Easter and Miracles!

Easter 2024 came early, in March ahead of the April of previous years! Once again, we were reminded on Friday, March 29,2024, “Good Friday”, of the crucifixion/death of Jesus on the Cross, and his resurrection three days later on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024.  

The occurrence over two thousand years ago has been described as the greatest of all miracles.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a miracle as;

“A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws, and therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.” It derives from the Latin word “miraculum,” (object of wonder).

Such was the miracle “Manager” and I experienced between Abuja and Minna, Nigeria, in 1996 driving back home to Ghana after I had completed my two-year teaching tour at the Nigerian Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji-Kaduna.

Before that, in my July 2023 article titled “The Yam-Beat & Miracles,” I stated as follows:

I love yam! I can eat it fried without any accompaniment as a snack. With the addition of fresh-pepper and sardine with an egg garnish, however, I automatically upgrade it to a main-meal status. Boiled yam also co-operates effectively with vegetables like “nkontomire”/palaver-sauce, “agushi/egusi” stew or garden-egg stew! Boiled yam’s versatility can also be seen when it combines deliciously with corned beef stew. Yam is therefore a constant feature at home!

In 2006, duty took me to Kumasi. I went with “Manager.” From experience, I knew that given the chance on our return trip to Accra, I would be strongly requested to make many stops to buy foodstuffs from “Akrantie” (Archaeology) aka grasscutter to palm-oil / “zomi” (zoology). 

To obviate this, I issued a strong communique on our rules-of-engagement for the journey the night before we left Kumasi. It was simply, “Madame, for our trip tomorrow, we shall make two stops for you to buy foodstuffs. So please decide on the two places.”

Our first stop was at Ejisu where the major marketing that was done included eight tubers of yam. With distribution to family/friends enroute, we arrived home at Burma Camp with three tubers. “Manager’s” instructions were that my driver and bodyguard should have one tuber each, leaving the eighth/last one for us. That yam would be fried for my breakfast the following morning. Just then, a heavy downpour started, making my soldiers leave rather unceremoniously.

The following morning, “Manager” realised that, in the confusion of the sudden storm, my soldiers inadvertently took away the yam she had earmarked for my breakfast. She therefore promised buying a tuber on her way home from town.

At a meeting in my office that morning, I was told a soldier from Tamale wanted to see me. When he came in, he said his Commanding Officer (CO) had asked him to bring me a parcel. I directed him to my house to deliver it to “Manager” who was just about leaving home to run some errands.

Later that day, when I got home, “Manager” led me to the courtyard to see the parcel from Tamale. To my disbelief, over twenty tubers of yam laid spread on the ground. Smiling, she asked rhetorically “Dan, you see the way God works? We bought eight tubers of yam yesterday from Ejisu and ended up with zero! My intention was to buy a tuber on my way home this afternoon. Then, unexpectedly, we have received twenty tubers all the way from Tamale! Isn’t that a miracle?”

Abuja-Minna-Ibadan Highway

From Jaji-Kaduna, we spent a week in Abuja at the invitation of a friend. Our second-leg home from Abuja to Ibadan of about 600 kilometres was going to take us ten hours. An hour into our journey, my accelerator cable got stuck in my little Mitsubishi-Tredia, accelerating uncontrollably at aircraft speed! I could only bring the car to a halt in the middle-of-nowhere in a notorious armed-robbery zone, only after switching off the ignition. 

In desperation, I waved frantically at the first vehicle which accelerated past me. Somehow, the vehicle screeched to a halt and reversed towards me. Four men came out and before I could say hello, one asked “wo ye Ghana-ni?” (Are you Ghanaian? When I replied in the affirmative, he told me in flawless Twi that, he was born in Ghana and had his secondary education at Osei-Kyiretwie Secondary School, Kumasi. He added that they were on their way to Lagos, and only stopped after making out my camouflaged uniform to be Ghanaian.

Leaving his two colleagues to keep us company, the Good-Samaritan/”Abujatan” went twenty kilometres back to the nearest village to get a mechanic.

For most people, it is only biblical events like the blind seeing, and feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish that constitute miracles. But for me, relatively minor incidents like my “yam-beats” of Ejisu-Accra and the “Good-Samaritan/Abujatan” on the Abuja-Minna-Ibadan Highway, Nigeria, also constitute miracles! They are simply inexplicable by natural or scientific laws.

Why can’t we be as humane to each other as Ghanaians, as the Nigerians were to “Manager” and me in a notorious armed-robbers’ zone.

Finally, isn’t He a miracle-working God we serve? May the Easter message of peace, humility and selflessness inspire us to be better Ghanaians.

Leadership, lead!  Fellow Ghanaians, WAKE UP!