By George Sydney Abugri

One, two, three, heave-ho! Let the loudest headlines begin to roll: “Sakawa Man turns into cat.” Holy Moses! What kind of news headline is that? I am not the one who wrote it, Jomo. It was all over the news last weekend.

In case you have just breezed into town, Sakawa has a rather broad and generalized meaning, but covers spooky activities many young people engage in with the forces of darkness with one express goal: To get immensely rich all of a sudden, and without so much a lifting a finger in name of productive labour.

Unless it is the case that the source of their wealth is organized and violent crime, the Sakawa thing must be working for some youth, who these days, suddenly become wealthy enough to drive around in expensive four-wheel drive motor cars, own expensively furnished houses and apartments and literally live the life.

The not-so-good news it has been reported, is that the forces of darkness routinely demand something in return and this usually takes the form of a command to engage in activities that may range from the criminal to the weird and bizarre.

The activities may range from walking on your head in a muddy gutter full of snakes and frogs through sleeping in a coffins to having sex with corpses, and even murder. Once the magician has fulfilled his part of the contract, the punishment for disobedience or non-compliance on the part of the beneficiary with regard to subsequent demands can be severe or so the story goes: The defaulting beneficiary could turn into anything from a fowl to a goat or as it has been alleged in this story, a cat.

In the case of the Cat Man or so the tale continues, he did not even progress beyond the first stage of the rituals. He and two other who had gone to a magician and asked him to make them instantly wealthy, were asked by the man to take turns sleeping in a coffin. The first two went through the ritual without a hitch. It comes to the turn of the third chap. He goes to sleep in the coffin but fails to come out for days.

The coffin is opened and Mighty Elijah, there is only pussy going meow. In the meantime, the magician is suddenly nowhere in evidence.

Cat meat is a great delicacy with some folks in Ghana, and you can only hope that if one of the strange news stories in Ghana last weekend is indeed true, the poor cat does not end up in someone’s cooking pot. That of course, is another way of saying this sounds like an abduction story or worse. Next headline please.

“District Chief Executive stops Kennedy Agyepong.” The DCE of Assin North insists on being the one to commission a new market complex the MP for Assin North has planned to commission. It was MP Agyepong who funded the market project with money from his allocation of the Common Fund for the development of constituencies, see? So he wants to be the one to commission it.

The defiant DCE on the other hand, says no way: The question of who funded the project does not arise. The new market having been built with public funds is now under the authority and management of the District Assembly and the Assembly it is, that must commission it.

Well? Well, does this DCE not know the mighty, all-powerful, fearless and untouchable gladiator of a legislator? The man will bite off his head in round one, wait and see…

“Members of Parliament need police protection-MP.” That may well be true, but what about the rest of us, buddy? Those who voted you to Parliament are under siege. Armed robbery and other violent crimes are expected to increase progressively at the rate of 20 percent a year and that estimate I gather, is a conservative one!

On the basis of these projections, the MP might have a fair idea about what needs to be done by Parliament to rein in the alarming statistics.

Two-and-a half out of every three Ghanaians have either been victims of armed robbery or been in very close proximity with one or several of them.
Ordinary citizens, Ministers of State, Members of Parliament, leading political figures, leading clergymen, diplomats, medical doctors, businessmen, celebrities, students etc. have all been victims of armed robberies.

Banks, shops, homes, supermarkets, petroleum dispensing stations, boutiques forex bureau etc. have been under attack by robbers.

This MP should help make laws that will ensure the safety and security of all and sundry and not just MPs. That is what we should tell him, Jomo.