Emphasis is the use of typographical effects to call attention to text. These effects can include italics, bold, all-caps, quotation marks, colour, and so on. Emphasis attracts the attention of the reader—or “cues” them—to actions they must take or to information they must consider carefully.

Using emphasis creates a mental shortcut, so to speak. This helps to ensure that the information is quick to absorb and sticky, remaining in the mind of the viewer or reader longer than if all elements were given the same weight.

And in this vein, for the sake of emphasis, please permit me to use a joke I have recycled a couple of times.

In these modern times, one could be appalled that some people are still insanely superstitious and attribute any ill luck or misfortune to the doing of witches, and Nana Agyekum, a rich cocoa farmer who lived many years ago at a village in the then-Brong Ahafo Region, was the veriest gullible of all such like-minded people.

The VW Beetle is one of the few vehicles with an engine at the rear. It happened one day that Nana Agyekum, after a very successful cocoa season, bought a VW Beetle car.

In those days, very few people in the whole country were privileged to own cars, and so he decided to visit some friends in a neighbouring village to show off his newly acquired asset, but the car developed a fault halfway through the journey.

He quickly went in front of the car and opened the bonnet in an attempt to check the fault; unfortunately, no engine was found. He thought that some witches had removed the engine in a blink of an eye!

Sweat began to run in rivulets down the sides of his face; his jaw dropped involuntarily, and he spoke in Brong: “Kai, nkrofuo no b3 tu engine no.” (Witches have removed the engine.)

Nana Agyekum waived furiously for the sporadic oncoming vehicles to stop, and because he was quite popular in the area, a couple of drivers with their passengers alighted from their vehicles and went to his aid.

After narrating his story, some enlightened ones among the people, with suppressed laughter, tried to convince the old man that the engines of VW Beetle cars are positioned at the rear, but he wouldn’t listen, so they took Nana to the back of the car and opened the engine compartment.

On seeing the engine, he exclaimed, “Aah, you see, I knew it! These people are wicked and fiendish; after removing the engine from the front, see where they’ve brought it.”

During his May Day speech on May 1, 2024, President Akufo-Addo assured the people of Ghana that the dumsor was over and would never return under his watch. However, the power situation in the country has worsened ever since he made those utterances, and even as I type this article, there is a power outage in my area.

This pronouncement of the President and the worsening power crisis are stymieing the effort of the 2024 flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, to become president of the Republic.

Many people are wondering why the President made that statement when the problem of Dumsor has not been resolved.

And the rumour buzzing around is that perhaps Nana is paying back Bawu for exonerating himself from the messed economy of the country, saying that he is only a driver's mate and not in charge of the affairs of the country even though he is the head of the nation's economic team.

If what these people are thinking is the truth, then Abakade Nana has dismantled Bawumia's engine.