'One Corner' dance is demonic - Deputy Attorney General

A Deputy Attorney General and lawmaker for Tempane, Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, has disapproved of ‘One Corner Dance’ in very strong terms, saying it is a “demonic” invention destructive enough to derail Ghana’s future.

The popular dance move, in which the dancer withdraws ‘deliriously’ to an open corner and clings to anything or anybody whilst rigorously thrusting the hip back and forth as though performing sexual intercourse, has spread infectiously in recent months from its origin in Ghana even beyond the populous shores of Africa.

Mr. Kpemka, a celebrated legal expert, is the latest to condemn the dance craze after famous actress Grace Omaboe, known in the theatre as Maame Dokono, only three days ago slammed the artistic creation as “a bad influence” only fit for the wastebasket.

Thirteen students at the Islamic Senior High School (ISSEC) in the Ashanti region were hauled over the coals for gyrating to “One Corner” song inside a classroom in the October of the just-ended year. The same month saw two teenagers in the Brong Ahafo region, doing the dance together on a moving motorcycle, killed in a sharp-curve crash with another motorist. A young woman with an alleged history of seizure disorders was also reported in 2017 to have died in the Central region whilst twirling to the “One Corner” jingle.

“It is a demonic dance,” moaned the Deputy Attorney General. “I have watched several videos in which children engage in this dance in a manner as to tell me that the future is bleak for us. And I’m saying this because the young ones are easily influenced by some of these things. Especially when it happens in the night— they engage in all sorts of vices that are detrimental to their growth and progress”.

He put this concern across when he undertook a donation tour of his constituency where he offered two motorcycles apiece to the Tempane Health Centre and the Kpikpira Health Centre, a motorised tricycle to the Tempane Senior High School and five exercise books to every child in all 22 Junior High Schools in the constituency.

MP prescribes cure for “One Corner” fever

The legislator, speaking to journalists after the tour, also disclosed his intention to come down hard on “One Corner” dance in his constituency.

“As MP, I intend to liaise with my DCE (District Chief Executive) and the chiefs so that we institute some byelaws in the assembly to check these excesses and to make sure that our children are well moulded. We cannot in the name of human rights allow our culture to deteriorate and allow society to go into such vices that would be a nuisance to us in future in the name of human rights.

“There is a limit to every right that is exercised under the sun. There is no right that is without limit. Every privilege goes with a responsibility and we will make sure that we use the traditional authorities, assembly members as well as opinion leaders to ensure that such things do not happen in our area,” he said.

He added that the Kusaug Kingdom, which covers all the present-day six constituencies and five assemblies in the Bawku Traditional Area, already had imposed a ban on involvement of young people in late-night entertainment at funerals, known also as “spinning”.

“In the six Kusaug constituencies, spinning at funerals has been banned. Strictly speaking, it’s not allowed because of the history of how it affected the children’s education and how it also ate into our culture,” the policymaker stated.



Dep. AG Promises Gh¢1,000 Scholarships for 20 Students

The Deputy Attorney General also told a Ghana Education Service (GES) delegation, who accompanied him on the day-long tour, to hand him a list of twenty pupils with first-rate results from yet-to-be-written 2018 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for a scholarship package of Gh¢1,000 each.

“Director (referring to the Garu-Tempane District Director of Education, Edward Azure), I would like this one on record. Apart from the fact that the Free Senior High School Policy is there for all of them, we would like you to also give us the best twenty students from the Tempane Constituency in the 2018 BECE and each of them will be given Gh¢1,000 to go to school.

“What it means is that those students would need nothing from their parents and they will take their Gh¢1,000 and go to school. The idea is to increase it to 40 beneficiaries in 2019 to see how we can assist the brilliant ones to realise their potential,” announced the Deputy Minister for Justice who also promised to provide every candidate for this year’s BECE with a set of mathematical instruments (maths set).

He added as a crowd of constituents clapped thunderously: “The days of political promises are over. Those days— when people would come and deceive you, you would clap for them, they would go and they would not come back— are over! Those days have died and they have been buried and their funerals have been performed!”