Why Fishes Did Not Enter Noah�s Ark

Tomorrow, August 29, 2013, is the Day of Judgment (Yowm Al Qiyamah) after 49 days of sitting at the Supreme Court on the petition filed by Nana Akufo-Addo, Dr. Bawumia and Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, challenging the legitimacy of Mr. Mahama as the president of Ghana. A lot of water has passed under the bridge.

While some people found themselves in jail for contempt, others had to cough huge sums of money as fines for contempt of the Supreme Court. Some were simply referred to as �young contemnors�. Until �Amicus Curiae� was thrown out of the Supreme Court window, some of us who had no legal brains did not understand these Latin words. Your Earth Angel Gabriel escaped the dragnet because I weighed my mouth and pen before speaking and writing. Join me to thank God for small mercies. Can you imagine a whole winged Angel Gabriel standing before His Lordship, Justice Atuguba and being baptized with fire? Tofiakwa!

Do you know why the fishes did not join Patriarch Noah in his Ark? I know you have never thought of this idea before. I do not blame you because you are not an Angel like me. The fishes did not enter the Ark simply because they did not care about any flood. After all, are their homes not the rivers and lakes and do they not live their entire life in water? Like the octopuses and whales, the fishes did not need any Ark to survive the deluge. Even if the deluge had taken more than the 150 days of flooding and another 220 days which the floodwaters took to recede, the fishes would have still survived. And Patriarch Noah too did not construct any fish pond in the Ark to contain any fish. Ask your pastor. The crocodiles, frogs, snakes, tortoises and other amphibians entered the Ark because they could survive on land as well as water. That is why the sages say when the sea is rough, the fishes don�t give a dime.

There are some politicians in this country who will have nothing to lose when trouble erupts after the ruling tomorrow. They own mansions and other properties abroad. They and their family members have their passports and visas and can easily catch the next available plane to enjoy their booty overseas when trouble erupts. Some of them, like Johnson Asiedu Nketia have all their children and wives living comfortably abroad. These are the ones I refer to as the fishes. To these men and women, trouble or no trouble, they don�t give a dime.

I have written extensively about the need for peace when judgment is delivered by the nine Supreme Court Justices because like many others in this country who are in the majority, I am highly prone to danger in case of any violence. Unlike the politicians, particularly those in power who have acquired wealth illegally, majority of Ghanaians live from hand to mouth. How do you expect such persons to be able to acquire passports, not to talk of buying airplane tickets to fly outside the country when Armageddon visits us in real time? If even we sell all our assets, including our houses, how do we acquire visas for ourselves and families? And indeed, where will we be heading to when the nation is on fire? Probably if we decide to flee on foot, our only immediate destinations will be Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Togo and maybe Benin. The fisher folks along the coast would have to make do with the blue sea with their canoes. As to where they will land would be a matter of how you navigate your canoe.

These countries I mentioned above are Francophone countries whose Lingua Franca is French. If we happen to find ourselves in these places, the first problem we are bound to encounter would be how to communicate with our hosts. Like toddlers who try to speak, when our hosts say �Bonjour�, we would be thought to reply �Bonjour monsieur� or �Bonjour Mademoiselle) and that is where the tongue-twisting will start and that will be the beginning of a long walk to freedom. If we find ourselves as refugees in these Francophone countries another problem that we will encounter would be the type of food we would eat. �Koobi�, �Totobi�, �Tuozaafi� �Fomfom�, �Kenkey � etc are scarce over there and our family would have to do with salad, rice with groundnut soup and chopped cabbages, coffee with condensed milk, bigarade (bitter orange sauce), �beurre blanc� (butter sauce with shallots and dry wine vinegar) etc. A Ghanaian who has been eating fufu, banku, kenkey, tuozaafi, ampesi etc since he or she was born would not be able to survive this �weather� for a long time. For the first month in exile, we will start growing lean with deflated hitherto protruding stomachs (Don�t laugh. It is a serious business).

Life in exile will be very much embarrassing since we would have to start life all over again. And when we see our hosts who would dare not look into our faces way back home shouting down on us and treating us with contempt, we would cry like the way the Israelis cried when they were in slavery in Babylon and Egypt. Our wives and children would be made to do menial jobs to help sustain the family and our places of abode would have nothing good to write home about. No beds, no mattresses, no pillows and no dressing mirrors. Because we would not be able to carry along our wardrobes, in no time, we would be wearing tattered clothes and pair of shoes that would not be worn by a Fulani cattle herdsman. That is where you will realize the essence of peace. As the educationists say, if you think education is expensive, try illiteracy.

What would be most disturbing is the education of our children. They would have to start all over again because there would be a language barrier. The children would have to start first by learning the French Language and start counting �une, deux, trois, etc. Because the Culture of Assimilation introduced by the French colonial masters did not extend to Ghana, a British colony, our children would not be able to cope with the pressure and some of them would be forced to be vagabonds in a distant land, far away from home.

To those of you who would find yourselves in Nigeria where they speak English like us, you should not expect anything better. There, the Boko Haram would be waiting for you. Christians would be prone to danger because the Boko Haram attacks Christians. If even you are a Muslim and you do not share the ideology of the Boko Haram sect, you are doomed as well. If you think Nigeria produces oil and so life would be rosy there, think again. If you have never been to Nigeria in recent times and you want to know Nigeria, go to Accra and Kumasi and see Nigerians. Unemployment and poverty have turned them into economic refugees. Here in Ghana, they carry a very huge tag on their backs with the inscriptions: �Potential Boko Haram Terrorist�.

The Nigeria that we used to know in the early seventies is a pale shadow of herself. Even �Ogogro� (Akpatashie) is so scarce that they are sold as contraband goods. Ogogro is an alcoholic drink which used to be patronized by the poor in the Nigerian society but now it is being �commandeered� by the rich. No more all-night �miliki� and no one is appointed as Minister of Enjoyment in the oil rich country. Staple food like �Amala�, pounded yam with bitter leaf soup and �Eba� with okro soup are too expensive to buy these days. The oil boom that they used to boast of has now turned into oil doom. If you are a Ghanaian and have never sojourned in that country before and find yourself a refugee in that country, woe betides you. In less than two weeks after your sojourn, you will start growing lean like a refugee from Somalia. Much as you try to swallow your pounded yam with bitter leaf soup, it will simply not go down your throat because you are not accustomed to eating any bitter leaf soup. That is when you will realize again that �home, sweet home�.

That is why unlike the fishes who enjoyed the deluge, we should all enter Noah�s Ark and pray for the waters to recede after the deluge. If you do not want to get yourself in the type of mess I narrated above, sing peace, eat peace, dance peace and above all drink peace with your neighbour. We must shun the war mongers and move forward as a united people living in a peaceful country. If Nana Akufo-Addo had wanted violence, he would have told the angry supporters of the NPP who had taken over the Obra Spot in Accra to hit the streets instead of asking them to go back to their respective homes and wait for the court to decide. On the other hand if the Supreme Court rules that Mr. Mahama should step down and you take to the streets as an NDC supporter to protest, you do so at your own peril.

And so my cherished reader, whichever way the ruling will go, pick up the pieces and move forward. After all there are more general elections to come our ways as we trudge forward towards the Eldorado. In the event of any chaos after the ruling, oh lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on. Think again, my brother, for life is too short!!!

Source: Eric Bawah/Daily Guide