By
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
A few
years ago, we had a very important and urgent need to be in Kumasi very early the next day. It was
already midnight (Nigerian Time, but 11pm in Ghana ),
and we were still in Accra ,
surrounded by its brilliant lights and soothing serenity (there was not the
faintest hint of any generator sound anywhere), wondering what to do.
Obasanjo and Buhari |
But a
Ghanaian who was with us did not seem to share our worries. He simply told us
to hit the road, that in the next three hours, we should be in Kumasi .
I looked
at him with surprise and disbelief. Who was sure nobody had hired him to lure
the three of us into a well-laid ambush by violent robbers? When I expressed my
concern about armed robbers, his answer was sharp: “There are no armed
robbers!”
When later
I repeated the concern, he said something he quickly realised he should not
have said, but which Nigerians need to continue hearing no matter how painful
we find it: “I have told you…
no armed robbers! This is not Nige…!” He
cut himself short. It suddenly occurred to him that he had gone too far in his
bid to emphasize that point.
When I
called a Nigerian friend in Ghana
and he reassured me that the long journey from Accra
to Kumasi was
safe, we hit the road. At the one or two places where very friendly policemen
stopped us, they merely looked at the vehicle and waved us on with their
torches, without the slightest hint that they wanted a bribe.