President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
In the Fourth Republic, under the fifth president, Addo Dankwa, in the reign of Odeneho Afram Berempong III as the overlord of the Suma State Stool, Ghana, the center of the earth beckoned all mankind of African descent to come back home to their roots, four hundred years after they were carried by slavemasters into the New World, America.
From Europe To America, Oceania to Asia, and the Caribbean, they who saw themselves as sons and daughters of African soil joined this exodus.
Ghanaian hospitality meant that homes were opened to these mass movements.
As it's in the proverbial bad nut that spoils the good ones, a woman who was not born of black skin pigmentation perfectly painted her body to look a black woman and artfully wore an Afro hair on that of her natural silky one.
This cunning dissembling woman entered Ghana faking a name Optional Love, her destination not being Accra the capital of the Republic, or Kumasi the business center, but saw Goka, a remotest holy ground under the Suma State in the Bono region; renowned for religious activities and show of bravery in the days of the tribal wars for her abode.
She entered carrying a flower pot with sweet-scented evergreen flowers that were doting to all eyes.
Optional Love was opened for the gates to the palace of the Queen Mother of Goka, and she was given a queenly service. Maids to the Queen Mother were at her becks and calls.
Additionally, with her cunningness, Optional Love beguiled and seduced the gentle son of the Queen Mother, a prince of high learning who is an heir apparent to the Goka Adonteng Stool, to fall in love with her. The two did everything wedded couples do, with the expatriate praising highly the bedroom antics of the Goka prince. Truly, if it hadn't been for the business she was about, and the Akan matrilineal inheritance system, the unquenchable lovemaking flames of the prince will by now leave the Goka Adonteng Stool of the Suma Paramountcy, mulattoes, people of mixed race, as successors to the dynasty.
Nonetheless, an illegitimate son born out of the issue the two had was later repatriated to settle in his paternal home when the Prince was crowned the Adonteng or Warrior Chief of Goka after Optional Love was sentenced to serve terms in jail at her home country. (The reader will learn how and why she was sent back to be jailed as the story progresses).
It later turned out that, the love Optional Love had for the gentle prince was comparable to a (true) flower, which blossomed in the morning when watered but lost its luster with minimal sunshine at sunset.
Early morn as the servants served her as they would to they who paid them, Optional Love had no chores to attend to safe wasting the wholesome water in the palace on her flower, making sure the prince is around to learn of her faked good intentions for the growing to the greatness of the burgeoning Goka Adonteng Stool. Tales that later turned out to be falsified, to hoodwink, pillage, and plunder.
Optional Love was in truth trained by syndicated cabals who have heard of the vast resources bequeathed in the holy soils of Goka, in the Suma State, and in the entire Bono land. The mass pilgrimage to the Republic was the only chance for these exploiters to infiltrate and learn every detail of the worth of Bonoman.
And who was apt for this fiendish doing than the dissembler under discussion? If the Goka people knew any devil higher than the Optional Love, it should be the driver who didn't crash her to death but drove her into the Bono land, in the Suma State, and to Goka, to carry out her evildoings.
The prince, unsuspectingly, with a good heart seeking for investment and development for his land, confided in and revealed every detail of the hidden worth in the Bono land. Spanning the goldfishes that swam in the Asuo Goka (Lake Goka) who defecate and vomit gold dust, to the very forest Pɔtrɔdom (Rosewood) that bears diamond fruits when darkness falls on the ancestral forest, the documented war artifacts used by the Adonteng warriors that when uncovered could serve as a deadly weapon in today's cold war rhetorics, the written down ideas behind the invention of the Adinkra Symbols, the golden antiquities piled pristine in the palaces of Buoyem and Suma Ahenkuro; Optional Love knew to the bottom every precious thing Bonoman priced highly.
Armed with the information for which she was sent, Optional Love decided to unceremoniously leave Goka when the true and genuine black ancestors were returning to where they came from.
To make her sneaking out unnoticed, she surreptitiously left behind the supposed priced flower of hers and announced she was going to Accra, the capital, to purchase gilded décors that would add shine to the Goka Queen Mother's palace on her return.
It was when she reached Accra that a global pandemic in a Coronavirus Covid-19 compelled all governments to close all land, sea, and air borders to prevent entry and exit, aiming at stemming the spread of the airborne infectious virus that traced its patient zero to the Communist Republic of China, and was mauling beautiful souls found in its marauding path, from the rich to the poor, monarchs and servants, none was respected by this novel virus.
So, travelers like herself who got stranded at the airport must be housed by the state till the easing of travel restrictions worldwide.
All this while, Optional Love who was seen as a black woman was waited for by the Goka people, planning to welcome her with pomp and pageantry, receiving their promised freebies. Her flower was watered as she would every now and then, but it never returned to its beautiful past, as it kept on withering.
Back in Accra, Optional Love has emptied for usage the bottle that contained the cream that blackened her skin, and her natural skin reared its hideous complexion.
Those with whom she had been kept in the government facility saw the sudden change in her skin coloration and raised an alarm. As it would have been expected of a thief who would resign and succumb to any treatment meted to her by her captives, Optional Love chose to fight back.
One of the genuine black women who saw the scam had a ravaging fire in her and held tightly this agent of plunders till Optional Love resorted to engaging in fisticuffs with her in an attempt to flee from the impending shame that would come with the revelation.
But this black woman who later gave her name as Yasɔre (a Bono adopted name that means Awakened), never let off the tightly hold of this imposter. And as they tussled, Yasɔre held the supposed Afro hair of Optional Love, the covering hair was stripped off, revealing the true hairs of the painted Caucasian derisively posing as a black woman.
Under the Republic's jurisdiction, it's a high crime to be prosecuted as an imposter. This meant Optional Love would be investigated.
It was through the investigation that papers were retrieved that had graphical documentation of the vast precious resources of Bonoman, and the diabolic plans to come back and siphon all out, after poisoning to death the leaders of the land, herein, first the Goka Prince, the overlord of the Suma State, and all those who could be a hindrance to the plundering of the Bonoman bequeathed resources of such high value.
The news went everywhere about the capture of Optional Love. It was heard also by the Goka people, who had wondered why it's taking longer to welcome their new "Messiah", one they think would be the only person to revive the flower that kept "dying" by the day.
Later, it turned out the flower was fake, artificial, and never needed the water wasted on its nursing. It was diminishing because it has outlived its shelve life, and must extinct to expiration.
Optional Love couldn't be vouched for safekeeping by the Ghanaian authorities. She was thoroughly searched and seized from all documents she can present to her paymasters, carrying to fruition for which she was sent.