Ghana 5. Opinion

Since arriving in Ghana two months ago the initial onslaught of unfavourable comparisons to life in Britain has gradually paled into normality. Accra no longer appears to be the surface of the moon, looking instead more like Bradford with a few additional open sewers. The roads are still terrible and it’s still hotter than hell; we’ve just got vaguely used to it.

Sweating is a Ghanaian national pastime that I picked up pretty fast and now excel at. On the roads street hawkers walk between the frequently gridlocked traffic selling face flannels and handkerchiefs intended for mopping your brow. If you think the British are boring when talking about the weather, try having the same conversation in Ghana:

“It’s hot today, isn’t it.”

“Yup, really hot”

“Even hotter than yesterday.”

“Definitely. Really hot.”

This is possibly one reason why conversation with Ghanaians often turns quickly to politics – there’s simply nothing more to be said on the weather front.

When it comes to politics Ghanaians don’t necessarily want to discuss taxation and civil liberties. Ghana’s politicians are its Z-list celebrities. They are Ghana’s former Big Brother contestants, obligingly providing the tabloids with a constant stream of lurid stories usually involving sex, drugs or (preferably) both.

One Canadian journalist working here complains that, in contrast to much of Africa, there’s too much freedom of the press in Ghana. Libel laws are rarely enforced and so the tabloids simply print what they want. As all the newspapers - tabloid and broadsheet - are owned or funded by one of the main political parties, you can usually guess who the villains in each are going to be.

A common conclusion to any political conversation here, regardless of allegiance, is that a) all politicians are crooks, and b) being a political crook is an admirably lucrative business that can set you up for life, should you play your cards right.

Oliver worked in IT in the States for several years before settling back in Accra. A successful Ghanaian businessman, he now runs an upmarket coffee shop catering to rich Ghanaians and ex-pats. His menu is exorbitantly over-priced, but his opinions are on the house.

Like most Ghanaians, he venerates Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to independence from Britain in 1957. Oliver argues that in developmental terms Ghana is only ten years old – the period when Nkrumah was in power, until he was forced into exile by a military coup in 1966. Nkrumah worked for the good of Ghana, building the country’s first hydroelectric dam, expanding its education system and revolutionising the transport network.

Since then, Oliver argues, every subsequent politician has neglected Ghana in favour of furthering their own offshore bank accounts, and Ghana’s development has remained stagnant.

You only have to stand amidst the high-rise banks of central Accra, or visit the bustling shopping mall on the city’s outskirts to suspect that this isn’t quite true. In the same vein, while Nkrumah instigated some landmark developments within Africa, he also left Ghana in severe debt and imprisoned thousands of political opponents during his reign.

In Britain, delivering an opinion on even the smallest question of right and wrong usually requires a cup of tea and a sit-down first. In Ghana, it seems that everybody comes equipped with an unshakable, ready-to-serve moral standpoint that can nonetheless be tweaked as necessary to suit any occasion.

On the way to work this morning, our tro-tro driver leaned out of his window to yell angrily at the taxi next to us. The taxi was straddling the inside lane, thoughtlessly preventing our driver from overtaking the near-stationary traffic by driving up the hard shoulder.

Right of way here is entirely subjective. During rush-hour, crossroads become vehicular Mexican stand-offs, with four cars all trying to turn right at the same time and no one backing down. Imagine the last scene from Reservoir Dogs with added street hawkers trying to sell the participants phone cards.

Our status as obrunis – foreigners – puts us at a tactical disadvantage when it comes to weighing into Ghanaian arguments about the state of the nation. During several different conversations I’ve made the mistake of complementing Ghana as a model democracy within Africa. This has earned me the kind of indulgent smiles usually reserved for Downs Syndrome debating competitions.  

“Our democracy isn’t like your democracy” said Senyo, a combative TV producer we met in a bar a few weeks back. “Here, it doesn’t work and we don’t gain anything from it. It just helps us to secure foreign aid. How can you applaud a democracy where illiterate masses vote depending on how dark a candidate’s skin is?”

I think you can only be despondent about democracy if you are lucky enough to have it in the first place. Nonetheless, like Senyo, others amongst Ghana’s intelligentsia who we’ve chatted with are frequently dismissive of this, West Africa’s poster-boy political system. This is of course according to the ‘only Jews can tell Jewish jokes’ rule – you are only permitted to criticise your own. Woe betide any obruni who takes issue with Ghana.

A few weekends ago we drove up to Aburi, a small hilltop town just outside Accra where the city’s wealthy elite have their country retreats. We’d been invited to go there by Henry, a Ghanaian software developer who made his fortune through computerised cash-registers. Henry’s house in Aburi is a lavish safari lodge on stilts, reached by a near vertical dirt track that almost justifies his giant orange Porsche 4x4. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s extremely funny, Henry would be a bit of a cock.

As we lounged around on his raised terrace looking down on Accra and the sea beyond, Henry held forth about what he sees as the West’s love-hate relationship with Africa.

He had recently attended a trade conference at which a British delegate had criticised the BBC for perpetuating a ‘war, AIDS and corruption’ image of Africa that is scaring businesses away from investing in Ghana. This speaker was followed by a second Brit who emphasised the benefit to Ghana of maintaining its trade relations with Britain and not rushing into the ever-widening arms of China.

When it came to Henry’s turn to speak he raised the issue that if our national media is hell bent on scaring off potential investors in Ghana, then who is Britain to say a word when Ghana decides to go to bed with China? It’s the diplomatic equivalent of slagging off your ex to anyone who will listen but then getting into a stink when you find out they’re dating someone else.

I think Henry has a valid point. Ghana is not Conrad’s ‘heart of darkness’. It has WiFi for goodness sake. It’s a shame then that he followed this story with another rib-tickler about him and his mate scamming a Swiss company for a work contract, a business trip and a suitcase full of Rolexes. As often seems to be the case here, when others are the corrupting influence its injustice, but when you’re the corrupting influence it’s just…Ghana. That’s my opinion anyway.

PS: I have been neglecting to revel in the eccentricity of Ghana’s business names. To this end, the first Shop Name of the Week Award goes to:

“Sow in Sorrow Reap in Joy

Welding Spraying & Fitting”

In a similar vein, there seems to be a trend for taxis and tro-tros to sport cryptic slogans across their rear windows. Thus the first Window Slogan of the Week Award goes to the frankly mysterious:

“Still Batman”

Brilliant.