Mirror Book Review:

LETTER TO JOMO: Squeezing some literature out of journalism

Title: Letter to Jomo
Number of pages: 327
Author: George Sydney Abugri
Publisher: Illumin8 Publishers, Accra, Ghana
Reviewed By: Anne Catherine Ofosuhene
Available at: EPP Books Services, Beacon Bookshop, East Legon
Presbyterian Bookshop, Accra, Methodist Book Depot, Accra
University Bookshop, Legon and University Bookshop, KNUST, Kumasi

Literature, drama, creative non-fiction, satire and journalism embrace with passion in this collection of satirical essays from the popular Letter to Jomo column which has been running in the Daily Graphic, for close to three decades.

Letter to Jomo is the work of a Ghanaian journalist who turned the news, his personal observation of human nature and a rare sense of impish humour into an entertaining and invaluable work of some social economic, political and historical significance.

The book contains a selection of 55 “news essays”, from more than 1000 which have appeared under the popular column to date. The author’s prose is linguistically adventurous, literarily rhythmic and pleasantly unusual.

Employing an epistolary mode, the author spins tales about life in Ghana based on the news and his personal observations, for the benefit of a fictional compatriot in the Diaspora who goes by the name Jomo.

Sydney Abugri describes his book as “a passionate social and political statement couched in light-hearted journalistic discourse, a thesis chronicling some of the ills in society today.”

Letter to Jomo is an interesting work of creative non-fiction that easily falls into the genre of literary Journalism.

Two-time Ghana Journalist of the Year and former BBC correspondent Kwaku Sakyi-Addo comes up with his verdict on the book: “Outstanding. Delightful. Humorous. Articulate. A brilliant, objective sketch of Ghanaian politics and way of life.”

“With tongue in cheek and whip in hand, the writer of “Letter to Jomo”, packs current situations within half-page spaces “in the Graphic” and drives them by excellent prose to tickle or wallop depending on which side one finds oneself on”, Literary editor and arts writer Nana Banyin Dadson says of the author’s work in an editorial endorsement of the book.

“Not many can present their views clearly and succinctly on paper, much less in a newspaper. To articulate one’s views with such panache and in such an unusual way is rarer still”, Professor Anthony Dadzie, formerly of the Department of English at the University of Ghana, Legon, notes in a forward to “Letter to Jomo.”

Professor Dadzie notes how the author examines “serious and not so serious” social, political, economic, religious etc. problems with such levity that they produce a poignant and humorous effect on their Readers.

“In this, Abugri reminds us of neo-classical scholars like Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson whose satiric mode throws the subject of satire in such a vivid relief that we are left in no doubt as to who is the butt of the satire”

A few randomly quoted paragraphs from the book: On reckless driving in the Ghanaian capital }: “A biggish type, who must be of mixed African, (probably Ghanaian) and Caucasian parentage, goes zooming down one of the loops of the Tetteh Quarshie interchange on one of those huge motor bikes with snarling engines and a seat so fixed as to have the rider’s butt inclined skyward like the backside of a rhino about to defecate.

He is weaving perilously in and out of two parallel streams of motor
traffic with hair-raising abandon, the back of his T-shirt flapping
about wildly in the wind, exposing a “macho” back. It is darned scary,
Jomo, but scarier still, is the fact that the guy has no crash helmet over his skull…”

{On soccer hooliganism in Ghana}: “Once upon a time, the Kaladan Park in Tamale was a grassless pitch which appeared to serve more as an arena for routine violence and hooliganism than a football stadium. An unwritten rule of the place said home teams needed to win if there was to be peace at the end of every match played there.

The match played at Kaladan Park which did not end with cracked skulls and broken bones was the exception. If the referee of a league match at Kaladan did not overlook an infringement by a player of the home team or dared to disallow a goal scored by the host team, then why, the bloke must have taken a fat bribe from the visiting team, and deserved the beating of his life…

I recall going to the Kaladan Park in 1982 to cover a league match which was interrupted by violence on such a scale as to have necessitated the intervention of armed soldiers. There was firing of warning shots and bullets buzzed about like enraged bees.

I scooted for the open spaces at maximum human locomotive speed and vowed never to enter the park to cover a league match again. Not even with a brigade of bazooka-toting sharpshooters for body guards!”

{ On human rights and police brutality}: “I hear the police chased and beat up many protesters in Accra yesterday.”

“What had you expected?” That the police would stand by and let the demonstrator’s burn lorry tyres in the street?”

“The police are routinely callous. I once saw a policeman chasing a man with one leg down a street ...”

“The policeman had one leg?”

“No, no, no ... the chap he was chasing ...”

The book is a good read and should be of great interest to students and teachers of journalism, media researchers, social scientists, politicians and literary artists.