As many Ghanaians spent the Christmas in joy, a 28-year-old woman, Mrs Vera Sampong, spent the season in sorrow; courtesy one of the mobile phone operators (name withheld) in the country.
Vera, who lives at Darkuman, a suburb of Accra, said her husband for only two-and-half years had threatened to divorce her if she failed to tell where she spent December 24 and December 25, 2006 nights.
The husband (name withheld) who lives in Canada had gone ahead to lodge a formal complaint with Vera?s parents to talk to their daughter to confess her sins else she would face the consequences of his wrath.
Narrating her predicament to the Mirror last Monday, Vera said her husband called her in the morning on Saturday, December 24, 2005 and promised to call again in the evening on the same day.
In tears, she said she waited till very late in the night before going to bed but no call came. Vera said she had wanted to call her husband when he failed to call but she had no credit units in her phone and was afraid to go out to purchase some, since it was already late.
She stated that she slept feeling very angry with her husband for disappointing her and even suspected him of spending the Christmas with another woman hence his failure to fulfil his promise to call.
?I waited again the following evening thinking that he would call. Again, my husband failed to call me that night,? she spoke in tears.
Vera said she was still in bed on Tuesday around 5.30 am, when her mother-in-law came to her house in anger to demand where she spent the nights on the previous Saturday and Sunday, since her phone was ?either switched off or out of coverage area? on both nights.
The lady said her mother-in-law looked straight in her eyes and accused her that she did not sleep at home and that was why she put off her phone.
She said she checked her phone to find out whether it had mistakenly been switched off only to realise that there was a problem with the network.
?When I tried to make a call with my phone, it indicated that there was no network coverage and it was then that I realised where the problem was,? she lamented.
Vera said two other tenants who heard the elderly woman?s angry words came out to find out what was happening and said they have also been experiencing problems with that mobile network for the past two weeks.
She said she tried to explain to her mother-in-law, but the woman left with the statement that if she had anything to say she had better explain it to her husband.
At the time that she spoke to this reporter, Vera said she had tried more than 10 times to contact her husband but any time the man heard her voice, he hung the phone on her.
?I am so desperate, I don?t know what to do at the moment. My marriage is being threatened,? she stated in tears. Though Vera?s case is very pathetic, she was not the only person who had some complaints to make about the network within the past four weeks or more.
A random survey conducted by this reporter indicated that almost every subscriber of that company had some form of problem with the network coverage, especially during the Christmas holidays.
A reporter at the Daily Graphic said on Monday that text messages she sent to loved ones a day earlier had not as yet been delivered.
