Mawuli Zogbenu is the author
So, after a long frustrating day, you are so hungry and entered a fufu joint. After waiting for your turn for so long in the queue, it gets to your turn to be served only to be told by the fufu ‘Teller’ that you should wait small for the next ‘consignment’ as they are now going to bring the cassava from the fire! Ala!
By some strange design, this is likely to be the time too that an annoying mobile phone call will come through and I can imagine the speed with which you cut that call with a wild chuckle, no matter who the caller may be!
Please when are the BECE candidates for 2022 writing their exams? I am asking because I am not seeing my nephew being serious with his studies o, people. His type would finish their last paper and town will be awash with T-shirts with interesting names.
The T-shirts often have the unique names of the unique class and the members of the class are listed for ‘future memory use’. For example, you would find class names like ‘Scholars of Ebibidro Class of 2022’, ‘Future Professors Class of 2022’ ‘3kro-bewu 2022’, ‘SM Class of Talkertives – Failure is part of life’ (as for this class, I think I know where the computer placement machine will dump them).
One that amazed me before and kept me laughing till now is this guy who had just returned from my hometown and wearing their class T-shirt: ‘The Ganyaglo Class of 2019’. Abeg, ask any Ayigbeman what ‘Ganyaglo’ means. Under the class name were individuals’ names like: ‘Azoto Gugui’, ‘Accra Aka’, ‘Sagidi’, ‘Juju Strong’, ‘I fear no bullet’, ‘MyGodisAble’, ‘Silent Killa’, ‘Black Mamba’ ‘BHIM’, ‘Tema Station’ ‘Dead Buddy’, ‘Boy Fishes’, ‘You mafia me, I mafia you’.
I wonder if their parents are aware of these nicknames they have bestowed on themselves. After struggling to take care of children up to this level and he or she comes back with such huhudious names, do you think deliverance will help? I doubt. Maybe a crusade!
Names of other classmates that follow would blow your mind. ‘Sexy Gorgormi’, Romantic Queen’, Slim Things’, ‘Asamaoh Djan’, ‘Mo Sallah’ ‘Azuggu Zay’, ‘Lady Gaga’, ‘Lover Boy’, ‘Police Abaa’, ‘Ayigbe Poloo’, ‘Abigie Joe’, ‘Justice Podondo’,, Shingoror, Amelia Pinga, Musa Sapiento 1, Commander, ‘Batman’, ‘SM4Life’, ‘Tooo Kpakpo’, ‘Adwoa Camboo’, American Dondon’, ‘Aboabewu’, ‘Tiger Pito’, ‘Wele Maame’, ‘Failure no be Poblem’, ‘Lagos Town Gayoyo’ ‘Queen Bajoba’ ‘Korshiwa Anthony’ (I pray this one will pass well), ‘Jesus Spy’ ‘Mantse Kumah, ‘Village Bill Gate’, ‘Pasco go Kill You’, etc.
Relax, guys; as teenagers we all did so in the past so it’s normal but be serious with your books. My own name was ‘Aborbor Tatale’! that’s what has metamorphosed into what people are now calling: ‘gorb3’.
(For some strange reasons, this name does not sit well with me as it makes gari and beans unattractive)! Sometimes when I see these youngsters, I sit back, I wonder if we also ever had the same feelings of ‘accomplishment’ just after writing BECE at our time. Maybe they have no idea that WASSCE, Undergraduate and Postgraduate and beyond are all waiting for them.
These days I find myself in too many troubles o. So long as I am still ‘economically active’, why not! I just met this one last Sunday and she came across as a good ‘food for thought’!
We exchanged telephone numbers. Then whatsapping started. Then I started with my ‘useless ‘I miss you’ ‘I miss you’ n*ns*nse! How can you miss somebody you barely knew? God should exorcise this spirit of ‘promise-security’ out of us oo, men! Eish!
Two days later, she sent a message asking for help and that she urgently needs GHC500 to top up to pay school fees. I felt some way. Something said, try and send something small since you want to ‘eat’ and another kept telling me not to send anything since she could easily pass for a ‘pre-paid’ girl. She ‘exploits’ you first before the eyi even though giving ‘it’ to her is not guarantee that you will have ‘it’.
In fact I was bold enough, called her and asked her why so soon. In her response, she explained that the GHC500 was actually registration fee. She also wondered how come we barely knew each other and I kept saying ‘I miss you’ ’I miss you by ‘heart’? YOU MISS ME, I WANT 500. Simple!’ So if she also needs GHC500, then it just falls in line. It’s pre-paid, give it to her, my brother!
I blocked her line.
Some of them are not smart; the smart ones ask for GHC50 and GHC30 and you are compelled to give slightly higher and before you know it, you end up spending GHC600 on such a person without knowing!
When I first met Ablavi, I gave her GHC100 and she complained that it was too much. In my head, I said this girl must be modest. Then subsequently, she would ask for GHC35 or GHC23! You won’t believe that Ablavi ever asked me to send her GHC4!
As we speak, I have never given her anything less than GHC50 upon request even though she has also never asked for anything above GHC35 but the interesting thing is that by the end of the month, put together, I spend not less than GHC600 on her! This village girl is smarter than many of the city girls.
Hotel bill GHC120, Condom GHC11, Food for the two of you, GHC50, chewing gum GHC1.50, Fuel for your car GHC150, T&T for her GHC200 (externally imported from the regions), bottled water GHC2.50, fruit juice GHC10, short bread biscuits GHC10, Vaseline (depending) GHC5.
Total = GHC539.50. This is how much some people (not me o…haa) spend on some girls for fun at least twice every month. If you are not lucky and you meet the wrong girl from the beginning, prepare to pay registration fee of GHC500 plus GHC539.50 = GHC1,039.50.
Let’s assume you are spending GHC539.50 every week and twice in a month, you would be spending GHC1,079 per month on the same ‘thing’ you would get at home almost for free.
Provision should be made for occasional mobile money at least GHC100 for two in a month = GHC200. Add that to GHC1,079 and you are running into GHC1,279.00 every month and at the end of the year, you would have done GHC15,348.00! Can’t this buy you a plot of land or pay fees for your children? That ‘useless’ thing in between our eyi keeps ‘spending on us’ or rather we spending on it!
As part of the miscellaneous items, don’t forget those you have ‘touched’ in the past. Some of them think it is a lifetime investment and so somebody you touched in 2011 keeps asking for favours and in a way, you feel obliged to show continuous appreciation even though you are no longer ‘touching’.
This amount is the average expenses an average womanizer spends on ‘promise-security’, according to my best friend, not me. And your salary is GHC3,000. By the middle of the month, you are broke and getting angry ‘by hat’ while asking God to open doors for you. Ei! God is indeed a merciful God; He still listens.
The sad part is that our poor wives keep praying for us for breakthroughs and we keep these useless expenses on our balance sheets to block our own chances.
Sometimes you see how much you’ve spent and think that if you have to use condom, it will be a ‘waste’ and then think that this ‘meat’ is too nice to be eaten with plastics and then you keep spreading diseases around. God forgive you and I.
SIN FASCINATES AND ASSASSINATES and HIV is still in active force COVID or no COVID. If you fall sick and you are lucky you are in America, the people visiting you at the hospital would say ‘Wishing you a speedy recovery’. In the UK, they would say ‘Get well soon dear’. Let a fellow Ghanaian visit you on the hospital bed and how he will wish you: ‘eei! this same thing killed Yaovi’! Case close!
People are spending too much on things that give ‘a flash in the pan pleasure’ yet the salary cannot match all of these and our homes. Let’s be checking our little little expenses first including the airtime we buy for utube. Put pen to paper and you would be surprised!
God be with us all and our families this weekend as I pray for forgiveness for ‘useless’ sins and expenses incurred by thought of doing bad things I call ‘sweetness’!
I thank God I am not a womanizer and thank God again that the days of Ananias and Saphirah are gone or else by now after making this declaration…. piam!