Tales from my sojourn in journalism

As the boat heaved and swayed on the flooded mighty Tano River, I thought this was it - the end - and I mumbled a few words of prayer for the Lord’s intercession if possible.

Along with some seven other passengers, we had boarded a small boat at Noe, the Ivorian border town near Elubo,  to cross illegally the  Tano River, which served as the border between the two countries into Ghana; the border had then been officially closed.

It was a risky and illegal venture and we nearly paid for it when a boat nearly capsized ours, but thankfully we made it to Ghana territory.

This occurred during the infamous Ivorian election in 2010,  after which President Gbagbo had refused to concede defeat after losing the election and the country was boiling, heading for an internecine conflict.

As the foreign editor, I was in Abidjan and covered the elections as much as I could with the meagre resources at my disposal. After analysing the pent up feelings for change at Triechville, a suburb of Abidjan, and Youpougon, a nearby town, and the imposition of a curfew after the voting  while counting was ongoing, I knew I had to scat and I did just that, only to find that the Noe- Elubo border had been closed. 

There were hundreds of stranded Ghanaians at the Noe Station. As the time passed, the stranded Ghanaians started to thin out, a driver’s mates whispered to me that he could help me cross into Ghana.

I accepted the offer and, together with some people, we started the three kilometre walk towards the bank of the Tano river.

At one stage, our guide went ahead and talked to some soldiers, some CFA changed hands and we were allowed through. It was a perfect ring.

It was during the crossing of the Tano into the outskirts of Elubo that the boat nearly capsized on the mighty Tano. 

I also remember vividly my two-year sojourn in the then very difficult Sefwi Wiawso district . I worked closely with the district  Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs). In fact, at a stage, I was made a member of the publicity committee of the district CDRs.

Smuggling of cocoa to the Ivory Coast was rife.

 During that period, gangs of youth arrived in the district - mostly from the Ashanti and the Brong Ahafo Region - each cocoa season, to engage in cocoa smuggling (to La Cote d’Ivoire).

The Sefwi area was a lush cocoa territory, producing large quantities of cocoa. It had the worst infrastructure imaginable. Bad roads, lack of good drinking water, a dearth of good hospitals in the midst of cocoa, timber and foodstuff.

 One day, two of the cadres took me into the heart of the Krokosue Forest near the Cote D’Ivoire border on an anti-cocoa smuggling swoop. The 15 kilometres swing from Debiso to Akatiso, another border village, was through cocoa heartland.  But even then, the deprivation was immense. The Debiso-Akatiso road was a deathtrap. You had to be over patriotic not to smuggle your produce just a few kilometres across the border. Prices on the other side were good. But I digress. 

Armed with one old hunting gun, we moved on. Some five kilometres into the forest, we chanced upon four people carrying some loads of cocoa. When they saw us, they dumped the loads and fled just like that. We collected the cocoa, gave them to the chief of the nearby village to put into their village development coffers, and we stayed and slept in the village and were feted like kings, but we could feel the watchful eyes of the townspeople on us.

In the night, information came that some people were about to move into La Cote d’Ivoire with some loads and we waylaid them on the outskirts of the village.

 We nearly ran away when we saw the ‘length’ of approaching column of cocoa smugglers. Wisely Castro, one of our cadres, threw his gun into the undergrowth of a nearby cocoa farm.

I think that move saved us. When the column of 40 cocoa carriers, with their heavily armed leaders and escorts, reached  us, they asked whether we had seen the cadres around and we quickly replied in the negative. So we watched as the carriers  and the leaders smuggled the cocoa into La Cote d’Iivoire.

The Afram Plains North District is located in the northern- most part of the Eastern Region. It covers an area of 5,040 sq km.

One of the many entrances into the district is by road - through Nkawkaw, Mpraeso, Bepong, Kwahu Tafo and Adawso from where the three kilometre wide Afram River is crossed to Ekye-Amanfrom by a ferry.

....It is a veritable granary, with foodstuffs like yam and plantains as well as charcoal. In spite of that, it was a poverty-stricken area. There was teenage pregnancies, and prostitution. 

 When I first landed in the area in 2008, work was going on in Maame Krobo, one of its principal communities, to tar some of the road and open it up for more business opportunities.

One of the first stories I heard about the area was its appreciation to former President Rawlings, for braving the odds to open up the area by sending electricity there, in spite of the tough constraints of how to pass the power through the river.

The story goes that various interventions to send power to the area had been stalled by the technicalities of bridging the Afram River with the electric poles. 

Meanwhile, the people continued to wallow in darkness and when the then President Rawlings went to the area and observed the deprived conditions of the people, he openly wept and promised to help by sending power to the area and opening up the area by building more roads.

Enquiries indicated that it was impossible to send power to the area because of the Afram River, but the president, with the support of good technical advisers, was able to circumvent the difficulties by laying the cables underground in the Afram River to Ekye Amanfrom and the whole district had light.

So the story goes that because of that feat, the people hold the Flight Lieutenant in high esteem and that may have accounted for the continued success of his party in that area.

Another story is a peculiar juju warning I received not to go near the women in Maame Krobo. A man with a wife or girlfriend can cast a ‘juju’ called ‘Babaso Kraman’ or Gonorrhoea on her, so that if one goes near her, one will get the disease.

When the man wants to go near the woman, he just recites some incantation. but here is the catch. Some rivals also acquire more powerful ‘juju’ to enable them to approach the woman. They first remove the juju placed by the husband or boyfriend and after having had their way, replace it with their own  ‘juju’ so that when the original owner comes near, he can only enter at his peril!

Writer’s email: fiifimensah@graphic.com .gh