FIRST SEMESTER

THE reverent sire in a symbolic gesture beckoned the fresher
and with sagely lips uttered the echoing words. Climb the hill of knowledge fresher, though you may stumble and falter, and may dread silent retrogression into the lower most echelons of doom, do not falter- climb the hill of knowledge
The path leading to the edifice of enlightenment is fraught with insurmountable intricacies and occurrences defying easy explanation climb the hill of knowledge
And control your wild excitement the pompous mentality that riddle campus
Is an illusion designed to ensnare the unwary the susceptible the gullible
Forget the initial trauma of cueing in the sun for registration forms
Forget about the harsh reality you have being exposed to
Try to forget O fresher from the precincts of innocence with high aspiration to join the enviable seats of the men of learning climb the hill of knowledge fresher
I am not mocking your efforts and desire to seek higher education at the premier university of academic ambience rivaling world class universities
Fresher climb the hill of knowledge with a gladdened heart with grandeur with majesty climb the hill of knowledge with the hope of coming out with success
But that entails fuelling that desire with sweat and blood and mire at the brink of Golgotha
O climb the hill of knowledge fresher with the sole aim of achieving academic excellence
Never nurse delusion and don’t be disillusioned when the chapter of filth of academic life is opened before you at the sacred edifice
And never engage in reveries beneath the shady boughs of the tall solemn tress
Let the high towers of learning be your guide to the skies O fresher


Forget about the sweet memories of matriculation and start working fervently towards a successful graduation
Of hopes dreams aspirations achieved
The initial taunts and jeering statements of renegade vandals the ponding and all the embarrassing escapades you were subjected to is but initiation into the formidable cult of academia

O fresher climb the hill of knowledge with unflinching resoluteness and firmness
Don’t be cowed by the majesty of the institution
Bow before its norms and traditions but don’t sell your integrity
Be an arrow of justice on campus –

O climb the hill of knowledge fresher climb the edifying hills
Do not engage yourself or identify your self with dissidents but let your sensibilities be felt all around
Do not indulge in campus fracas protests and vandalism but let your words be sharper than all the agitators say and let your deeds out do theirs

Never waste your academic life in obscene profligacy and debaucheries
Never gape at the toyish and tempting display of beauty and seductive coquettish invitation of voltarians
Never let the erotic aroma of sensuality engulf your efforts and warp your senses
And swerve the ensnaring net of rustication

Be glued to your books O fresher
Except for the reality of knowledge the rest are fleeting illusion

O climb the hill of knowledge fresher
proceed in integrity fresher
O climb the hill of knowledge

CENTRAL CAFETERIA - PRELUDE

[Central cafeteria. The room is filled to capacity with students. The usual uproarious and cacophonous tendency akin to students is evident here. Some too are speaking in undertones and the youthful scene displayed exudes youthful exuberance and innocence. Almost all them were holding pamphlets or something associated with the theme of the conference. Others too are wearing t- shirts with inscriptions extolling the virtues and power of education and knowledge. A banner with the inscription knowledge is power is been brilliantly displayed. On the dais in front are seated some lecturers and students. The special guest of honor was Professor Ellison from Edifice University. He is asked by the host to assume the floor. He stood up obeisant for the microphone. The students welcomed him with a thunderous applause.]

Professor Ellison. [He is overwhelmed by the delightful reception.] Thank you. Thank you very much. It affords me the greatest pleasure to be in Legon of red roof tiles. Of somber beauty and majestic grandeur. Of balmy shades of enlightenment and edification. I am very happy to be present in front of the towers of learning, herald of intellectual advancement and accomplishment. I am very happy to be at the premier university, [applause from students] to be in this very hall, my precious central cafeteria. But alas, my message is a sad one. A pathetic story that will not darken but illume the learning towers of Legon. As gray tells us, the path of glory leads but to the grave. that as students of this great institution, we must not make the mistake of thinking that once we are receiving a university education, we are the fortunate and privileged few and that the ordinary people are burning in a coal black hell and we have been plucked out. Superiority is a stinking word. Invocation of aggrandizement by virtue of education is delusion - illusion. As students, learners, we must bear in mind that we have a huge task ahead of us - we have a great duty to perform for our dear country. This country is beset with innumerable problems. People are suffering; wallowing in ignorance, there is massive unemployment, moral degeneration, corruption, and cultural depravity. Now we are here to be armed with the weapon of education to liberate our people. it is incumbent on us to use the knowledge we acquire to improve upon our appalling and humiliating circumstances. We live in the nadir of the world - the peripherals where all the filth, the abominable and wretched dross of the earth is discarded. The knowledge we acquire must be used to combat all these negative woes amongst us. We must not detach, alienate ourselves from the less fortunate ones. We must help them with what we have acquired. Education is not only for an individual but an assert of the community.

If you claim to be a leader, then you must prepare to serve. For a leader must identify himself with the people. No one can lay claim to being a good leader if he separates himself from the very people he claims to serve. He must approach them and identify their burden as his burden. The secrets we acquire here must be selflessly revealed to the ordinary people, the masses. So that we can create a collective consciousness, which will help us a lot in our quest for the betterment of our society. We must let them understand everything. We must strive to be their interpreters. The sound of the magic flute from the learning towers must echo and re echo in the consciences of all and sundry, the magic words, open sese me that we desperately seek on our lips must not only be used when acquired to transform our situations alone but must reflect and impact positively in the lives of the citizens of our dear nation. No man is an island entire of itself. We have seen a lot, we have learnt a lot and are still gathering more experience. We are fully aware of the price; we know the repercussions of living in ignorance, being benighted in the dark.

I find it intriguing and quite amazing that some of the most serious and shameful things do originate on campus. The very validity and relevance of the premier university is being questioned. What the towers symbolize, what they represent in the psyche of the community is what we must guard and not destroy. The action of some students in this institution is like a huge hammer battering the towers to debris. So many things have happened here that I know. Revolution itself starts in Legon. So why don’t we rebel against the negative things that are plaguing us. Let us all contribute to combat the specter haunting Legon and bring it to its superior position again. Thank you.

ALUMUNUS

For a person to return to his homeland, to his Alma mater after a long absence is unparalleled favor. One must be proud, be elevated to a solemn height. Even if there are noticeable changes and improvements. I can see some changes here in Legon, some adjustments here and there, renovations, and new lecture halls. Nevertheless, things have not changed at all. Though some are apt to point that the premier university has really improved in its inception half a century ago, recent events is a clear indication that things have deteriorated, growing from bad to worse. it is the same old buildings, the same red roof tiles, the same plan while the population has increased to unprecedented figure. The hall of residence is in a mess. Students will have to cram themselves in a hall they are supposed to reside with ease and learn. They have to sprawl on the floor like helpless accident victims and the daring ones who have sworn heaven and earth not to remain outside the academic walls of the learning towers would manage to stay on campus and perpetually hang around the less than life size rooms in the name of perching. This shows how fervent they are to pursue higher education despite the manic odds. Strange, curious, inexplicable. They were politely refused to be given a hall of residence because the fact of the matter is the rooms were long occupied by students. Residents or non-residents, they have a way of asserting themselves. Waiving of naïve prejudices cast by fellow students, and despite all the shameful obstacles that dog their steps in their quest to enjoy the ambrosial fragrance of academia; most importantly the intellectual ambience of the premier university, their petty human desires are not warped. In the stillness of the night when the learning towers maintain dead silence they will trudge the lonely streets with their fiancées’ to the academic ghettoes and plead with their collogues to be “excused” for the night. They are like eneke the bird in Things fall Apart. They are known as “perchers”, but like the bird, if the authorities have learnt to shoot without missing, they have also learnt to fly without perching. The authorities are privy to the fact that they are non – re. yet they have a terse answer to the ignominious position they have being relegated., looking at the vagaries and intricacies of education; the burdensome nature of mastering knowledge and putting it to effective use, and with an albatross of non re stigma hanging around ones neck, battling with the ruinous system to stay on campus and maintain a balance, sanity, while the vast stretches of legon lands lie waste. When I look at the original plan of this institution when it came it being, the factors that led to its establishment, its like it is taking more than it has, we are exhausting the ideals that led to its inception. After all Legon for half a century has produced so many scholars and intellectuals. These eminent personalities are the same people who will parade the country saying that things have deteriorated at the premier university. Instead of them to find ways and means of helping their prestigious alma mater. Of course, some are helping, making donations and investing in education, but it is simply not enough. We must rebuild Legon. But it must be a collective effort and
not a fashionable display of rhetoric about its problems.

INTEGRI PROCEDAMUS

The phenomenal history of university of Ghana by Francis Abgodeka according to Prof R. Addo-fening is a solid work of historical scholarship, telling the story of legon from its beginnings in a straight forward narrative that is at once lucid and engrossing as it is informative. Yet this massive work of historical roundedness and of consequent value for every student written for the fiftieth anniversary of the premier university are still languishing in the shelves of the book shop gathering dust after dust after a decade of its publication and the impending sixtieth anniversary is not only uninspiring and lackluster in outlook but insipid enough to inspire students to read about the grand history or was it a long night of howling nightmare of academic hyper myopia and intellectual languor of the premier university. No student is interested in legon as a historical entity, the ideals that led to its inception and the numerous huddles and obstacles it has trampled down, and the efforts of some of the illustrious alumni who held together the tottering institution at the time of crisis and on the brink of suicide at six thirty.

Legon is fast losing its symbols. An academic arena for research and higher education! Its onetime cherished story of blood and toil and the indefatigable and unflinching thirst for knowledge displayed by some of the ablest men of the country and its compelling tale of survival and determination and uncompromising stance in the midst of national crisis and how it resurrected as still the sole custodian of knowledge and academic excellence is now becoming a fable, sinking ignominiously into the pantheon of oblivion. The numerous symbols and statues on campus, the intriguing connotations and esoteric meaning implicit in the various names given to the various halls and the structures have assumed a decorative and embellishing outlook. What then do the chimes of the learning towers herald when the professors of knowledge are rapidly losing grip on the monumental and inspiring stories that reveals the labyrinth of the premier university. To what future is one cast if one has no glorious past or turmoil to inspire or to warn?

Despite its febrile failings and left to wander in the desuetude of modernity, legon is quite complex and it has some of its cryptic ideals embedded in highly intricate symbols of academia which is left to the initiated student to decode and explore its full import and build upon it.


I quote an anecdote Francis abgodeka inserts into his history of the premier university to illustrate the point I am making.

In 1948 the UGCC approved the colleges motto as “Vigil evocat Auroram” in view of the warning of the British colonial office at that time: that governments should not interfere in the affairs of the university colleges they were establishing in the British colonies, the meaning of this motto was that the new venture of university education in the gold coast could only succeed if the university college behaved like the cockerel, the watchful bird calling forth the dawn, i.e. keeping vigil to protect its academic freedom from being eroded through political intervention in its affairs. The cockerel was chosen to symbolize this motto.

When the UCGC gave way to the independent university of an independent Ghana, the message symbolized by the cockerel in the college’s motto with it’s colonial background lost its appeal to the university community. By 1963 when the independent was laying down its guidelines for growth and development, it was felt that inspiration for this growth could best be drawn from Ghana’s own cultural roots preserved in a new motto and a new crest. The new motto must take its source from traditional African thought but must be expressed in the scholastic language of international academic circles where legon has already won an enviable position. So when in that year professor A.A kwapong, a classical scholar took office as the first Ghanaian pro vice chancellor, he was assigned the responsibility of producing the new motto and crest. He got Professor Manwere Opoku in the institute of African studies (I A S) to design the crest, of course in traditional edinkra symbols. Prof opoku chose the symbol of three straight ferns (aya in twi), which because of their quality of always growing straight up in the forest represent, in traditional thought, straightness, truthfulness, integrity. He also took the symbol of two interlocking ram horns (in the Twi language Guanini mmen toa so) which we know never stop growing therefore depict progress. Kwapong, the professor of classics provided the Latin rendering of the motto “intergri procedamus” progressing with integrity, inscribed beneath the symbols.


The prevalence of symbols and cryptic statues and memorials scattered on campus if patiently scrutinized and dissected would unravel interesting and unchallengeable outburst of inspiration for students. Some of the clandestine objects points out landmarks in the history of the premier university which has shaped the destiny and the course of the university. It is when you know and understand the happenings of the past that you would be able to appreciate the present and be able to envisage what will happen in the future. The crest and the motto has served as a constant reminder to those who were able to see beyond its symbolical connotations to work hard. Proceed in truth and integrity.


Now students are apt to take inane interest in events which are not only irrelevant but time wasting as well which has no affinity with wit or intellectuality.
The well laid structures they are oblivious to. They see and analyze things on superficial basis. They sing the anthem with glee without any effort to get down to its import and application on a practical basis. One wonders if they don’t apply their theoretical and highly artificial and idealistic way of viewing events to everything they encounter ON CAMPUS. Symbols will always remain symbols it will always be devoid of practicality. Statues will remain statues without life. What message can you carry across with the bust of Nkrumah and sabah to an inmate of sabah hall who is at the university for the sole purpose of obsolete theories which he will take nowhere. Why must he read the history of legon. Whether legon evolved from the le tree which was situated on the hill at that time or le the ga word for knowledge is not his present concern. He knows he is on the hill of knowledge for theories. The history and symbols of legon is a piece of curiosity for the few who are obsessed with the majesty of the institution. He went to the towers to earn degrees for miniature privileges and allowances, personal aggrandizement and the sheepish acknowledgement of the fact that he attended legon.

OF HEROES AND STATUES – SABAH – NKRUMAH AND THE PEASANT FARMERS.

We went to akuafo hall the next day. A short witty maxim one of my friends use to say crept into my mind. Who would graduate from Legon, a staunch advocate of agriculture from Akuafo hall and engage in farming? When we reached the entrance to the hall, my friend beheld the statues erected in front of akuafo hall of farmers harvesting cocoa and he burst out deliriously. What a magnificent statue of unparalleled grandeur. it is not only representation of cocoa as our major foreign exchange earner, but Ghana itself and the selfless peasantry. A classic piece of art depicting agriculture. I was impressed by my friend’s insightful recognition of the symbolic statues and what they really stood for. I corroborated what he said. Akuafo hall means farmers hall. They are playfully called farmers but they take it to heart. But how can we live without fufu, ken key and gari. The shortage of these palatable Ghanaian dishes alone can cause a revolution in the country. But surprisingly, the most common maxim of akuafo hall is man shall not live by bread alone. Most of them claim to be religious persons, the Christians dominating. And we know that true Christians, though very few are suppose to follow the examples of Christ i.e. they should be seen as iconographic examples in the society but in recent times they are far from harmless creatures. Because there is an offer of consolation to a lost soul awaiting eternal damnation by the hellish fires of Gehenna within their doctrinaire brand, they are apt with a vicious justification. if you cry out loud and clear and repent from your sins you would be saved. They are as meek as a lamb because they are pretentious and gullible and they cover their weakness with the inimitable meekness of Christ. They make a public show of their almost unrecognizable presence on campus by chanting their daily mantras. We are farmers, we don’t want trouble, we are devout Christians. They seem to be Soft spoken and very serious in their studies. But who knows it may be one of their wolves in a sheep clothing tactics. I asked my friend whether he is a Christian. He was apt to admit his hypocrisy. I do go to church but I am not a very strong Christian. He admitted frankly. I was furious. I said. So are you telling me that you cannot join the prayer warriors of Legon to pray to the prince of peace, the stiller of the storm for the betterment of Legon? it is something that I have being doing since time immemorial but nothing happens. I have come to realized that it is a sheer nonsense and fallacious to chant in a detached place, away from the problem. How can you solve the problem gnawing at your heart? The church bells are ringing and the children are singing but nothing happens. Well, I said. I am not in to destroy your faith. Let us go.

When we reached Sabah hall, my friend was intrigued, overwhelmed when he saw the bust of john mensah Sabah. What Sabah did, his astonishing and commending accomplishment in the legal field was a bit vague in his mind even though he did history in secondary school. Sabah to him is synonymous to a mythical figure or a legendary hero whose achievements and exploits is neither a reality nor unreality. Fiction or fact he is indifferent, not bordered in the least. All that he is aware of is that there is a hall in Legon called Sabah hall and it will forever remain Sabah hall. I tried to bear with him. Now, I said to him. Let me tell you something. You are not the only one who is guilty of inability to see the value and appreciate things of esthetic value and historical significance. Most of the students fall into the same morass. Now look at the bust again. Why would someone decide to erect such a thing? A bust of a person. The purpose is to instill nationalism, chauvinism in us. It was erected for us to know our heroes, our forbears who fought and contributed in diverse ways to liberate us from the shackles of imperialism. It was not erected to serve just as a memorial, but a pointer, a reminder that we also have a duty to perform. It is something that is supposes to gnaw at our conscience. To make us remember that shirking our responsibilities is not noble. The one who stands in times of crisis, defends his country, and is even ready to be a martyr to annihilate anything evil, vicious, cataclysmic that will threaten his country or nation. Such a person is naturally ennobled. His desire to remain selfless and to strive not for personal aggrandizement but the elevation of his mother land, such a person like Sabah never dies. But is always embedded in the psyche of the people. I wish, nay it is my duty to sensitize them to come to the realization that it is not only walking in campus and uttering the name Sabah just for the mere sake that it is a name of a hall. We must learn his example. He is an iconographic and inspirational figure. My friend was exasperated by my long sojourn on the bust of Sabah. He saw it as a kind of uninspiring drudgery. Invocation of dross. Let us go then I said.


When we reached institute of African studies, the fresher burst out, again demonstrating his awe for the symbolic nature of African art and culture. This is real Africanism. Perfect Africanism. I was enthused by my friend’s passion for African values and ideals. But I was baffled as to the kind of Africanism he was referring to. Whether the fashionable one whereby people put African images in their offices for decorative purposes but themselves purely and thoroughly Europeanized. Or the Africanism which the individual asserts his cultural identity sees himself as a being that had been colonized both physically and mentally, manipulated in time and space, relegated to the abysm of time and his pride trampled upon by forces who claim to work and operate in his interest.

My friend heaved a sigh and said that all that I have said he has no knowledge about but he sees the whole thing a dogmatic nonsense to claim to be a pure African and living in this modern world like a primitive person. He says all that is going that the African has done this or that, that civilization started here has nothing to do with him. He believes that without the white man the black man is nothing. I was not surprised by his stance. As the very African is rejecting his very color to be come a Whiteman. His very accent is offensive to him that he has to resort to the music of the white which results in a repulsive nasal twang. Nature has endowed every human being with special innate qualities that can never be altered. but the black man has succeeded in altering his identity, his culture, his soul and his very color. Humans do borrow cultural values that are relevant to their needs. But everything that the black man possesses is not good. Could it be possible? People have reiterated this claim for centuries that the African has nothing worthwhile to offer. That he has neither culture nor civilization. This is a serious claim. Africanism is saying that it is not possible for a human being to be devoid of culture and in the midst of the craze after alien culture it is showing what is good in his culture to regain his integrity. His pride value and worth as a human being, his interiority and conscience, my friend nodded in affirmation. Now we cannot talk of Africanism and leave an iconographic figure like Nkrumah. Kwame Nkrumah and institute of African studies are inseparable. My friend went round the bust of Nkrumah trying to grasp its complex nature. Nkrumah’s statue, bust, or portraiture anywhere has a message for Africans. His statue or bust represents African culture, African personality, and liberation from imperialism and neo colonialism. I asked my friend if he has read Africa must unite. He said no. neo colonialism, the last stage of imperialism, he said no. What about conscienscism his philosophical treatise he answered in the negative. What a pity. I said. Honestly, I have not read any of his books but I have seen dark days at Balme library and I intend borrowing it.
I urge you to go for it tomorrow and start reading for in deed we are in the dark days.
When it comes to rejecting, denouncing and destroying visionaries and heroes, we are in the forefront. When the person is alive, no matter what he would do we will never realize his vision? His prophetic message will hypnotize us. We only come to realize his value and worth when he is no more. This is unfortunate. We tend to revere the dead and so don’t see the value of the living. As soon as a person dies - he is automatically transformed in to a saint. Even if the devil is to die today, we would shed copious tears and accord him respect. We deify the dead. I am not saying that we should treat the dead with dishonor. But when he is alive and we despise him, ostracize him, treat him like venom, a social canker, he may die with his visions which will not augur well for the society. We walked silent. The fresher did not talk. He only broke the silence when he saw some campus girls passing by.

WHAT THE DERANGED PROFESSOR TOLD ME. THE SAGA OF THE LECHEROUS LECTURER

He said he was among the first batch of students who enrolled in the university. The days of principal Balme and professor kwapong. The old professor was deluded. Almost deranged. He sounds abnormally nostalgic and nauseatingly sadistic. Yet I was compelled to listen to the eminent man who has done a wonderful job for his country and at the same time plunged it into blood and mire. Ravished and dehumanized the very students he was entrusted to mould and shape and instill discipline, good morals and purity. I was compelled to listen to the old profligate, the very incarnation of the marquis de Sade. I was compelled to listen to the sexual pervert, the son of Epicurus, the kama sutra reader. for what he said was not mere vaunting effusions of a handicapped dotard nor was it an empty flute of nostalgic jabber of an old senile.

He said in a trembling voice Mephistophelian in tone. At that, time legon was flowing with milk and honey. It was the golden age of the premier university. One room for each student. A first class treat was its hallmark. I was in legon hall then. When the old professor revealed his identity as a former inmate of the premier hall, my interest in his dark revelations mounted. For I have heard much about the legon hall students. They are said to be hedonists of the wild stock. They have converted the place to a mini café, restaurant and a motel. They revel; engage in debauchery and wild sex. Despite the fact that most of the student there are intelligent and academically sound, the fanfare that encircles the place has far more dreadful and sinister repercussions for the few good students.

The lecherous lecturer continued. I was brilliant, I was good, I was a threat to most of the lecturers then. I engaged in all activities that has a tinge or aura of academics around it. I was a voracious reader. My playmates were the eminent scholars on campus, the professors. My undergraduate days were nothing short of glory. I was one of the most vociferous students ever, I had a passion for oratory and rhetoric, and could play on the emotions and sensibilities of students to act. But something terrible happened. That was to change my personality and psyche forever. I was lured by the opposite sex. I was enchanted by the beautiful maidens on campus. I couldn’t stand the well calculated coquettish smiles of the girls. And I became a prey. They devoured me. I couldn’t stand the temptations that was vaunted on me. I channeled my energy to that of winning tough and unyielding campus queens. Though I was able to have time for my books, my carnal lust for girls was insatiable, and after my masters and doctorate, the curse still pursued me. When I became a lecturer at the premier university, though respected and matured, I still could not control my abominable lust. Young fresh virgins who want to excel academically offered me the tempting apples and I awarded marks for sexual favors. For the past thirty one years, I have despoiled young virgins and married women alike. I couldn’t resist the temptations”. He paused and I was appalled. I felt nauseated. How such a respectable figure, an epitome of academic excellence could stoop so low and soil himself with such an unpardonable act. When he was talking to me, I realized that his numerous sexual escapades and manipulations on campus is haunting him. For he sounded like one who is penitent. I was intrigued. My instincts were troubled. How some one could learn all his lifetime and eventually channel the benefits to asking for sexual favors from young naïve university girls who also have the guts to approach their lecturers for such an evil deal. It is pathetic, how the revered hill of knowledge has been converted to a sex pub, sodomed and gomorised by clumsy lecturers - shameless conscienceless men. With such an altitude, how could our educational system improve? If young undergraduates could use a secret weapon between their thighs to pass through the labyrinth of the mighty university, then why waste time, money and paper, why not abolish the whole nonsense about writing exams to test students?

The deranged professor in his avaricious bid to satisfy his insatiable lust has awarded certificates to students who did not work for it. Even some girls not only get the devilish marks to pass through, but manages to persuade the perverts to award similar results to their fiancés turned brothers! Irony of ironies! They manage to manipulate the academic brains and outwit them. This is incredible. When a finger brings oil, it soil the rest. The few morally upright lecturers and workers of the premier university will come out with strategies to arrest the situation, try to salvage the deteriorating situation. Unbeknownst to them, the culprits, and the perpetrators of the vile deeds sits amongst them looking for a solution to the problems.

LOCAL PARLANCE AND PIDGIN: THE PALM-WINE DRINKARD ON CAMPUS

One African writer who I admire most is the Nigerian author of nightmarish and fabulous tales, Amos tutuola. Amos Tutuola was said to have written his masterpieces of fantasy in a naïve, strange young English not of this world. The innocent interesting writer of stories borrowed mostly from materials from his native folklore who was mocked by both western and African critics for his defective use of the English language is now an acknowledged classic. The furor and controversy that surrounded Tutuola was how he irreligiously used the English language without regard to grammar and syntax. He saw the English language as a means to projecting his surrealist halve remembered tales of the fireside to the world in a language he has no mastery nor command and was un abashed about it. When I first heard about the emergence of a true primitive classic from west Africa who have written interesting tales receiving rave reviews from the west and even captivating the fancy and whacking the interest of the poet Dylan Thomas, I was compelled to read Tutuola’s classic the palm wine drinkard.

The novel begins as follows.

I was a palm-wine drinkard since I was a boy of ten years of age. I had no other work than to drink palm-wine in my life. In those days, we did not know of other money, except cowries. So that everything was very cheap and my father was the richest man in our town.

My father got eight children and I was the eldest among them, all of the rest were hard workers, but I myself was an expert palm-wine drinkard. I was drinking palm wine from morning till night and from night till morning. By that time, I could not drink ordinary water at all except palm-wine.

But when my father noticed that I could not do any work more than to drink, he engaged an expert palm-wine tapster for me; he had no other work more than to tap palm-wine everyday.

So my father gave me a palm-tree farm which was nine miles square and it contained 560,000 palm-trees, and the palm-wine tapster was tapping one hundred and fifty kegs of palm-wine every morning, but before 2 O’clock pm, I would have drunk all of it; after that he would go and tap another 75 kegs in the evening which I would be drinking till morning. So my friends were uncountable that time and they were drinking palm wine with me from morning till a late hour in the night. But when my palm-wine tapster completed the period of 15 years that he was tapping the palm-wine for me, then my father died suddenly, and when it was the 8th month after my
father had died, the tapster went to the palm-tree farm on a Sunday evening to tap palm-wine for me. When he reached the farm, he climbed one of the tallest palm-trees to tap palm-wine but as he was tapping on, he fell down unexpectedly and died at the foot of the palm-tree as a result of injuries. As I was waiting for him to bring the palm-wine, when I saw that he did not return on time, because he was not keeping me for long like that before, then I called two of my friends to accompany me to the farm. When we reached the farm, we began to look at every palm-tree, after a while we found him under the palm-tree where he fell and died.


Tutuola, though handicapped by the English language nevertheless was able to present with naïve alacrity the few words and idioms he knew into finished works of art! Combination of pidgin and incorrect usages of words made him a classic because his dilemma was a psychological one.

I referenced Amos tutuola here to pinpoint a pinprick in our education system. The mania that has descended on campus and not only made it a laughing stock, but as a sham institution that breeds all that it claims to weed out from the society. The advent of pidgin on campus. Students irreverent and erratic use of the English language is surprisingly unpardonable. The use of vulgar language is now the norm on campus. Students of the premier university pride on their ability to speak effectively a language that is not a product of this world nor could ever be imagined to exist by a sane person and they speak it with gusto and relish. . The adverse effect of the use of the pidgin that the promoters of the shameful language nay shameful terms its limit their scope of reasoning and mars their fluency in normal English. One wonders what motivates students to indulge in such a slothful activity. They flaunt it on campus and have the moral courage to tell the society that they are at the forefront of the premier university pursuing higher education. Everywhere on campus that two or three guys would meet would brew the abominable language. Some have the defective and filthy flare for improving the gutter language that have earned them the waste products of linguistics. Some are so skillful with it that they are able to interlace it with words from our local parlance and vernacular.

They parade campus with their language which is a mark of how shallow and weak-minded they are and their inability to grasp the slightest complexities of academia. One wonders how these students view and understand language. For them language is not for communication of ideas but projection of idle thoughts. Base chatter, prattle of the unwary. Unnecessary jabber.

When one delves in to the background of such students, who are not only tainting the walls of the academy but also insulting the university, one woulshocked that these are people who have gone through the educational system for more than fifteen years and are still proceeding in it without shame

A grand institution of grand and solid academic excellence! Haunt of renowned and eminent scholars, educationists and academicians! Every where on campus if one is serious to know something concerning knowledge either directly or indirectly relating to a course the person is pursuing is sure to get a volunteer to explain things to him. Books are everywhere on campus. Everything that happens on campus is one way or the other connected with education. The only medium one can use to articulate his or her views is the English language and there are numerous lecturers and academicians on campus that one wouldn’t actually comprehend how a new breed of students sprung up speaking a different brand of English language that baffle even the most distinguished linguist

The pidgin concocted by idle brains on campus which has become evil spells sinking the learning towers have even found its way finally to the lecturers. They present it on their papers for degrees. It is said that most of the students cannot express themselves in an ordinary standard English.

What does it presage when more than ordinary students of a higher institution like legon find it difficult to express themselves in a language they have spent their lifetime imitating to outdo the Whiteman?

SILENCE AND RHETORIC – THE DEARTH OF RADICAL VOICES

Legon is beset with innumerable problems. Vile and pernicious – at times capricious, now concealed or cloaked with the dark garment of academia, of superficiality. At times overt, but the public is left out. Its pronouncements and concern about the state of the premier university is neglected, considered dangerous generalizations and the debilitating problems under discussion is squashed. The academic board will deal with it in limbo. That ends the story. Most of the strange and inimical revelations that emerge from the sanctum sanatoria of the premier university is quickly refuted by the authorities and the fears of the public allayed by soothing words and unfounded and satiric venom unleashed on the people concerned with the ruptured story. It’s a myth they have concocted to tarnish the good image of the premier university. It is the enemies of the institution. Legon is a sanctimonious institution. Such revelations in public has the potential of damaging the hard worn reputation of the institution. It is filled with timbers and calibers. Intellectuals, academics and educationists. Who are you from the precincts of the lay man to comments on the institution run by the custodians of knowledge?

With this begins the myth of the infallibility of legon. The flawless towers of learning. The few students who wouldn’t accept the theory of the impeccable nature of the institution and will speak out loud and clear - at times their arguments lack coherence they are unable to articulate their views well. They sound unconvincing. Their arguments lack the vicissitudes of rhetoric and dialectics and at times home made logic to resist the seductive myths that it encounters.

They are mere students. That is the justification. Yet the weapons of the authorities that make them potent is what they are clamoring for. That is the reason for their very presence on campus. It shows how susceptible and compromising they are. At times, when they take an initiative, they soil the issue totally as mostly the only thing they resort to as their weapon is unwarranted and unjustifiable violence, which does not in any way address the issues at hand but worsen it.

So to rely on students to address problems of the university is not only dangerous and precarious, but grossly ineffective and tantamount to creating chaos from order.

There are more serious and reliable personalities on campus like the lecturers who can present some of the problems of the premier university in a cogent realistic manner and come to terms with the ones that can be met as a matter of urgency. Yet they all fall under the umbrella of students. Mediocrity and hesitancy, lack of intellectual courage. The only difference is that they don’t resort to unwarranted and unjustifiable violence and uttering dangerous and destructive tirades which may jeopardize their educational career or soil the reputation of the university. They become the silent ones. They die. They languish because they indulge in intellectual languor.

There are brilliant and exceptional academicians who are privy to some of the pressing problems of legon ritualized into unmovable altars. They agitate to let the old reverent masters know that times are changing and that legon is lagging behind. Eventually they are cowed by the unchallengeable potency of the university of Ghana. What they do is to hide behind unreliable and clumsy and dishonest journalists to articulates their grievances in an unreliable newspaper which in effect render their efforts useless and baseless.

As members of the institution, they are aware of the rules and the procedures, yet they resort to unconventional means which yields no fruits in their bid to help arrest some of the serious problems of the institution.

Truth is legon has to embark on a serious readjustment program. The institution needs to be restructured to meet modern standards. The lack of modern facilities to render services to students make very difficult and tough for students. One thing that happens on campus that attest to the fact that all the students one way or the other are burdened by the situation prevailing on campus is how they readily supports and corroborates any action that may be directed towards addressing a situation.

Why the silence? When the silence continues unbroken, the situation may get worse and the repercussions wouldn’t be felt only on campus but its dreadful consequences will ripple within the whole nation.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

When high philosophical and political theories form the basis of an argument at the villa up the hill, and names of men who have made great impact in their various fields are mentioned; I am compelled to remain in a stealthy vault of oblivion and obscurity in order not to drag my area of interest into ridicule. The mere mention of the catastrophic words like membranophones, aerophones and idiophones is enough to send my course in to the mud, be subjected to obloquy and my very intellectual capability questioned. I know I can counteract their obnoxious misconceptions of music as a discipline; I always refrain from such situations because music incorporates the science of acoustics and harmony is one of its basic components, so why must I strain my self with people who are trying to create chaos from order?

This was a sentiment a friend of mine in level two hundred shared with me some time ago which struck a philosophical chord in me. And ever since, his little defense of music became a kind of song that haunted me any time I see him seated solemnly with his friends in front of school of performing arts playing drums and flutes of various sorts, I am forced to asses the immensity of neglecting our cultural values and the repercussions thereof.

I have been a great lover of music all my life and I still do despite my philosophical pretensions – it was philosophy, another discipline that is not only despised on campus but one is even sure to be treated as a venom, a poor academically weak person who shouldn’t have gained admission to the university at all. A favor by the authorities and students will taunt you forever on campus with the demented incubus of not securing a job. Nevertheless, philosophy was instrumental in explaining vague concepts to me and deepened my interest in music when I later found out that it has a correlation with science and this was even discovered in ancient times by the Pythagoreans.

The way students cast unfounded criticisms on certain things they are not interested in is unfortunate. They have the gut to question the validity and relevance of a course someone is pursuing with penchant interest because that is where he has realized he can excel. Yet, they fail to examine the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen field, compare it to others to see where theirs end and where other ones begin. They are even blind to the fact that all disciplines are interrelated and that it would be impossible and preposterous for one person


To master all. While not pretending to be master of all trades, why pick on the serious few who have taken the ones that you do not have the heart and courage and the intelligence to pursue?

My ritualized habit of taking a walk around campus at dusk gleaning philosophical musings and the wordless yet vociferous sounds of nature became more intimate when I developed a passionate ear for the music of nature. I bought a little flute, a banjo and a rattle and learnt how to play. When some of my course mates saw me they laughed and said that they knew I am up to some mischief. They said amidst giggles that I have created a new office somewhere and its not bad decorating there with my traditional musical instruments.

When there is a musical program to be held at the drama studio or any other thing pertaining to African culture, to be organized by school of performing arts, I not only make my self available before the scheduled time, but I make sure that I convince enough graduates and undergraduates alike to be at the traditional fiesta.

Most of my later poems were modeled to resound the ancient rhythms of Africa. And to my amazement I became friends to foreigners who were ready and prepared to learn what we have neglected for far too long. While black students of campus sprawl comfortably in their couches and listen to western music, the westerners busy themselves by playing drums and dancing to our tunes. Before long, they vanish to their various countries. So, the pertinent question is: were they learning it for the fun of it?


I went to school of performing arts one day to see my friend pursuing musicology. When I reached the main entrance, I met a young man whom I one time saw performing with my friend. I inquired about the whereabouts of my friend and he informed me that he was having lectures. I decided to wait for him. Whiles standing, a young man offered me a sit. I sat down and thanked the man who obviously saw the uncomfortable nature of my predicament. As I sat down waiting for my friend, I could hear the chatter of young undergraduates whom I learnt were also doing musicology.

I like Professor Ellison’s definition of music. One of the undergrads said. Sound and silence organized in time. Another one too is artful arrangements of sounds in time.

I was impressed. However, I was also saddened by the fact that these boys may have their interest in something else far from music and African culture but may have been forced to do it for academic reasons. As if to confirm my fears, one of the boys reiterated his conviction to change his course as soon as he gets to level two hundred.

“THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD”

Legon campus is a miniature world – a higher and even more bizarre reflection of the outside world that when one is subject to scrutinizing and analyzing things on a microscopic note, or evaluating events based on a cogent philosophical reasoning, then one is bound to be a prophet of doom or within the academic walls a pessimist.

My nature is such that I would not describe it as radical, yet I have such a strong abhorrence for gradualist approach of doing things. I am always meticulous and conscious of the vile and vicious arguments that some students are apt to propound to taint a good opinion and subject it to ridicule. So in order not to earn the accolade of rush and impulsive campus adventurer who has read Karl Marx and obscure and obsolete revolutionary treatises which are not only irrelevant and impracticable, but time wasting, and also baring the stigma of an extremist – my good mind always tells me that when there is an issue which one way or the other affects the academic life of students, and all good students betray symptoms of cowardice and of silence, those who would rally behind me may eventually also betray me and the good course, and I will be the only person at the center of affairs.

Though I am a student my self, I have realized something about my colleagues which makes me cautious when there is an issue of such delicate nature. Because when students shout, ululate, protest, demonstrate and vandalize, they do so because their colleagues are doing it and they staunchly defend it as students’ way of life. As a student, one must involve himself in things that may have a good end for all students. Most of them are unaware of the ideological basis or the rationale behind a particular action-taking place – they participate for the fun of it. In most cases too, students’ exhibit extreme youthful exuberance and unguided revolutionary fervor in their bid to find solutions to problems. Because they mostly neglect the financial aspect of problem-solving measures, they want their desires to be granted in a magical way.

At certain times, it be comes conspicuous that certain measures the authorities initiates on campus which they officially and LEGONICALLY ingratiates in the psyche of students with their academic and rhetoric fallacy is not only designed to cripple students and push them to the wall, but to keep them in an inextricable dark hole and to warp the efforts of the more buoyant and energetic ones who would not pray to the prince of peace, the stiller of the storm but would hit the

street protesting vehemently for the solemn trees and the red roof tiles of the premier university to resound the injustices they are about to suffer.

Conscious of all these things, of the never-ending feud between authorities and students, my movement on campus is always informed by enough credible evidence; as my potent weapon and justice. When there is an impending vicious policy of a bizarre kind, which in its very outlook seems to be initiated by no one but a demented professor who is confused and at the point of losing his senses, then my instincts which circumstances stifled dormant would be awakened.

The first ritual I perform in such situations is to rush to Jones Quartey building – the famous TINGITINGI. There is a huge notice board in front of the giant building. There, I will avidly and impatiently go through the various notices pasted by students to see if I will get enough followers for my course.

It is a favorite saying of mine that revolution begins at TINGITINGI. Because when there is a policy in the air, hovering around the red roof tiles and the learning towers, one need not worry, even though dust bins, trees and other objects of campus would resound sentiments of incensed students, my favorite haunt is the little notice in front of Tingitingi.

One can at times visualize the anger and pain that informs such fiery response from students. They not only condemn and state categorically the uselessness of a giving policy by the authorities, but also try to call all students to stand up and voice out loud and clear for the learning towers to echo it to all and sundry. If we are at the premier university aiming for quality education to weed out some of the pressing problems of our society, why should we be engulfed by the same problems and we sit and watch helpless? Isn’t it ironical?

Some of the bills not only try to rally students to oppose an unfavorable policy, but also dare to transcend the ordinary boundary defined for students. They insinuate, generalize issues and reveal scandalous dealings of the top hierarchy, which is not only dangerous but has the potential of damaging people’s reputation.

When an issue of a miniature value rises to epic proportions, that is the time that you will see the brave ones and the chicken hearted. No one would like to face the raw brunt of the authorities, be a scapegoat and eventually be rusticated from the covetous institution, thereby terminating his educational career.

On campus, I am mostly described by friends and foes alike as a fiery young revolutionary and a radical avant-garde though I keep on reiterating that I loathe being describe as such I have to accept it now as I am sharp to withdraw from precincts of students who are only parading campus for miracles to happen in their lives but wouldn’t do anything to change the destiny of the premier university. I assess and evaluate all forms of arguments I receive from students, I sample out, detach youthful exuberance and relegate some to the doldrums as being the result of rush action engendered by immaturity.

Nevertheless, I admire some of the protest notice students paste around campus to jostle into action students who are lulled by the fact that they are at the university and that alone is enough for them. After all, it shows that they are the recipients of whatever they are fighting against.

So my position at the premier university as an agitator, revolutionary, non-conformist, polemicist and above worshiper of Bacchus, a vandal. Only remained in words. Because, as a student, without working collectively with other students who share my ideals and vision, I would not make any headway.

Nevertheless ALUTA CONTINUA! Though our voices may be silenced and our efforts warped, we still believe that the pen is mightier than the sword and with our fiery little pieces of radical content, some change can be effected.

So my journey every afternoon to the little notice board in front of the giant TINGITINGI never stopped because I became convinced that one day the authorities would look to such things to revise the obnoxious policies they arbitrarily implement on campus!

VOLTA HALL AND THE FUTURE OR FUTILITY OF FERMINISM.

We went to Volta hall the following day. I realized that my friend was nervous. He was intimidated by the sheer elegance and the feminine magnificence of the place. You have not seen anything yet. I told him. Even though some may imagine Volta to be the den of and the cavern where the philanderers, the hedonists and the debaucheries and pleasure seekers of the wildest nature retreat to satisfy their debased and filthy desires, some of the ladies here are firmly convinced that what men can do in the modernist and intellectual sense of the word they can do and even better. They are firmly rooted in feminism and for them equality and to a lesser extent egalitarianism is not just a mere ideological shadow invented by women to push themselves forward and unleash the traditional shackles of inferiority and self abasement, disparity and denigration. It is not just a path for women to emerge from the path engulfed by myth and crude mystification. But a concrete and valid step, for them equality is a reality and those in the forefront know that it has already being achieved. In fact, they have demonstrated the validity of their ideas. But despite all these efforts, and other hard measures taken by women to be recognized, they are still grappling with the popular sentiments conspicuously expressed by men that they belong to the hearth and home.

This is how somebody put it who I think was a cuckold if not a misogynist.

He said. Eagles eat not men until they are dead but
a woman will devour them alive for a woman will pick your pocket and empty your purse, laugh in your face and cut your throat, they are ungrateful, perjured, full of fraud, flouting and deceitful, inconstant, waspish, toyish, light sullen, proud, discourteous and cruel. My friend was appalled by the devastating views of some men against women. This is too strong. This is a devilish philosophy he said. But it is difficult to judge a woman’s character. Women are like the ocean. Know body knows what is hidden in its mysterious depths. They can create and can destroy. What men must do is to recognize the immense role they are playing in the society. I hate identifying myself with feminism. Feminism is an empty word. And even how many women do understand the word feminism. We Africans are interested in words. I think the issue at stake is that women must be recognized and treated as equals.

My friend cleared his throat and corroborated what I said. Men and women have intimidated and weakened women with the appalling myth that they are inferior to men. And when women succumb to this unfounded dogma, the men get absolute control over them. Now let us look at the relationship between women to woman. The relationship is not always healthy. When a woman grows old, she automatically becomes a witch. An affluent well-educated woman will retch and isolate herself from an uneducated woman. Now that they are in the forefront of their struggle for equality and recognition, the same women are undermining the process. For we have many women around whose dress code alone degrades womanhood. So many young girls striding campus for a higher education in the name of modernity are tainting the image of women at the crucial moment of their fight for emancipation. .

THE CITY UP THE HILL: OF VANDALS AND VICIOUS SCANDALS

The city up the hill, the vandal city, guardian of Legon. I said to my friend, now, I will not tell you much about vandal city because you would be here with me and you would know and understand the mystery surrounding commonwealth hall. He was pleased but not satisfied. I noticed that he was retching, feeling terribly uncomfortable after absorbing the formidable aura and mystery of the city of destruction. The robin hood of Legon leaving in a splendid and magnificent palace of woes for it is incumbent on the vandals to defend the weak and poor. I tapped gently on the shoulders of my nervous friend and said to him. Do not tremble. You are a man. Though in going to the garden of Eden where Adam is still waiting for eve to come out of his ribs, physique, imposing appearance and courage is needed do not shiver. I know you are hale and vigorous. You made the right decision. For vandal city, a womanish, effeminate weakling is even afraid to mention the name. It is the lion of Legon. My friend seemed to have gathered courage for it suddenly dawned on him that he was standing in front of a lion’s den and the only thing he has to do is inevitably be bold and strong.

He smiled and I detected in the rakish smile unbounded love for commonwealth hall. But I think people have false perceptions about commonwealth hall. He asked timidly. It has suffered far too long from the judgments of jaundiced eyes. From the prejudice of presumptuous people. Well, let me explain. Vandal city is the classical case of chuck him out he is a brute, but a savior of his people when the guns begin to shoot. The role that vandal city plays is crucial and vital. They protect, they protest, and point out poignant truths. They demonstrate, demand for instant justice, and destroy. They have authority in Legon; there is no doubt about it. The power inherent in their nature is implied in the very name commonwealth. Their strength lies in the inordinate desire to create a potent fraternity, to unite and ululate with an overwhelmingly vociferous and vehement voice. Now, mark this. Male licentiousness, aggressiveness, wildness, brutality, sycophancy, vandalism are mythical words associated with vandal city to frighten timid students. Hall of ferociousness is but a figment of their imagination. But I must be frank about one fact. That the vandals are sexually perverted and the more buoyant heroes and Romeos do scale the towers of Volta in the name of love, we can not alter the adage that boys would be boys. I think this lengthy lecture has demystified the mystery surrounding vandal city. My friend said triumphantly. Now, let us climb the mountain of Legon.

APOLOGIA: PRAYER FOR THE DAMNED: THE DEMON LOVER OF CAMPUS

My continual odyssey on campus always culminates in a rewarding pursuit, an ordained quest, an adventure worth embarking, which ultimately leads to not only rifling the pockets of the learning towers of legon at six thirty, exposing her volatile conscience and its failure to embrace modern trends of education, of the pursuit of knowledge, its reverence for conservatism and tradition, of the evil forces that are stalking in the darkness to pounce on her, of the accursed lips filled with demented rumors and hearsay ready to defame her, but to self knowledge, and understanding, the place I occupy in the premier university, and the meaning of my sojourn there as a student, a force, an entity. At times, there is a chagrin sense of guilt and betrayal. Because when the learning towers crumble down, collapse into debris, I would be involved, because I am involved my ordained quest must be the ultimate quest, even if others attempt, aneas like into the underworld. It would be a collective vision, which will be transformed into potent pillars of the intellect that would support the learning towers.

When ever I was free and the atmosphere friendly, I followed my ordained quest. Taking a walk round campus of tall majestic trees and towers, of serene beauty and intellectual magnificence became a ritualized habit. This time I took the complete poems of Thomas grey, a pre romantic and around the world in eighty days. Gray’s matured piece elegy written in a country churchyard inspired me greatly when I was reciting it. Where the lines the paths of glory leads but to the grave.

I was so engrossed with grays poems that only the approaching darkness was able to stop me. I started towards my hall. It was six thirty. I went past Balme library and forked left on the road. With Volta at the right hand side. My uneventful walk was suddenly transformed into a blazing drama when I saw the black saloon car again. This time packed in front of Volta hall with the dark man in it with a lady. It was plain from their behavior in the car that they were not father and daughter. But lovers. The dark man in black attire gave the young lady a kiss and she came out from the car. Take care she said and hurried to the main entrance of Volta hall. I was taken aback. When I realized that the young lady was Evelyn, kwame, my roommates girlfriend. What is she doing with the dark bald man with potbelly? I kept my silence and the whole affair was unraveled by two guys who were in front of me. I was not strained to follow them headlong to devour the mystery for the young man was shouting it so that the solemn buildings and the tall trees resounded the saga of the ill mismatched couples.

Did you take notice of the man in the dark plush car who just dropped the girl? The first guy said with a tone unmistakably tinged with disgust and cynicism.

“I saw them but I was not the one to bother or even think about them for a second for I know that it is a common sight on campus especially in front of Volta Hall. I know for sure that, the man cannot be the father of that girl. His manner and the aura of timidity around him and his fixed gaze betrayed his dark conscience and flagrant and hellish irresponsibility!” The second person responded.

“The man is a public figure. He is well known. I think you could not catch a clear view of his face. The first person said with heightened interest and enthusiasm while I followed them silently absorbing the revelations of the dark dealings of people who hold public offices who preach virtue and practice vice. They abuse power and authority invested in them by poor folks who have staked their lives and destiny on them for the betterment of the nation after numerous disappointments and setbacks. I listened to my friends who were also seriously concerned about the mania that has now engulfed campus, suffocating it. Blackening the once famous and illustrious towers of edification and the most respected and trusted principles, which no one can deny its potency and power to propel the nation forward.

What at all motivate and compel these men to indulge in such an outrageously vile crime against the earth. Shameless lecherous old men who cannot resist the temptations of the flesh. Depraved men who are engulfed by sensuality. They transform their duty to the state to carnal satisfaction. Learned, responsible, married and leaders. The very conscience of the state. The society repose absolute trust in them and some of the highest ideals unattainable in human standards is what they are believed to encompass.

These baldheaded lecherous carnal old men with demented passion for expensive wine bought at the expense of the nation, hence their protruding and disgusting bellies. They not only betray the nation, the masses, and their on revolutionary ideals but also commit an abomination against the earth. They defile it and present sham policies to the masses telling them about good moral conduct while they themselves are corrupt, sexual perverts, wretched men.

How can the nation move forward if our leader with grey hairs, which is a sign of wisdom and maturity, is caressed by a young girl who is unaware of the vicissitudes and intricacies of life and motherhood at midnight. What advise can her daughter give him? Why should a man with wife and children lose his senses humanity and conscience in front of a young naïve jezebel who claims to be a university student?


They haunt the learning towers in the darkness like vultures waiting for carcasses with their expensive cars that they bought with money stolen from the state coffers to seduce avaricious legon girls the age of their daughters.

Why should a public figure, an honorable, corrupt, scandalize and squander the treasures of the state to waste it before a young lady? Buying cars, renting apartments and moving about with in a very expensive public places, keeping them in hotels that bills in us dollars!

What an irony! What a paradox! Why should a young university student with well proportioned body, nice features, young, fresh modern voluptuous and enchantingly captivating turn down offers of equally young men also receiving university education with high aspirations and ideals for old withered crooks the size of their fathers’.

If not ignorance and avarice. False perceptions and wrong notions. Fallacious and childish notions of sexuality and beastly modernism. The desire to lead well expensive lives on campus. To ride in latest models while her colleagues in the house perceived to be ignorant of the world of modernism wallow in squalor, filth waiting for proper marriage for the sake of the health of the society and virtue.

Who at all allowed these susceptible and vulnerable ladies to the hill of knowledge? It is indeed paradoxical for the tower of learning to harbor such abominable wretches!

I was emotionally purged by the vociferous charges of my friends who seemed unable to tolerate immorality for seconds. From their actions and reactions I was fully convinced that they have noble ideals and ideas and are confident over its validity. Only that they are trapped in space and time and the place they find themselves are averse to such things, it is now fast losing grip on what sustains it. So as I was later to learn, my mates who would opt for a sexual pervert to be burnt alive were from vandal and can actually vandalize, they are students, mere tiny creatures in front of the evil men who seem to have all the advantages.

When I reached legon hall, it was almost getting to 6 pm. Kwame was in a cheerful mood. He shouted accolades on me and hugged me. I was baffled. Because for sometime now, kwame was the very epitome of the crypt. Silent, morose and meditative, at times tearful.

You look happy and joyous. I am very happy for you. But I must ask for forgiveness if what I have to tell you offends you. I regret to taint your happy mood. You know nowadays you seldom laugh. Kwame laughed.

“I am ready for whatever you have to tell me. I promise you it will not tickle my mood a bit. Go on and tell me Julius.”

“Well, I will tell you if you are ready and happy to hear a bad news. I saw the DEMON LOVER on campus today and two angelic creatures who scathingly condemned their actions. The Demon lover was with your fiancée.

Kwame burst into uncontrollable laughter. He laughed loud and indicated with his hands that I should continue telling him more.

I grew apprehensive. I actually thought that I had made kwame mad by my horrifying revelation.

Kwame stopped laughing and grew serious. Julius, he said. The demon lover you saw with Evelyn was in fact the cause of my emotional affliction and dissolution. This same demon made me almost go mad. But I was able to go about it and now I am more than triumphant. Don’t think you are scaring me with the lecherous saga of a bald man with pot belly on campus and a greedy girl who is ready to sell herself, exchange her pride for money. I may be poor, I may come from a very poor home but my priority is education, knowledge of the sublime and not the pursuit of a campus girl who would have to keep me as a standby campus fiancé and follow old men for money.

I was affected by kwame’s impeccable reasoning and emotional development. His faultless maturity.

These are some of the ideals I had wanted you to attain long ago.

I understand. Kwame said.

FALSE STUDENTS AND IMPOSTORS:: PSYCHEDELICS OR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS?

An interesting and ironic enigma that occurs in legon every year is the presence of false students. Brilliant impostors. They enroll in the most desirable institution in Ghana as genuine students. They reside in the various halls and attend lectures. They pay fees and the authorities accept them as ordinary students. They engage in all activities that happens on campus whether good or bad. Yet these seemingly illustrious undergradads who strut campus have a surreptitious and bizarre secret surrounding their presence on campus. They may eventually be identified as not legon students at all but an alien brood of pretentious impostors, vile charlatans and uncompromising and incorrigible criminals who have used their hollow and sham craftiness to outwit the university and to rob and obstruct hardworking students the chance of getting enrolled at the premier university. and also occupying the few hall of residence thereby hindering other students the chance of lodging on campus but vilifying themselves in hostels and at times in their various homes and they have to join their colleagues from afar.

How students of legon could all of a sudden be shown the exit- rusticated ignominiously is something that baffles my imagination.

There is an argument raging on campus that the authorities are aware of such a pernicious intruders and will wait for a while, pounce on them unawares and weed them out like harlot weeds from the precincts of the premier university.

If the rumor has an iota of fact or a seemingly aura of credibility around it, then it is unfortunate. Even though this may seem tentative and a common fabrication of students to unleash some pricking tongue wagging vengeance on the daring students, the fact of the matter is that the authorities must device effective means of nipping in the bud the activities of such students. Legon with such a classic penchant for academic excellence firm and resolute in its policies and implementation should be overtaken in such an embarrassing manner is not only unpardonable but does not augur well for the institution.

When students indulge or resort to fraudulent means to attain higher education, it pinpoints a serious blunder in our educational system. It posits serious social and educational problems. it calls for a thorough review of the system. It shows that if the system if governed by a strong and formidable system it still needs adjustment. If the system is effective, how do we account for the illegal entrance of those who do not qualify? Mostly such criminal activities of students are eventually dealt with there are some who may pass through with ease without the keen eyes of the institution able to see their nefarious activities. And are able to scale over the learning towers of legon and enter the world stage with the certificate of the institution they outsmarted.

what we have to understand about such daring students who will trade even their soul to get to the premier university is their conception and understanding of education and a higher one for that matter. They deem education as a mere attainment of certificates for job security. They have realized that upon the noise being made about standards in all spheres of life in our country, few are able to deliver eventually. They are not able to put into practice the theories they spend years learning at the premier university. The impostors also seize upon the vulnerability of the system to push through despite all odds. Why should they be left out if they cannot notice any difference between themselves and those there. After all it is not about education, but certificates, as the society and the educational system itself had made them understand. with this devilish resolution they put to test the intelligence of legon as a caryatid of education. The torchbearer of enlightenment.

SOCRATES AND PROFESSOR ELISON. THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY.

The 4th century BC was the first great age of Greek theatre construction. In the 5th century BC, actors performed the tragedy of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in a modest open-air theatre, the theatre of Dionysus, on the south slope of the acropolis. In its original form, the theatre consisted of a round area called an orchestra (meaning Dancing floor) where the performance took place, and a seating area on the natural curve of the slope above. Some seats were made of wood. Behind the orchestra, a small wooden building provided scenic backdrops, a place to change costumes, and doors for dramatic entrances. Between 338 and 326 BC the theatre of Dionysus was rebuilt on a grand scale in stone, with a rising fan of stone seats on the hillside, a roughly semicircular performance area, and a permanent stone stage building. .

This in depth description of the open air theatre of ancient repute, the epitome and culmination of Greek arts and architecture was delivered by Professor Ellison. Professor Ellison is a scholar in classical literature and history. An outstanding and astute person who has garnered unprecedented fame and recognition on campus for his impeccable and flawless and monumental knowledge of bygone ages buried in the deep recess of time.

The area which had an almost overpowering and uncontrollable sway over the professor of ancient grandeur was the myths and legends of the ancients. As I was later to learn, it was the various stories of perseus and Poseidon, Hercules and hera Cerberus and centaur that attracted him and through deep and unrelenting research, he was able to link the various myths propounded by the ancients to reality, but jovial and carefree that he is, he is never free from eccentricities


Going to professor Ellison’s quarters is like ascending a hill to the acropolis. And when one enters his room which he has converted to a miniature library, it is like entering the pantheon of old or the sacred precincts of the oracle of Delphi.

His writing desk is strewn with sculptures of the Caesars, Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. He has created a special niche in which he keeps his two favorite books. The epics of homer. The Iliad and the odyssey. I was dumbfounded. How a modern day professor could dedicate his life, works and ideals to Greek culture and philosophy is something else. Is it the creation and practice of democracy that attracted him most or what? Yet Professor Ellison is no political theorist. Though the communist manifesto and the prince by Machiavelli is one of his books that he reads most often his interest in politics is not very deep or dedicated.

I concluded that the very nature of Greek civilization which in its genesis incorporated myths and legends in the social fabric and the psyche of the people. The elaborates pantheon may have attracted him.

Yet Professor Ellison can display unprecedented brilliance when it comes to Greek literature too.

When I entered the premier university, philosophy was one of the courses I never dreamt of pursuing. In fact I followed the naive generalizations of students that it is an area of never ending arguments on god and the universe. Struggling piteously to understand the incomprehensible, I was under the spell of the charms that continue to hold less intelligent students in darkness. I was not prepared to lose my hard won faith to an area of learning that eventually would only earn me a degree, a job and accommodation and some few privileges. I said with a firm conviction and revolutionary fervor that can be displayed only by a vandal under the vicious influence of the fiery chariot of Bacchus to invite vicious scandals.

So I decided to read literature after the manic hesitation during my intermediate period. Even though one of the lecturers was very concerned about how philosophy as a discipline and one of the most challenging and engaging field ever dealing with almost all spheres of human thoughts and actions demeaned and denigrated by some students of Legon. How can you jeer at the noble pursuit, the pursuit of knowledge, the love of wisdom? Why must some students discourage others from reading philosophy? Have you all forgotten that all other disciplines emerged from philosophy? As students of this great institution we should not harbor such notions here, we should not even conjure such a preposterous and laughable misconceptions here. It makes the learning towers a laughing stock. Philosophy is broad and one of the most illusive areas of human pursuit that needs special attention and research. Balme library is there, the book shop is bulging with modern books of philosophy. Those of you who are harboring demented ideas about the noble subject relegating it to the abysm of smallness can troop to Balme or the bookshop or even book trust to get books on philosophy so that things would be properly explained and clarified to them. The haunting aura of Thales, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Carl young and jean Paul Sartre are still haunting the libraries. Even the bearded lecturers even if atheists or vile agnostics or nihilists of the worst stock, you can still approach them and they would prove wonderful despite their manic pagan biases on some religious systems. After all the summa theologica of Thomas Aquinas was a concatenation of both pagan and Christian philosophy.

The professors unparalleled exaltation and elevation of philosophy to the highest peak of human endeavor though logically speaking was accurate and indisputable, it failed to convince me to join the class.

Reading literature means reading Greek literature. Moreover, the myths and legends are naturally intertwined that I was forced to delve deep into the mythology of the philosophers. That is, the philosophical stance or the position or idea a particular philosopher affirms or holds. Gradually, quite naturally, the veracity of the pronouncements of the professor of philosophy became apparent. As he said when he realized that I have become a devotee of that field of studies. Initially, my arguments and support of the course sounded metaphysical, but now it seem my stance sounds logical.

One iconographic figure I find interesting and yet solemn and majestic in all his ways is the philosopher Socrates. I drew much inspiration from him and as a poet the only pearl worth giving is to compose a poem about him. And that was how I met the modern day Socrates. Professor Ellison.

Three weeks after my poem entitled Socrates appeared in the legonite, I was in my room reading when a friend of mine burst in to my sanctum and said in a huffy voice that Professor Ellison would like to see me urgently.

I was bewildered. How on earth. What does he wants from me. Well, it may relate certainly to academics because I am notoriously known on campus to be an invisible man and I have read Ralph Ellison is the invisible man and I am on my way to meeting professor Ellison.

When I reached the professor’s quarters, the classic aura around the place inspired me a lot. For I felt like penetrating the very depths of the beginning when the earth was uncorrupted and ancient knowledge and wisdom reigned supreme. The school of Athens, the academy. For that gave early men the very idea of higher education. The master and the apprentice; the professor and the student.

When I reached Prof Ellison’s quarters, he welcomed me in Greek. I was stupefied. I am Shakespeare sir; I have less Greek and little Latin. The professor laughed and said that was an ingenious anecdote.

Sit down young man he said.

I am much obliged to be at your service sir.

I said with an imperfect British accent but my effort proved futile as much obliged sounded more like a trumpet than human voice.

I learnt you are a poet and a classical poet as such. I was amused. I was quick to notice what the professor was referring to.

Socrates.

I said.

How many days did it take you to compose such a grand piece.

Professor Ellison brought out that edition of the legonite and recited it as if he was there when Socrates drunk the hemlock








SOCRATES

Amid the despairing noises and monotony
And futility of our existence - racks and tortuous
Incisions haunt our lone furnace
We walk in the labyrinth of silent echoes uncomplaining
Burdened yet indifferent - we succumb with
Trembling hearts and reverent lips and pay
Homage to the denizens of above.
Eternal servitors and devotees eager
To serve and please and be at peace.
We haunt the open-air theatre for entertainments
And the mystic temples.
We trudged the metropolis deafened by
Despairing noises. Elbowed, jostled relegated
To the background, outwitted, defrauded.
Warfare we try to avert yet it was inevitable as it was death.
We thought of focusing on philosophic principles
To aid us invent and discover when he appeared.
An aged man in tatters of ruins - a man goat - hideous
He was an intelligent man and avowed thinker.
He soon got humble followers who were
Bewildered and unsettled by his strange
Teachings and impeccable reasoning.
.He was hoary, simple, and possessed
An unusual heart that made him endure
Anything that happened to him.
He was full of questions than answers
And his fame which was wreathed with
Mystic aura spread like wild fire in the city-states.
We always gathered around him for
Enlightenment undreamt of.
We were appalled by his strangeness.
He was bald and had large bulging eyes
Which were frightening and horrifying to behold?
All in all he was harrowing. he said.
What is the meaning of beauty?
We were baffled and bewildered.
Why do we suffer? why do we die?
Now to the issue of beauty.
Once there was an ugly lady,
She was so ugly that her own image frightens
Her when she looks into a mirror.
She stood in front of her mirror one day
And cried. I am not beautiful, I am really ugly. Why?
What the lady refused to discover and utilize
Is the energy, the power inherent in her?
She was fond of outward appearance only which
Is illusory, transient. The true meaning of beauty
Is ability and ugliness inability.
The open air theatre, the temples and the amazing
Discoveries will stand the test of time and
Those who made it, the primal architects will be inherent
In it till the end of time,
Questions of this sort were heaped on us
Each passing day and then analyzed to
Reach a spellbinding answer,
He got a wide following and people
From all walks of life begun to appreciate
His impeccable reasoning,
Then came a devastating warning,
He was accused of corrupting we the Athenian youths
By teaching strange and alien doctrines which
Defied the rules and regulations stipulated
By the oracles and the Olympian Titans,
He was asked by the leaders to stop teaching us
Or will suffer gravely for it. He refused to comply
He continued to teach us until he was condemned to death,
We urged him to run but he refused
He unflinchingly stated that the laws of the state must be obeyed.
The repercussions of the hemlock
Truly wounded our hearts,
Tears filled our eyes when in his tatters he
Patiently, humbly drunk his mortal enemy
As if it was a drink of blessing from the gods,
And why do we have to desert the treasure
Of the extraordinary man and heed the despairing Noises of the crowd?

ON POETS AND PROFESSORS - FROM LOWER HILL TO THE LEARNING TOWERS OF LEGON

Campus. Lower hill. A sequestered place far from the tumults and the hustle and bustle of academic life.
Professor Ellison and Professor Dalimon were sitting beneath a shady tree on campus conversing. The air was cool and serene and the creaking crescendo of the outspread boughs and the soft lulling chirrups of the birds gave the place an idyllic ambience and the two distinguished men an ideal place to rest and converse.

Professor Ellison was holding a recent collection of his poems published by edifice publications. He looked fulfilled and had an air of austere accomplishment. Professor Dalimon on the other hand looked gloomy, morose, and meditative. He has two novels to his credit and other philosophical essays published by campus press and elsewhere. The two novels are in fact his
Autobiography. His characters are mostly doctors and professors and like himself, are gloomy, morose, and meditative.
Professor Ellison shifted the focus of the heightened conversation to that of literature. Professor Dalimon was immensely pleased that his good friend had finally stepped on the imaginative terrain.
.
“Most of the students are getting interested in creative writing. Professor Ellison said delightedly; with a rather faint, quaking voice. His eyes glinted with mythic proportion and his gestures and manner of speaking showed clearly that he was not an orator but had learnt a great deal about rhetoric. His counterpart did not utter a word, and so, he continued.

“Julius is such a wonderful boy, a genius I should really say. He is trying to bring something out trying to explore with infant heart the volatile conscience of the literary tradition. A young experimentalist. Judging from his scant yet powerful output, I can say with much confidence that he is a promising lad and we must expect much from him.
Professor Dalimon recalled the time he first met Julius and corroborated to what Professor Ellison said.
“I have seen some of his stories which he actually refers to as mere sketches. It was terrible.
“Really?” Professor Ellison said in astonishment.
]
“Oh yes, I mean he is very good.” Said professor Dalimon.

“Have you read his short story to the drama studio?”

“No”

“Ah you have to read it. It’s a powerful portrayal of the relationship between a professor and a poet. It was published by Legon tower.

“Your boy is really ambitious.” Said professor Dalimon.

“But timid and soft spoken.” Said Professor Ellison. He paused briefly and then continued. Most of the students think that because we have published poetry and novels. We are supercilious and unapproachable. They tend to shudder and find it extremely difficult to show us what they have written. They have the notion that we will sneer at their effort and say it is not good. I find that attitude appalling. I always tell them. Come on boys and girls, we are not divine, we began just like you. We struggled to master iambic pentameter. We once wrote horrifying verses. Do not fear, bring what you have. Our nascent literature needs vigorous minds, fertile imagination, radical avant-gardes who would assist in the work. What is important is the will power
Courage and determination.

After this lengthy poetic outburst, Prof Ellison was preparing another surprising literary coup when Prof Dalimon quite inspired chipped in solemnly.

“They seemed to be frightened and bewildered by the whole process. Prof Dalimon said in a persuasive tone, pulsed briefly, and then continued.

“One of them told me bluntly that, in this country, creative writing does not avail because people are not interested in what comes out of the mind. The disillusioned student said that he had seen numerous collections descend the depth of obscurity and oblivion. He said that in this country, majority of the people are unable to read and write. He suppressed the word illiterates, but I noticed the sarcasm. He was apt to realize that because of this appalling problem of illiteracy and ignorance, when you put your precious thoughts on paper, it is like hiding it in a crypt. Because in an ignorant environment, who cares to read what you have written. When you sacrifice for your lifetime to bring something out of your mind in a book form, it is only some fragmentary elites somewhere who will gloss over it if it is a must for them to buy for their children to supplement their education. I told him we Ghanaians don’t appreciate what is beautiful and has validity. But fleeting illusion, transient materialism. I told him to continue writing. If they will not accept him today, in the future they will come to realize his vision. I told him it is a universal problem, only that in Ghana, it is chronic. I always write with the mentality that I have something in mind and I want to say it. I have seen corruption and moral decadence, cant and hypocrisy, and awful degradation of my people and was compelled to expose it. That was all. Prof Dalimon said in a tone of finality.

They sat in silence. They were thoroughly saturated with each other’s speech. They know very well that to indulge in creative writing is to plunge into the depth of despair. Nevertheless, they did not despair; they were committed to the pursuit of the work. Though the reception given to their works in the beginning was lukewarm, they are now universally acknowledged

Professor Ellison. The fact that people are not willing to read our works should not deter us from pursuing what is good and noble, a stumbling block in our literary career. If two people would listen to me today and appreciate what I have written, it means I have got two disciples and the two will also transmit it to four more and it go on like that and gradually, my message would cause a revolution. A writer, a prophet must face the reality of being a futurist.

Suddenly, Professor Ellison saw Julius approaching them. He was a young level two hundred student who had interest in writing short stories. He walked briskly, with a file in his left hand. He reached the professors in no time.

“Julius, what a surprise! We were talking about you just now.” said Professor Ellison vehemently.

“Good afternoon professor Ellison and professor Dalimon” Julius greeted.
“Good afternoon, they answered.

Dalimon. “You are welcome.” “Thank you sir” Julius said timidly.
“Continue eh? Pains and agony and suffering, dire adversity has its own kind of blessing.” Said prof. Ellison and Julius bowed in obeisance.

Then Julius turned to Professor Ellison and said. “Sir, please someone is after you. “

“I guess he is an old man”? He asked involuntarily.

“yes, sir!” Julius answered

He turned to his friend and uttered.” That may be Mr. brown.”

They walked in silence. Julius celibately walking behind them with his hands at his back clutching his file tightly. Pro. Ellison turned his back and parted Julius gently on the shoulders and said.

“Julius, why do you like setting your stories in campus?

“Because it is an intellectual lagoon” Julius answered smiling. Then said. “I think l am haunted by campus. The solemn buildings, mysterious and awe-inspiring. It gnaws. My heart

“Quite interesting” said Professor Ellison. And then asked.

“Is it self –assured experimentation?

“A kind of genre, campus setting. Soaring above the red roof tiles to have a clear view, a deeper insight. Plunging into the heart of the matter, understanding it and exposing it so that what ought to be done for it to get better would be apparent.
In Tingitingi and campus exclusive, l did the same thing, and especially Tingitingi there was a character with these fundamental questions gnawing at his conscience’s quote”

How things are going on l am beginning to see the grim reality. This institution is not flowing with milk and honey, manna does not fall on campus. l admit, without doubt that it is the premier university, but it is fraught with insurmountable problems, and to despair would be baseless.

Semesters interspersed with strike actions, demonstrations and protests.
Boycotts, vandalism, thuggery and manic agitations.
Student’s over-crowded in one room, people using dubious means to get admission. Notorious students using vile and dubious means to garner undeserved marks and results. There is no light, no water, no sanity on campus. To plunge into campus is to plunge in to rumpus. The remarks of intellectuals and educationists which incite and imprecate the venom of undermining the psyche of few brilliants students. Something dangerous is happening somewhere, something terrifying is taking place somewhere, something evil is lurking in the darkness. The intellectual lagoon is now a muddy, filthy bog. The apostasy of the so called boisterous and vivacious fraternity is simply unbearable. Immorality, depravity, perversity are the pivot lowering Legon towers to the lowermost echelons of hell. The chaos and anarchy prevailing on campus is inimical and detrimental to the already fallen image of the premier university. The dire deeds of some students of darkness are darkening the learning towers. But l don’t, think that when you come here with a smiling countenance, you would go with a morose, disappointed countenance. When we come here, we see clearly the inherent problems, and may grow harsh and vociferous about it but what about after we have graduated successfully; and are doing something rewarding and fulfilling. Do we remember the institution that made us who we are? Do we remember the problems of the premier university?

After this lengthy quotation from his short story. Tingitingi Julius paused and then said “By setting the story on campus I can explore so many themes, especially education and it associated problems”.

“Wonderful” said prof. Dalimon. They walked in silence. When they reached central cafeteria Julius smiled and told prof. Ellison that he had just finished his recent short story entitle “central cafeteria.

“A prolific universal genius professor Ellison said joking and asked Julius: “Do you have it here in your file”
“Yes,” Julius answered and brought the script briskly from his file. “Here you are, he said” giving the script to prof. Ellison. He received the script anxiously and started devouring the content. He was baffled by a Page with the caption meditation. He asked Julius if it is part of the story, and Julius said no. But being a curious person. He read it silently.

“Campus is strange, mysterious. l knew I had plunged into uncertainty when l got admission into this institution. I knew that if l work hard, the future would be fulfilling, but Professor Ellison had really opened a new chapter in my life, he had nurtured me, l was intrigued by his philosophical outburst. He has made me conscious of so many things- l have understood so many things which were hither to confounding” Professor Ellison smile after reading the “meditation” of his boy which obviously was a exalting his virtue. He opened the next page and saw the story. He read it silently but was forced to read it aloud when he reached what would be termed as the climax.

“Professor” poeticyllus novellas looked harrowing and ghastly he was sitting alone in his library, in front of him was uncountable manuscript. He stood up with an air of bitter unfulfillment and brought all his manuscripts out side and took a match. Professor portcullis novellas had written so many pomes and novels, but were unpublished. Failure seemed at him in the face. He took a match stick and said sorrowfully. “Books and the man I sing”. Yes they would sing about me. They would sing what is writing. Sitting somewhere alone, conversing with you, what is the meaning of this? I have labored for so many years and here are my works”. He said and lighted the match. The fire consumed the paper with a hellish fury.

“This is a strange story” said Professor Ellison in astonishment. “And I am a surprised by the coincidence. We were discussing the same topic when you came to call us.

Then he asked Julius, “you sunk into the quagmire of despair and was haunted by the they-would not-read. My-work-incubus.”

“Partially, but now, as the story portrays, l am triumphant and l know that it is my destiny to write, it is inescapable.” Julius said.

“Good.” Professor Ellison said and shook Julius’ hand. They walked away.

MUSINGS ON CANT AND HYPOCRISY

I admire the charisma and the sensitivity they are displaying. I like the spirit and the vigor they are showing in the campaign against illiteracy, moral degeneration, corruption and indiscipline. I am glad people have being able to identify the problems and even have understood the nature and the repercussions of all the negative things that work against us as a society, and are educating our youth to combat all this evil in our society. Well, we as a people are very good when it comes to companying against anything bad, atrocious, disastrous, destructive. We create ministries, commissions, committees to try to curb it. we organize forums and conferences.. Even we set aside days trying to find a solution to a particular problem. but the truth is that all the efforts we make to solve a problem is rather an exhibition of our own cant and hypocritical tendencies, because you cannot look at your sons and daughters to reject their culture for an alien one, indulge in amoral practices and say you are given them a higher education. it is a fallacy. You cannot reject your own soul and embrace a senseless culture which inflicts death and say that you are liberating your people.