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By Isaac Ato MENSAH
Akyem Dompim – 4 March, 2019
A researcher is required to be impartial in his investigation, even if (s)he is a participant observer in a qualitative study.
But in Akyem Dompim, I broke down; my hands became weak, I could not write nor ask any further questions; I just sat there for about 10-minute intervals several times.
A simple close-ended question brought up issues that got me thinking so many things.
‘Oye awereho,’ to wit, ‘it is sad’, was how a man and his wife ended their narratives.
‘I have a small cocoa farm and a taxi which has broken down,’ said a resident of Akyem Dompim. ‘I need 600 Cedis [USD$100] to fix it so that the driver can go back to work.’
I just sat there, mentally beaten, without the physical energy to ask further questions. After about the seventh question out of 33, everything in the questionnaire sounded stupid to me; I knew the answers already; I could see the squalor for myself.
His wife does the farming with him. I was shocked by the small harvest of cocoa beans they had dried in the sun. They just sat there, doing nothing except drying those few beans.
I remembered Akufo-Addo using the words ‘living in squalor……….deprivation……hewers of wood and drawers of water’ in 2008 and 2012 during his presidential campaign.
A provision shop owner had the same message: ‘Oye awereho’ – it is sad.
And here I was, sitting in front of his ‘very own’, and hearing from his own clansmen and clanswomen in Akyem Twi.
‘Politicians are very deceptive, they only think about themselves, we don’t trust any of them, each one for himself……,’ were the common ones.
Often I just sat there, long after the respondent had finished speaking; doing virtually nothing but thinking, until one of my team members shouted from nowhere ‘Ato w’awie’, to wit, ‘Ato have you finished’, before I became alerted to my target for the day.
Respondents willingly gave me permission to photograph them, hoping someone will read about their story and understand that their message is: ‘Come to Macedonia and help us’.
The shop owner told me of a public toilet being built by a gold mining company as its corporate social responsibility.
I had enquired from him because I had been told by other respondents that Akyem Dompim residents ‘sh*t’ in the bush.
‘The mining company has been building this simple public toilet for two years now,’ he sighed. ‘Go and see it for yourself. Oye awereho.’
I went alone, there being no resident ready to accompany me.
Fortunately, I met two children on their way from their farm. And I took a photo of them in front of that toilet – no invention of news – right on the spot.
The girl is a Senior High School second year student in another town. Thanks to the Double Track secondary schooling system, she has had to stay at home for several months.
On the day I met her, it was her lot to go and uproot cocoyam from her mother’s farm.
Being new to the terrain, she had asked her younger brother to show her the route.
As we walked and talked since the load was heavy, she told me living in Dompim was ‘hopeless’.
At her home, she had plain insults for her twin brother when he told me he was ‘cool’ living in Dompim.
‘Even to make a phone call you have to stand on a hill,’ she chided him.
As for the Larbikrom posse, their message was simple: ‘We know you have been sent by the government. Go and tell Honourable Amoako-Atta that in 2020 he shouldn’t step here to campaign’.
The Larbikrom youth I met on a rainy day numbered 13 men with one lady visitor among them – how Biblical!
The eldest among them who later joined our car to Kyebi, accused them of farming in the Atewa Range Protected Forest Reserve.
They admitted it, they denied it and they laughed about it – all at the same time.
‘We have planted 5000 trees in the forest,’ they defended their work as forest guards.
They spoke frankly and joked about how they expected to lose their relatively new jobs if the current administration loses the 2020 election and accused their MP who is the minister for roads of not tarring the only road that passes through Larbikrom.
The heavy downpour aided a long conversation. When the rains had subsided our meeting was ended by the sound of a truck carrying suspected illegal wood from the forest.
The young men rushed out and started waving and shouting for the driver to stop but he was gone.
‘This is very common here,’ said their leader as he joined our ride through the forest fringes back to Kyebi. ‘If you don’t have a gun, how can you confront these armed illegal chainsaw operators?’
That night’s Focus Group Discussion in Apapam was equally revealing.
We were hosted in the palace of the Apapamhene, the traditional forces commander of Akyem Abuakwa.
The same theme of lack of trust for kinsmen whom they now consider ‘pure politicians’ and no longer feel any family connection to, was present here too.
‘Even when we ask for scholarships for our children, they won’t mind us but the appointee in charge of government scholarships is from this town,’ said one participant. ‘Look at us; we can’t do this kind of farming forever. We need scholarships for our children.’
One participant used the occasion to tell us that Kɔkɔkyea was worse.
As a local traditional leader, he had gone to Kɔkɔkyea (transliterated “Go and greet”) in the neighbouring Suhum area as part of his traditional chieftaincy duties, even though the place is not within his jurisdiction.
‘There is no schooling in Kɔkɔkyea, no car goes into the village,’ the chief narrated. ‘It is even risky to enter with your car. If something happens to you there you can’t escape.’
‘They can even kill you if you’re mistaken for an imposter,’ he continued. ‘Only tractors should go there. Nobody should even live in that town. Schooling is out. We saw the children in the town. We were surprised. Even if you give a teacher 100 million [Cedis] he won’t go.’
The consensus to enter the Atewa Forest despite its protected status was emphatic.
‘We live in the forest. Just like the Ga catch fish in the ocean and eat, we also go there. We catch bushmeat in there, we grow cocoyam in there,’ stated a participant. ‘You can’t even hire a by-day labourer for 20 Cedis [USD4]. ‘They all go into the forest.’
On 1 March, 2019, president Akufo-Addo commissioned the board of directors of the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation at the Jubilee House in Accra, showing clearly his determination to go ahead to mine bauxite in the Atewa Range Protected Forest Reserve, despite protests.
Significantly, the board had as member, the Okyenhemaa, the queen (or is it queenmother?) of Akyem Abuakwa.
My friend Engineer Ofori-Addo has since loved my quip from the trip.
‘Ato, ese Okyenhen ose den,’ he will mock, demanding a Fante rendition of the Okyenhene’s position on the matter as per DM Ofori-Atta, spokesperson to the king and secretary to the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Council.
‘Okyenhen, ose onkasa biom,’ I will repeat in all seriousness, to wit, ‘The king says he won’t talk about this bauxite mining matter again’.
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