Lord, Town Trap Is Not For Rat Alone

Dear Father,

The old people have a saying that “Town Trap Is Not For Rat Alone.”  They say it can even catch dog, chicken and other animals in the town too. Yes, oo my son.

But where have you come from with your old people parable again? Father, it is these people in our village who think that if they do not get our village power then everything in this village must come to an end.

What do you mean my son? Oh, Father, you haven’t heard the increasing war drums the people are beating around here. Haven’t you heard how some of them have said they will do everything possible to ensure that this Old Lady does not enter our village Palace again?

Does that mean that if the village people ask her to go back they will bear gee and bring grumble like many of them did in the past? Father that’s exactly what many of them are now saying around here.

A friend was telling me the other day how some people have been meeting at their meeting place to come up with a way in which they will bear grumble should it turn out that they are not declare the winners. But my son, if they do not do their home work well and the Old Lady goes right back there that the one they will go to the bush for?

Aaah, Father, that the same thing one of the men in their midst told them the last time. The man was bold to tell them that for him, he is very old now to put his hand in any trouble business, so if they sit down and don’t do their home work well, surely the old lady will beat them flat. But Father, this president work here, some of them force to do it. Is it that if they don’t get it they will not live?

Huh, my son, I wish you had eyes to see what I see. Most of these people are brook. And when they sit and think of the advantages of being in charge of state money and how their lives could change in split seconds from grass to grace, forget it, they can do anything to get there and won’t mind the level of destruction along the way.

I heard how one of them went to his old student he taught in Law School begging her to help him, because since he put his hands in this president job business , it has not been easy on him.

But wait oo, this president job that force, if the man is a good lawyer why he can’t continue practicing his law and forget this president thing because na everybody can be president-Look at how he stood so low before his own student.

My friend mother said she was so shame for the man when he begged her to help him because he was brook now because of this president job business.

Father, the one I can’t understand is those one who feel that they should get in this president chair by all means, no matter what it takes- whether they destroy the village or not.  And so they go around making all kinds of threatening remarks as if when anything happen in this village they will be spared.

Ooh, that the one you talking here my son, don’t you know that most of these people going around our village making all these noise about wanting to be president don’t have anything in this village. So when they say jack, they will run out of this place like a little rat.

And the ones I can’t stand Father are those flip-flops who follow them. These people  na get anything to do already, nothing they get, so when you listen to them on the radio you will say let me go and see but just to end up by saying “what is this?

It reminds me of my time in Charlie land; there were lot of people who used to admire my writing and not many of them had seen me in public. So on this day, this organization invited me for a program in Kumasi. They had booked my hotel and all I needed to do was just go there and my transportation would have been reimbursed after the weeklong consultative meeting.

So, on the morning of the conference, the organizers were moving from one door to the other reminding participants about the time, just within that time I walked from outside and was returning to my room when the lady asked, “sir are you part of this meeting?” “Yes”, I reply. “What’s your name?” she followed up. “Othello Garblah”, I said. The lady jumps back into her room and called her friend and said come and see this Othello Garblah.

Suddenly the two came out and said: “We taught you were a very huge fellow with big stomach, because your writing does look like you.” For the five days I stay at that conference, I was known by all as “the small boy with the big pen.”

Anyway, you see, Father, all these people beating war drums that if they don’t win this or that will happen are people who do not have one investment in this village. You think the place we are running our little newspaper business, I will want for somebody to bring war for my business to be destroyed.

In fact, I don’t even want to hear somebody saying, we will do this or that like those old men the other day. They have their wealth in other countries and not a single investment they have here, yet, still everyday they want to be president, but nothing to count on as their successes.

The only CV most of the can boast of around here is their roles in bringing other regimes down that’s all, besides no meaningful contribution to society. So, let them beat the war drum, we will see whether it will be only the rats alone that the trap will catch.

Anyway, so they say the price of riz na wear jacket ehn? The Old Lady better sit up straight on this one, ehn she know that voting year here. Let her be there and na let people who are responsible head to roll.

She should not play with this one, because she knows our riz business in this village. She is an old hand and knows what can happen between brothers and sisters in the home when somebody cheats somebody with the riz. So, if she wants my advice she better sit up quickly on this one. The way the pusawa price na claim to Uncle Sam’s money US60.00, some of us are looking for the some done, some na done already.