if some humans are even superior to animals in wisdom. With recent happenings, I seriously have my doubt.

My good friend, don’t be surprised if you come back home and realise Priscilla Opoku-Kwarteng's name is still being mentioned everywhere. Everybody calls her Ebony Reigns and she was really a hit maker. They say she was great at playing with words and I realise she was a good singer too. Some say her way of exposing herself was bad while others believe she was only a child trying to catch fun but I seriously doubt if there’s any child in the world today. What adults can do, children can do even better! Some say your country people were hard at her with criticisms but I think that was their honest opinion about her. She did her own thing with strong parental support anyways. A certain man even said because of her demise, he was convinced critics were happy.

Is that not a shame? Which celebrity has been criticised and lambasted more than our own Asamoah Gyan? What about late Mills, ex Pres. Mahama and our own Pres. Nana Addo? Once a public figure, I believe criticisms remain unavoidable! I believe you already know that to people from this part of the world, no dead person is ever bad. It is in death that we see praise singers everywhere. It’s in her death that we see that she deserves a clothing line and many commendations. Who doesn’t know some ‘wise’ people somewhere wants to make money from her popularity? Why not a clothing line in honour of the living hit makers too?

Opana, unlike those aged who paid their dues to society and left us somehow expectedly, her demise was a great shocker just like Suzzy Williams and Terry Bonchaka. Internationally she was like Ritchie Valens, a teenager of 17. His interest in music started at the tender age of five which compelled him to learn how to play the trumpet, guitar and drums. As a fast rising star of his time, the demands of his career forced him to drop out of high school but he was afraid of flying. This was due to a freak accident at his junior high school when two airplanes collided over the playground, killing and injuring several of his friends. Later he was able to overcome his fear to travel by airplane for his career. Two years later after an incredible performance around midnight, Valens secured a seat in a three-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza after a coin toss win. Few minutes after takeoff, there was this breaking news everywhere about a plane crash killing instantly the pilot, stars; Buddy Holly,22, The Big Bopper,28 and teenager Ritchie Valens,17. This happened on February 3,1959.

Her story is also similar to that of Aaliyah who started singing at a tender age of 10. She was an actress, singer and model. Her songs were straight hits and she became the first artist in Billboard history to have her song “Try Again” top Billboard Hot 100 solely on airplay. One day after travelling all the way to Bahamas to film the music video for her single “Rock the Boat”, she and members of the record company boarded a twin-engine Cessna 402 B to travel to Florida, shortly after takeoff, about 200 feet from end of the runway the plane crashed and exploded killing her and eight others. She was only 22 years.

Opana my comrade, despite these examples and many more, no one really dies a natural death in our country thanks to some super apostles. They say she was killed spiritually. I do wonder how her parents, siblings and loved ones feel when they hear stories like these. The super apostles no longer preach salvation, they preach what they saw and pride themselves when their sayings see the light of the day. I wonder why their church members also die like we mortals.

Opana, I know you've got so many contacts and I wish you could convey this message to the Parents of Ebony. Kindly ask them to go to Sunyani and ask of one Abiola. They will be told of a young man with so many prophecy on his life. A hard working phone repairer, a student pastor, a powerful singer and a dynamic prayer warrior. For three days he fasted without food and water because he was prompted by the spirit. On the final day of his fast he volunteered to go for a funeral after a colourful wedding that fateful Saturday. Few minutes into their journey to Drobo, just in a town called Amanfon the car crushed and the rest is history. Tell them to go to Yamfo, a town few kilometers from Abesim and they will be shown the grave of that great man.

The Finder as well as other online media reported that accident which took place on 19^th August, 2017. Few months later his pregnant wife gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. Maybe my friend was not famous but what about Myles Munroe, the great evangelist who died in a plane crush with his wife and eight others on 9^th November 2014? All that am trying to say is that accident knows nobody. Prophecy or no prophecy anything is bound to happen. It is only the will of God that stands and instead of us to take up the crusade of bringing sanity to our roads and making sure proper roads are constructed, all we hear is super apostles and primitive minds linking accidents to witches. I wonder when we will grow. Our suffering is holding on to how things might have been, could have been and should have been.

I have a few more to write about but I don’t want to bore you with many words. Am sure you will soon come back home and we will get to speak face to face. If you still tally then am going to keep you briefed on things happening in your beloved country. Before I say good bye there is this one more thing I want to tell you. It could fetch you some fame and extra holiday cash. As eloquent and intelligent as you are, Opana, when you do come, please introduce yourself as an expert in something to our media houses. Maybe business expert or security expert or something as such. Most of our media houses are very good in doing lazy jobs. They give recognition to anyone without verification and brand them as experts, consultants or analysts. Do parade yourself as such but if any payment is given don’t forget about me. Calling yourself a security Kingkong wouldn’t be a bad idea.

From my little corner I write this letter to you my good friend Opana with lots of fond memories.

Your friend,
G.J.Mensah.