...Of Condoms, thrusts and trust

“It’s smooooth, sleeeek, suave, sexy, erotic, spicy…” and the voice trailed off even before the words could get my attention. Then I heard one of Barry White’s baritoned collections playing slowly at the background. The tune was unknown to me but I couldn’t be bothered, I was just hoping I could catch the last part of the advert playing on the radio. Before I knew it, the raspy voice had come up again to finish the radio commercial by saying “use Golden Lily condoms for guaranteed satisfaction. Golden Lily! For smooooth thrusting”.

I was wowed and all I could do was shake my head and smile at the advert that had just played on the radio. I have been within the listening radius of that radio for the past two hours but until the condoms advert played, I realized I had been oblivious of its existence all this while, let alone the proximity. I wanted to retrospect and find out what was actually occupying my thoughts all these while but I was more occupied with how this particular advert got my attention. 

It wasn’t far-fetched. Society has programmed some words or symbols to provoke our thoughts or invoke our attention that is why the least attentive person would turn his neck to look at the person who said “vagina”, “virgin”, “sex”, “rape”, “kiss” and not give a damn at the mention of a “pencil” “lion” and what have you.

I started pondering over the advert, with regards to the audacity in the man’s voice and the fact that it was playing on primetime radio. I shook my head again and gave up with a shrug, borne out of fear and pity rather than carelessness for our society. Whatever or whoever Society is, must be a strong entity with a character of its own, non-conforming to anyone’s thoughts or compromising with anyone. It only imposes changes, dictates and bullies one into submission.

If you happen to be living in the 21^st century, specifically the last twenty years or even more, then you must be privy to all the antics and stunts the century has had to offer us and it’s potential to carry us on. We have been bombarded with influx of innovations and the supposed right way forward. The introduction and what those innovative entries seek to do, only leave one with awe and other times, disappointment. Some of these innovations have manifest and latent motives and sooner or later, they tend to fulfill their purposes for which they were manufactured.

Latex condoms among other acclaimed panaceas were introduced into the market to help relieve people of their after-thoughts and burden that characterizes sex and its related consequences such as Sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, and that was how the world of sex changed.

Hitherto the introduction of Condoms, sex has been prevalent among the people but it was not this apparent. People were afraid to have sex for the fear of contracting all kinds of sexually transmitted diseases or for the fear of getting pregnant. People only want to have sex devoid of strings or anything that will make them revisit that sex session. They want to be done and gone without traces or hindrances. We now live in a world of fast cars, fast business transactions; fast internet speeds, fast foods and sex of all pervasive activities had to come along. Who wants to wait till another month to ascertain her pregnancy status anyway?

The Condom also made it easier for wives to cheat on their husbands knowing that they won’t become pregnant for another man which is an abomination though. The patronage perhaps went high, so it became a brisk business for those who would exploit the ignorance of man just to build an empire. Different types were then introduced to the market and they came in different colours, durability, flavour and spice hence the scrambling for airtime and patronage.

Fast forwarded to now, the condoms have become obsolete to most active sex couples. They will have unprotected sex because they don’t see why they should be eating a candy in a rubber and it is as simple as that! You would have thought that the rampant sex sessions and with multiple sex partners were all due to the availability of condoms, but the introduction of all these emergency contraceptives and morning-after pills eroded that notion. All they had to do is have unprotected sex and lots of it, then take a pill in the next 72 hours depending on which type and its efficacy.

The condom is supposed to protect you from pregnancy and contracting of STD’s even though it isn’t foolproof but the people totally gave up on condoms when the Postinor and its cohorts were introduced. Most people engaged in active but casual sex do not care about how many people or whom their sexual partners have slept with; they will go to bed with you unprotected without a flicker of a regretful thought. 

It is even interesting to note that one of the ways to go to bed with people without they questioning your unfaithfulness and sex crazed life is to be nice and open to your potential sex partner. Familiarity alone makes people feel safe with their sexual partners to the extent that, they feel free to have raw and unprotected sex with them. For some men, as soon as the lady comes home to cook for them or wash a couple of their clothes, it means they are trustworthy and can be thrust just like that.

What is the correlation between trust and STD’s that, just trusting someone cleanses the person of the tendency or the person’s ability to be living with one kind of disease? Sometimes, the air of friendship between the couple even makes them shy away from reminding each other that if it’s not on, it’s not in. we also have those who equate the lady’s beauty or the man’s handsomeness to their health status. They don’t see why a beautiful girl from a good home should even be carrying a virus. And for others, they will have protected sex for about three times and then switch to unprotected sex because they both have passed the longevity and the commitment test. 

Fact that you have grown to like someone or trust them does not mean that, they also trust you, it does not also mean that you are possibly the only sexual partner they thrust and the tendency for your partner’s partner to have another partner who has another partner is so probable that you can’t leave anything to chance. Good old abstinence is still the right way to go but if you feel like having some thrust, do not let trust or familiarity erode your senses, go for some good suave, sexy and smooooth condoms.

Such Complications!!

I keep wondering why it is often said that biblical advancements and submissions are not accepted in academia or intellectual discourses. I like to think of it as politics of convenience and rightfully so, because if all the other areas of study, which is an assemblage of information but probably empirical as they like to say or make us believe, why can’t the information from the Bible be used?

If the Bible which also happens to be the most printed and widely read book in the whole wide world is not qualified to be engaged in any debates, why then is Theology studied in Schools like the other subjects that they deem qualified? Who justified their inclusion anyway?  Some Board perhaps.

I know people will be quick to say, the Bible is to Christians as the Quran is to the Muslims, so what happens to someone who does not share in the Christian faith? Must you share in a faith to know the Truth? Must I necessarily be a Muslim to at least understand that ablution before prayer is in order and makes sense?

We have imposed so many beliefs on ourselves just to suit our rebellious egos and I guess the repercussions are clear for all to see. According to the creation story which is only recorded by the Bible and no other area of study nor the Thesaurus and all the Encyclopedias we have around, and in no uncertain terms, man was believed to have rebelled against his maker, God, ably initiated, directed and overseen by man’s helper, Eve, and till today, the daughters of Eve have ensured that, the Sons of Adam will not know peace.

Having committed that atrocious sin which is believed to have set the tone, God punished all of them accordingly; each according to his or her capacity and the role they played in the Eden gate scandal. The Bible explicitly recorded their punishments in Genesis 3:6 to the woman that “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband’ and he shall rule over you’’ (KJV) and in Verses 17-19, it stated to man that “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your lie. Both thorns and thistle it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return’.

If most of us believe in the creation story, then it is just right to believe in their punishments too, but once again, Eve, the torchbearer is making it difficult for man to have a breather. She has twisted the arms of the man and taking him on another endless folly trip which probably might warrant them another grave punishment. 

Man to a very large extent is serving his punishment by toiling and eating the herb of the field. Man is still eating bread till he returns to the ground; despite Jesus’ admonishment that he shall not live by bread alone and in most cases they even matures into automatic bread winners. Man was supposed to toil before he eats for the rest of his life, to which he carries out daily without hesitation even though some of them grumble.

A woman’s desire as embedded in her punishment was to be that of his husband and overruled by her husband but things have changed drastically and once again, women have shown God that, they can’t be tied down to His punishment. They can’t be kowtowed by his dictates and will do as they want. Women’s desires are no longer that of their husbands, they have taken the law into their own hands and are competing with the men, even in toiling the land. Eh!

Women have rendered so many men jobless because they have taken the vacant slots that were supposed to have absorbed the men. They rather become the breadwinners while the men stay at home and in some cases, they even refer to the men as lazy, irresponsible and uninspiring. Hmm! As to how the men feel when they are seated at home, while the women become the breadwinners, we shall leave it now to revisit later.

Women can advance so many theories and justifications to draw empathy to themselves and make a man feel so wicked for treating them unequally when it is their own doing. They were the ones who led the men into trouble which has warranted them the life they ought to have had but they are the first to yell on top of their distressed voices. 

Women are actually in competition with men, regardless of the fact that they were supposed to be serving different punishments and its related consequences. Some of the notable points they readily project are, they have been relegated in decision making processes for far too long and it was time they were included or were given the mandate to actually oversee the men. Some of them will do anything to actually make the men's desire, theirs. Some have made baby-sitters out of men, leaving helpless babies as three months old in the care of a man, just because they have to go and toil which should actually be done by the latter. I can bet my last writing ink that, some women would actually do anything to see men take over conception and the multiplied pain that characterizes labor and i'm even sure some bunch of men and women are locked up somewhere in a laboratory trying to make it possible for men to start delivering babies, to end it all.

Why are these daughters of Eve complicating life for all of us? Why are these women arrogating all these roles or a punishment which was supposed to be a man’s preserve? They even tout with chic, their prowess when they say “what men can do, women can do it better” which they coined from their 1985 Beijing Conference in China, not to talk about their trump card “Times have changed”. 

Hello, can somebody out there read me? Please tell somebody to tell somebody that they should change the texts in the Bible already, because times have changed? Many books have undergone revision and some have even been scraped out of the system because they have become obsolete and irrelevant with the times, but the Bible has stood the test of time and has seen no such revisions, so who is downplaying its importance and always relegating it to the background when it comes to deliberating on what the TRUTH should be? Someone or a group of persons must be playing some kind of mind games with us and who is dictating the pace and what we should do at which time? 

This hijacking of role and to be equal to men has made life complicated for many a people or us, as a generation. Some men cannot marry some women simply because the women are in some professional occupations that are not socially accepted. If only the women will tell you the number of men they desire on daily basis but hold themselves in check because of many trivial reasons, then you would know what I’m talking about. In some instances, it even bars communication between two potential couples because a woman of her caliber could simply not stoop low to be seen chatting or hanging out with a man of her dreams.

An acquaintance of mine, @Swayekidd, whose thought inspired me to write this piece, is of the opinion that women have successfully made nonsense of God’s curse or punishment and it is just right for them to help alleviate the woes of the men, but are they not aggravating our situation more than they are helping, and in any case, are they done serving their arduous and sacrificial task of labouring for nine months? Infact the women should live and let’s live!

Caught up in Court!

It was six o’clock on a harmattan morning and the Courtroom was packed and bursting at its seams for a nine o’clock sitting. All the old but polished pews had all been occupied by party big whips and their Counsels. Everybody was busily consulting the other, twitching their necks every other second, as if on cue. Some seemed clueless and it appears some did not even know why they were there. 

Others also felt it was a sheer waste of priority because they were losing out elsewhere, but in the name of Party, they had to sit tight and cheer on as if proceedings were actually about them. Some were also feeling all-important as if they were the Judge in-wait. Men and women from both divides wore defiant looks as if they were about to sign the pact that will see the Armageddon war begin.

People from all walks of life; men and women representing the local and International, International and organized observers from some parts of the Country wearing their tags that gave them accreditation and concession than the average person.  A session of the Judiciary with their wigs and black cloaks, notable citizens of our dear nation and party faithfuls spotting party colors to show their allegiance and solidarity were all represented. The court house was charged with murmurings and near shouts from the tensed and belligerent crowd.

Sweats freely broke on the faces of the overwhelming crowd which had even rendered the old air-conditioners in the court room useless. The atmosphere was stale as people practically clung on the wooden frames that marked the window openings of the hall. They peered through the thick mass of persons that seemingly looked dumped there. The ones with good heights were readily at an advantage because with a little tweaking of their necks, they could have a pigeon view of the court room. Prudence advised some of the short ones to withdraw from the crowd around the windows to join the pockets of crowds in the court yard all through and across the major streets.

The day in perspective was supposed to be the opening of a lawsuit that has the biggest opposition party petitioning the Supreme Court to challenge the results of the recently held elections that had the EC’s Boss declaring the newly sworn-in President as the president-elect, at the time of filing their petition. 

As proclaimed by some prominent social commentators, law professors and Political scientists, the lawsuit was necessary to address the irregularities that clouted the electioneering exercise, where some EC officials were alleged to have condoned and connived with members of the ruling party to over-turn the mandate of the good people of Ghana. According to the complainants, ensuring that these anomalies were addressed in the highest Law Courts of our lands will deepen our democratic principles and credentials. They also posited that it will be a lesson for all and sundry to learn and until that fateful morning, nothing had mattered to any Ghanaian more than the slated date for the case opening.

For once, I didn’t know why I was there but the answer was illuminated even before I actually gave it a thought. I was a citizen of the nation and wanted a first-hand following of the case to avoid Ghanaians’ yese yese. If you are going to listen to someone here in Ghana narrate to you any political activity, then, you might as well ask the fellow to arrange a meeting between you and leaders of the ET Community.

Everybody belongs to one party or the other; be it a card-bearing member or just a sympathizer or up a higher notch, a descent of the party. You were bound to be handy with ten different accounts from the same event from ten different eye-witnesses, and that is how biased and opinionated the Ghanaian is.

So with the revised motivation, I decided to get ready for all these legal battles when it gets started in the next hour and forty minutes. A look at my watch and it was 7:20 a.m. Time to grab something since I had been awake for the past four hours. There were lots of proactive business people in the name of sellers who have taken advantage of the popularity of the case and had pitched their tents in the perimeters of the court. I was torn between taking Hausa koko and koose or Waakye, even though I couldn’t resist all the juicy bofrots around. 

I finally settled for Waakye and quickly found myself seated by some three Gentlemen who were eating their waakye amidst argument. I settled beside one of them and started eavesdropping, not out of incivility but because I did not have any option and the following is what ensued. I didn’t know their names but for the benefit of my reportage, I will name them appropriately to give you a visual image of who they could be likened to.

Adjingo: I can’t wait for the case to start o

Azaay: Me too

Adjingo: it won’t be easy at all

John: who says? Do you think NPP people have substantial evidence to nullify the results?

Azaay: Those NPP gurus, they are capable of everything o

John: But NDC too is not easy o

Adjingo: Herh, it won’t be easy at all

John: this whole thing baffles me. Is it even possible that the EC can rig the results for a party?

Azaay: why not, but what I don’t understand is where the NPP people were at that time?

Adjingo: Hmm, this whole thing won’t be easy at all

Azaay: that’s why I don’t trust Politicians; they have means of getting anything they want

John: you can’t even tell who is telling the truth

Adjingo: But how can NPP be telling the truth if NDC’s records tallies with that of the EC and other independent bodies that observed the Elections and even the media?

Azaay: I say these politicians are capable of everything. Who knows if the incumbent was in bed with all the aforementioned bodies?

Adjingo: But isn’t that laughable? They could possibly be in bed with everyone but the media.

John: So what will happen if the result that favored NDC turns out to be false?

Azaay: That is what most people are skeptical of because it would be very, very unprecedented.

John: Do you think JM will relinquish the seat in the event that the verdict is changed by the Court?

Azaay: But I hear the NPP legal team has one of the best legal brains in the Country o

John: But how can you win a case without substantial evidence even if you were adjudged the best lawyer?

Azaay: And how would you know if their evidence is valid or not

Adjingo: hmm, Interesting times are here and Democracy is in trouble….

I was almost carried away by the conversation between the three men until I was disrupted by a call I was not going to pick anyway. The whole environment was immersed in one big furore and most of the people present were lost in the euphoria but my eating mates couldn’t be bothered at all. They were cross-examining the case at hand at a public court of opinions like anyone else around the premises and those at home. I quickly emptied my bowl of waakye to rejoin the crowd just in time to witness the immaculate Judge of the August house hit the desk with his gavel and with a stern face, as he bellowed Order! Order! Order! to officially announce his presence and to mark proceedings of the millennium case.

Public Holidays

I woke up not feeling too well because my projected plan for today, Monday the 7^th of January, 2013 has backfired and I needed to go out to hustle. I found myself bickering with and cussing the ministry of Interior for not declaring today and also being Monday, a public holiday.

One would have expected that a national event of this magnitude should be given the prominence it deserved but it never turned out so. I had to backtrack to find out if the previous ones were declared as such but I could not find anything in my medulla oblongata and I was not ready to consult our modern oracle; Google. Thus I had to resort to the fact that, the 7^th of January, 2013, the day the fourth President of the fourth republic of our dear nation, Ghana, was sworn into office was not a public holiday and business activities were as brisk as before.

I know many people felt bad about the fact that, they will have to wade through the traffic jams that characterizes Monday mornings and a typical national event day such as the swearing-in of the President-elect, John Dramani Mahama, but they had no choice than to do the usual; wake up and join the bandwagon who are poised to the nation building mantra or agenda.

I was grumbling through my meditation until it dawned on me why I was feeling so down about the Ministry’s inability to declare such a day as a holiday and I know most people felt the same way too.

We’ve had issues with public holiday’s in Ghana to the extent that, it is convenient to say the average Ghanaian is lazy, as if he arrogates the holidays to himself. The Ghanaian like any other responsible citizen only carries out the instructions as directed by the institutions that have been mandated to oversee when we should take a break from our monotonous routine, mostly to observe an important landmark in the history of the nation and now I guess the complaining is sinking in with the powers that be and so they are making their presence felt.

The Ghanaian is not lazy as depicted by their religious observance of the Public holidays. Ghanaians are hard working folks who can be found in any part of the world where the sun shines. A Ghanaian will not take his over-time for child’s play since it fetches him more income than the prime nine-to-five and would even trip to the work side on weekends at the detriment of his alternative social lifestyles or meetings, so whoever thinks otherwise should revise their notes.

The Ghanaian only craves for public holidays because they feel cheated out and it is only one of the ways and days they can sit back at home or dedicate some time to their chores and personal stuffs. The leaders of the land takes the average Ghanaian for granted, makes him work without pay or where their rights are respected, they get exploited by being under-remunerated.

Ghana is where it is as a result of leadership problems and not as a result of the numerous holidays the Ghanaian enjoys. We need leaders with drives in all facets of the building process and a need for accomplishment but not necessarily being over-zealous. Good supervision can help curb down the employer’s time and resources the employee uses to browse the internet all day and time spent on make-ups can be reduced to a very insignificant time and our production and development can accelerate at an astronomical rate.

With all these factors in check, the average Ghanaian can sit at home and watch the first Gentleman of the nation sworn-in, thus giving the day and event a national dimension rather than packing the Independence Square with a selected number of people and ninety percent of party foot-soldiers and the rest, unemployed, while the other section of Ghanaians buried in their work and catching glimpses on TV and hearing commentary from the various Radio stations as if they are not Ghanaians or have nothing to do with the President’s inauguration.

I plead with the powers that be to enforce measures that can enhance productivity so that the ministry of Interior can declare such days as holidays because another twenty-four hours of cozying in bed will not harm mother Ghana and yes, little children want to play.