I looked on earnestly at how the bicycles were parked with simple adroitness in a created parking space and I asked myself if they were for sale. I looked on too much till my mind did her usual hobby; reminiscing.


I traveled in my mind's eye to Ghana, my home country and I recollected how the only things I had observed were arranged with same perfect spacing and were obedient to the rule "park it in its rightful place" were items on display for sale such as tins of milk in shops, bars of soap on a counter or boiled eggs and groundnut on a hawker's head.

Those ones I didn't need to be a philosopher to understand that it had passed the impeccable arrangement test so I could look on as a buyer and not turn away untill I had utilised my purchasing power. As for the boiled eggs and groundnut, their arrangement on a steady head and an effortless neck in Ghana was so immaculate you couldn't by pass the walking hawker and not give 1 cedi in exchange of an egg parted and filled with grounded, salted pepper or a handful of groundnut if you hadn't put on self discipline as make-up.

Then I thought if products could be arranged this beautifully to attract sporadic customers, why didn't we park our cars, situate our sign-posts or even put up houses only in designated and permitted areas this beautifully in Ghana.

Your answer is as  correct as mine, situating a sign-post or a house right will not directly put money into my pocket as arranging eggs elegantly will have potential buyers salivating to buy in turns.

In the same vein commercial drivers will say that without being compelled aggressively, they will not park their "trotro" in a designated station obviously because it will not fetch them all the "lazy" travellers who wouldn't walk to the station to board a car but stand right under the "no parking" sign-post.

Of course, we can can be exonerated to an extent because obviously we have paid taxes to the government to implore his legal power and  maintain order and sanity on our roads, and those monies went to the institutions responsible for that task so it is their sole mandate to ensure those good parking spaces as has been given these bicycles in Japan.

If the above facts are true, then I ask again, was it that the responsible institutions in my home country were lazy and didn't perform their roles, took bribes and compromised on their duties or we were simply not law abiding citizens. Answers to all three questions could be affirmative. Even if not all three are perfectly true, at least, the one that says the task force responsible for ensuring sanity take bribes to allow "wrong doing", an Investigative Journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, has confirmed that can be true.

Unlike  the Japanese, whom because of this simple written rule "please put the bicycle in its numbered place" will do, not hesitantly, myself and my Ghanaian family are proudly law breakers.  We break the laws with impudence.

1. We overload a taxi in my village with 7 people where it is inscribed number of persons; 5, then we justify by saying it is the only car that has agreed to ply the deplorable road.

2. We litter on the streets and when a concerned citizen who is not a spectacular questions us, we ask in reply "are the Zoomlion workers not paid with our tax to sweep?

I guess the only laws we keep consciously are the 8am to 4pm open banking hours, obviously because it is the sacred house that keeps our blood of existence - money. If we were law abiding citizens, the green wearing task force members we call "Abayee" will channel their strength elsewhere other than playing hide and seek with traders at Kantamanto, Mallam or Kaneshie markets or even chasing trotro drivers who shouldn't park under the Achimota overhead in Accra for passengers but will rudely disobey and pay fines.

I'm sure if you asked any market trader who didn't have a fixed market shed but had to fend for children through selling what they will call witches or devils, none will blink to say, it is "Abayee". But I ask with my little mind, why should it be so?

1. Are traders too much disobedient? Or

2. The green uniformed AMA or KMA men will be out of work and can't feed their families if they didn't always play hide and seek and chase traders with "koti"? Or

3. My Government is grossly careless and waits  for situations to get out of hand before acting?

I cannot answer truthfully for the first two questions but with the third I am tempted to say YES because of how I have seen the government look on too often as one car parks at a wrong place or even looks on unconcerned how one squatter turns a "sane" environment into a makeshift market.

Then suddenly when the market has grown to have descendants and ancestors with other hawkers also joining to display their wares on a hitherto "sane" pavement, she pulls them down painfully like dreaded labour pains.

Without more words,

1. I will plead with my Ghanaian family to be more law abiding,

2. Institutions enforcing sanity on roads and markets should be aggressively hardworking .

3. Government should not be blind till wrong situations goes overboard and then shout, "I can now see".

May the law abiding spirit of the Japanese that makes them comply to the  "please park the bicycle in its numbered place" rule and the result makes parked bicycles and cars appear they are for sale fall on my Ghanaian family I pray Lord.

(I am the GHANAIAN villager that came to Japan)

Officially known as Afiba Anyanzua Boavo Twum, reach me via email [email protected] or

https://www.facebook.com/AFIBAS.JOURNALS/

#respect and abide by the law

#say no to impudent wrong doing

#keep Abayee out of the hide and seek and chasing traders with koti job, help them channel their energies to more demanding sectors of our economy

# I am the GHANAIAN villager that came to Japan