Announcing the top 10 Wanderlust GHANA Awards - A social media reaction on #AccraToLondon over land

Announcing the top 10 Wanderlust GHANA Awards - A social media reaction on the Accra to London on land trip.

At NUMBER 10:

Mauritanian immigration officials.

For being unfriendly towards harmless fellow Africans, delaying the team and, importantly, making them pay more money than they were supposed to pay to pass through your country. We call that a ‘bribe’ here. No one gets punished for it. What’s it equivalent in your country? Clap for yourselves. 

At NUMBER 9:

Those who started but didn’t complete the journey. The journey is the destination, abi? So if you did 1km koraa, you have done some. You forced paaah. But plans or circumstances brought you back earlier. Effort appreciated; but life doesn’t reward effort: just results. The second person is still last; just the first among the last. But you force. Applause. Next time when you start something, finish before you collect fans. 

At NUMBER 8:

Ghana media. Many of you no shɛdaa give them plenty publicity to start biaa like that. You were busy, chasing the juicer Abelemkpe $1M and how it took 5 hours to count money, true or false. But for waking up and coming to the table whenever you finally did, you come up for honourable mention. But if BBC published the story before you deɛ, you are not inside this congrats some!

At NUMBER 7:

All the unnamed Ghana embassy officials and military officers who facilitated and eased passage through the various countries. You take the 7th position. Please do the same for Ghanaians there, with the same alacrity, when they need help, wai!

At NUMBER 6:

EduSpots, for riding on the back of this venture and raising $13,000+ so far, you dey form! You are raising funds for education. Engineer Sule Abu is going to fight boxing just to do that. Is he correct? Respect ✊🏽 

At NUMBER 5:

Teddy’s charleywotey. Kwabena Teddy drives barefooted. But he wore that inexpensive black tawtaw called ‘Aka Me Last’ only when getting out of the car, all the way to London. Cheap man aka El Cheapo😀. The thing even got torn when it was only having a car ride. And we are thinking about auctioning it. Someone has already offered $20 for it. For enduring Kwabena Teddy’s feet 👣 from time to time all the way to London, the inanimate charleywote comes NUMBER 5. 🩴 

At NUMBER 4:

The Car companies, indigenous- and foreign-owned. You ‘manufacture’ cars 🚙 🚘 🚗 in Ghana but didn’t sponsor the trip. Don’t mind those who say you merely assemble cars here. You are manufacturing! Ah well, hey, it’s not our car company o, it is yours, abi? Tax holidays and all. But you still got some publicity, negative or positive. No business lost, we hope.

HINT: just pretend that the sponsorship request letter didn’t get to your desk. Threaten to sack whoever was responsible for that: gross dereliction of duty. Heads will roll! Then do nothing. This be Ghana. We, led by the press, will forget about you in the next 48 hours. Lessons learned? Maybe. Next time you might pick the bait. 

NOW TO THE MEDAL ZONE

At NUMBER 3🥉:

WSU, aka Wanderlust Supporters Union. All over the world. Followed all the updates. Gave fans. Social Medialytes. Forwarded the posts. Created awareness. Dr Krow Victor Bampoe hosted the team to some good food in faraway Geneva. In full attendance: Kofi Hamilton Amekudzi and all of Ghana’s expensively gathered international civil servants who buy and bring to Ghana, Swiss chocolates made from Ghana cocoa, bought from that classy underground Migros shop in downtown Geneva.

Then the London crowd too. Meal after meal. If the Team can drive that far, it must be healthy to help clog their arteries with some cholesterol, or? And as for Ghana food in abrokyire, it’s on autopilot. The same Jollof. Waakye. Fried rice. Chicken. Shito. Stew. Condiments. You do all, you have done some. You win the bronze medal. 

At NUMBER 2🥈:

Team Wanderlust itself. Done what no human has ever done, as far we are concerned. Self-sponsored. Daring. Courageous. Risky. Reckless. Dangerous. Mad. Gutsy. Brave. Like something bad happen, Amanfuor, the same WSU go start type #WKHKYD? But no one can take that away from you. Those who now claim to have done it before: sorry, yɛntee mo case. Team Wanderlust is our first and our only. Our minds are too firmly made up to be confused by any facts. 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, ‘be upstanding, put those hands together’ for the NUMBER 1🥇, the Gold Medal, the highest and top Wanderlust Award: this goes too…..

WHASAB aka the Wanderlust Haters Association, Stubborn Academy Branch. You dunno the Team from Adam o. But because we are all from Ghana, you MUSTTO hate on them. You’ve insulted. You’ve trolled. You’ve shaded. You’ve ‘bittered.‘ You’ve ‘partisaned’: they used the Ghana Card to travel West Africa and so what?? They are lying. We aren’t children. We aren’t illiterate.

Cars can’t travel all that way. Cars can’t cross the sea. Toronto to Vancouver koraa far pass this, rewriting geography that you don’t know: next time, google first. But Hey. It’s your constitutional right to whinge and whine, grouch and grouse, moan and groan, howl and yowl, gripe and cry, bitch and grumble, complain and whimper, bark and mew, while manifesting the trauma that this journey has caused to your epidermis, the outer layer of cell on the surface of your body, in short — "skin pain." Caused by the bite of the rabid legendary green-eyed monster and the overdose plus hangover from drinking too much Bitter Haterade.

We couldn’t have laughed this hard without you, o thou predictable, archetypal troglodyte. Our world won’t be the same without you. We salute 🫡 you. Keep doing you. No one else can do that but you. You’re the true legends of this story. You win 🏆 

#Accratolondon
#thejourneyisthedestination

PS. over to you, Typo Police 👮🏾

Ace Anan Ankomah, the writer shared this on social media - WhatsApp.