Labour, Legends, Logins and Lost Ones: Message from the Morning Man by Kojo Yankson Its the last day of the week - last day of the month, as a matter of fact. And can you believe we’re not much more than seven weeks from Christmas? Seven weeks! Seems like only yesterday that I was at an all-night service, ushering in the new year, and all of a sudden, were just over a month away from Christmas? Where has the time gone? The weeks in October especially, seem to have whizzed by really fast, and this week is a typical example. I woke up on Monday morning with an unpleasant feeling about the issues surrounding the current labour unrest and the pension problems. I felt that many Ghanaians were a bit divorced from the issue, because retirement is a long way away, for a lot of us. I wanted to make it more real to us, so we called some pensioners to give us a real picture of what it is like to be retired on a government pension in Ghana. The picture was bleak. After thirty to forty years working in thankless civil service jobs, over 60% of our fathers, mothers, and grandparents are being asked to survive on a miserable two hundred Ghana cedis every month. Two hundred Ghana Cedis! Thats less than it costs to fill my car with fuel. Less than the price of one shirt. And after years of hard work, this is what we are asking our senior citizens to live on for a whole month? Abaae! Tuesday was a delight. I got to meet every Ghanaians childhood hero, the Professor of Father and Son studies, the Warrior, the Champion, the Legend, Barima Azumah Nelson. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy getting to know the great man, I also learned some extremely thought provoking facts from the philosophy of Boxing. Azumahs theory for all these years of winning, losing and making the headlines has been simple: You box a fighter, an you fight a boxer. There. Dont you feel wiser already? On Wednesday morning, we all logged in to our lives, and discovered that it was World Internet Day! I cant think of a more important invention than the internet, to a persons life today, and my extremely intelligent panel and I spent a relaxed midweek morning unpicking the story of the internet, its current role in the lives of Ghanaians, and some exciting future uses for the worldwide web. Some of the suggestions were straight out of a sci-fi movie. If they do come to pass, then the future is bright indeed. Yesterday was an emotional day, as we took a moment to remember the Lost Ones. As the nation casts its eyes abroad, nervously anticipating Ebola, an archaic disease which has long since been eradicated from most parts of the world, has been steadily taking Ghanaian lives in almost every region of the country. We sought to remember the unfortunate ones who had perished in this years pathetically deadly Cholera outbreak. I introduced you to Mr Adjetey, who has lost his son to the disease, and Christopher, whose brother may have gone to the hospital with something else entirely, but ended up dying of Cholera. These and the 190 other victims of this lower intestinal bacterial infection cannot die in vain. As a nation we must never forget them. More importantly, we must never allow this to happen to us again. It cannot be beyond the capability of a middle-income country to keep its environment clean and ensure that the food sold to its people meets basic hygiene standards. Let these 190 dearly departed souls serve as a reminder to us all that we can be better than this - if we try. Ok, time to put a bow on the month of October with todays show. In some parts of the world, people will be celebrating Halloween today. Kids around the world will dress up as ghosts, and wizards and other characters, and have fun going from door to door collecting sweets from their neighbours, to commemorate All Hallows Eve. Ironically, the typical European or American does not actually believe in Ghosts and wizards and witches. To them, these are all fairytale characters created to entertain children. In Ghana, we dont celebrate Halloween. In fact, many find the concept quite disturbing. For us, the irony is that many Ghanaians actually do believe in the existence of Ghosts, witches and the likes. In fact, many people often tell of various paranormal experiences they have had. Today, we want to hear about them. We will be talking to some Ghanaians who say they have seen some scary stuff. We will also speak to some religious leaders for authoritative insights into the other world that exists parallel to ours, and some of the supernatural forces that exist within it. Today, we investigate Paranormal Activity on the Super Morning Show - a thought-provoking way to end the week, and wrap up the month of October. My name is Kojo Yankson, and youve really made my week. Allow me to make yours. GOOD MORNING, GHANAFO!
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 06:37:31 +0000
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