I got to the farm late at about 7 p.m. I called the young man who had told me earlier that he wants to speak with me in connection with the matter of charm used against my project and my uncle. I wasn't expecting him to come to the farm, I was only informing him that I had arrived, but he defiled the odds -- walked through the half kilometre dense forest from the village to my farm in the night. It. Was. Drizzling! Something must have been tormenting him!
After exchanging pleasantries, he told me how he accompanied his friend to work on my project and my uncle at a shrine, and that his friend was given the charm to plant in my farm. I reminded him of how serious his allegations were and asked him if he could repeat what he was telling me in the presence of the chief and elders of the village. He answered in the affirmative and insisted I should record our conversation. I had already started recording anyway. I tried to give him some money for all the trouble of coming to my farm under those uncomfortable conditions, but he refused to take it. He said he didn't want money but the truth.
The next day, I went to the queen mother of the village to tell her what the young man had told me since her husband was a victim of the actions of the young men and played the recorded conversation for her to listen. She shook her head in shock and told me the matter was too heavy for her to handle so we should go to the Abusuapanin of the village. At the Abusuapanin's house, I went through the same process of telling my story. He sighed and told us he can't handle the matter without the chief of the village so we proceeded to the chief's house.
The chief warmly welcomed us and after the usual traditional repartee I was asked to repeat my story which I did, and of course, I didn't leave out the playing of the recorded audio. The chief was visibly upset. He asked his linguist to go for the young man who revealed the secret to me and his parents. The linguist stood up, and with his staff in his hand, left the gathering.
In no time, they arrived. I was asked again to repeat my account after which the young man was requested to confirm my narrative or otherwise. He confirmed it. The meeting was adjourned to the following day, and the chief's linguist was instructed to summon Kwesi, the other young man who was involved in that alleged dastardly act, and his parents.
At about 2:00 p.m., the next day, all the factions to the case met at the chief's house. I was once again subjected to the boring and painful act of retelling the side of my story, followed by that of the young man who came to reveal the secret to me. He told the chief and elders that he is ready to take any oath or go through any ritual to prove that he was telling the truth.
Even though I knew I was fighting a battle involving those who took me to court to contest the ownership of my land, I never knew there was another battle or perhaps many others. Kwesi was given the platform to talk and he confirmed what his friend had said.
I bought my farmland somewhere in 2016 and was growing corn each farming season before I started my major project. Kwesi was one of the labourers who were working on the farm on a "by-day" basis, that is, they were paid daily after each work. When I started putting up the infrastructure for my farm project in 2018, Kwesi made a request for me to buy him a tricycle, popularly known as "Aboboyaa" for commercial purposes. Few weeks later, I bought two Aboboyaas, one for Kwesi to run a commercial business with and one for the farm.
Kwesi didn't know how to ride the aboboyaa so I engaged the services of someone to train him for a fee at my own cost. He was able to ride perfectly in a few weeks. He was to make daily sales of GHC50. Because I'm most of the time in Accra, I asked my uncle to supervise the operation of the tricycle for me, so Kwesi was parking the tricycle at my uncle's house.
Kwesi seemed to be happy with me for giving him a job. He called me on phone and thanked me for making his life less stressful. According to him, he was able to make GHC200 a day. He buys GHC50 worth of fuel, makes his daily sales of GHC50 and keeps GHC100 for himself. I was extremely excited that at least I have been able to put a smile on the face of someone.
Kwesi's honesty was short-lived, for days, he wasn't bringing any money. It was either there was no work or the tricycle was faulty. It got to a time he wasn't bringing the tricycle to my uncle. We warned him severally to park it latest by 6:30 p.m. but he wouldn't listen.
It became a source of worry to us because there are huge hectares of oil palm plantations around us, owned by a company, and stories are told of how some members of the community sometimes steal the palm fruits at night.
We feared that he may be using the tricycle to steal palm fruits at night so we gave him a final warning that if he doesn't bring the tricycle home by the given time, we will take it from him. He flouted the order so we carried out our threat. And this was the reason why he sent my uncle and I to a shrine according to him.
To be continued.
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