The day Daasebre Dwamena pleaded not guilty for the umpteenth time at the Isleworth crown court, I prayed he knew the difference between a not guilty plea and innocence. Looking at the musician from the gallery, I found it difficult to remember any of his songs, except my little nephew’s way of creating a confusing symphony, by mixing the lyrics of his Kokooko hit with Ofori Amponsah’s Otoolege. The future of an illustrious Ghanaian musician was being decided by an English court; it was not the time to dance to either Kokooko or Otoolege; it was a time for prayer and justice, so that Daasebre will not become an Otoolege when the prosecutor knocks again in the subsequent hearings.
Today, fans and family of Daasebre can dance to any tune, including A.B. Crenstil’s Moses, because Daasebre has paid the piper with courage and a generous measure of his innocent self. Sometimes innocence really means innocence, and in Daasebre’s case, a not guilty plea only falls too short in communicating a person’s genuine innocence. It is painful that it took nearly a year for the English court to agree that the only powdery substance Daasebre would ever use will be the Talcum face powder; he isn’t the kind who would stuff cocaine in his nostrils or be such a devil to sell it to people to kill their brains. He makes money my selling songs; not powder.
A red carpet treatment back home will not be adequately placatory, given the fret and the weariness the ace musician has had to bear for a year behind bars. At least, Amakye Dede’s old song-May it not come true what enemies have thought about you-will do justice for his fans worldwide and his S.D.A family in Ghana. Daasebre is an honest man.
That is exactly what his solicitor said when I interviewed him after his trial at the Isleworth crown court. ‘What are his chances?’ I enquired. The lawyer was emphatic: ‘Given the man that he is, he has bright chances’. ‘The man that he is, what kind of man is he?’ I pressed. ‘The man is honest. I have been talking to him and I know he is honest’ the solicitor humbly submitted. ‘Why has he refused bail and wouldn’t talk to anybody?’ another journalist queried. ‘Well, he doesn’t want to do that’ was his answer.
Did I think Daasebre was honest at the time? I was too frightened to think of anything. Reporting from the courts has never been my speciality. I haven’t got the heart and a disciplined temperament to look at sons and daughters of hardworking parents bearing the brunt of the law. I know the law isn’t much of an ass when you come face to face with it in a law court. I decided not to attend the subsequent hearings of Daasebre’s case after his first trial at the Isleworth crown court. I was shaken when all the eight culprits who were tried that day on substance abuse and distribution charges were jailed. I couldn’t bear to look on when a seventy something year old Nigerian was jailed for some 7 years, for carrying a quantity of cocaine that was nearly a third of what was found on Daasebre. All of them were blacks, mostly Nigerians and Jamaicans. There was a white woman who was jailed together with her rather good looking Jamaican boyfriend. I have stayed out since then. I think Nana Sifa Twum has been doing a brilliant job on the Daasebre trial, from the day of his arrest at Heathrow to his eventual release last week. My experience with drug cases was that once the substance was found on your person, it is usually difficult to talk your way through a favorable decision. It usually defies commonsense to maintain innocence or feign surprise when you are told that your luggage contains a prohibited substance. The position of commonsense, and I believe, the law is that, if you are aware of the contents of your luggage then you must know how the forbidden substance was permitted to enter your bag. And because the forbidden substance is usually concealed and hidden to outwit immigration, it becomes laughable when the owner denies knowledge of the origins of the substance. So I wasn’t surprised when all the eight culprits I met at the court pleaded guilty on that day. The wisdom is that you save yourself a longer sentence if you admitted your crime firsthand.
A not guilty plea is not a rarity in serious cases, including treason and rape. When you genuinely believe you are innocent, and the heavens know that you are, the law will not be such an ass to make nonsense of commonsense. So Daasebre’s consistent not guilty plea was not to be ejected in the same way as we eject the CD when his Kokooko song finishes playing. There is always a reason for a situation. The reason has not been the man himself; somebody had smuggled the substance into Daasebre’s luggage. It would take Daasebre nearly a year in prison custody, which would see him being tried at a magistrate court in Uxbridge and later transferred to a crown court in Isleworth. A jury had been formed; not an all white jury, but one with a reasonable black representation. The legal up and downs were nearly theatrical, but in the end justice has been served.
Any lessons learned? Did we show Daasebre love and support during his incarceration? I had expected a packed Ghanaian audience at the gallery the day I attended the Isleworth crown court. We love his songs if not his Ahoofe face. Instead I met just about four Ghanaians on that occasion, and they were all journalists who were on a news gathering expedition rather than a sympathy mission. It was refreshing to learn later however that, they sincerely wished the musician well. Of course, they had their doubts and fears. His solicitor had told us that the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) had not contacted him or his client about the case. At a point the man must have been forgotten or nearly written off as a greedy person who had wanted to break into the world of dirty millions when he was already doing fine. Such were the comments on a feature I did about Andrew Jonah, rich man Sam Jonah’s son and Daasebre weeks ago. We were quick to condemn because we know they wouldn’t have shared their dirty millions with us if they had succeeded. We would be queuing for trotro while they zoom past in their Jaguars and Porshe luxury cars. ‘It serves them right’ was the tone of the comments.
When Andrew Jonah was jailed for 20 years by a US court for dealing in drugs and money laundering, comments on ghanaweb were particularly depressing. It is surprising how folks manage to find a tribal angle to any opinion expressed on the forum. These are intelligent people who would do a brilliant job if they were ever to write on our current energy crises. And why have all the invectives and the tribal mudslinging on the forum been about Ewes and Ashantis? We are a multiethnic society; the beauty of our differences as Dagaatis, Gas, Kwahus, Akyems, Moosis, Fantes and Mamprusis, play out refreshingly in the defying, surviving spirit of the black man. There are many good writers who have sworn to keep their thoughts in their kitchen cupboards than share them on this very useful forum. One of such writers, who has persistently refused to co-author a feature with me or do a solo, tells me she admires the courage and the ‘do it all the same’ attitude of prolific columnist Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe. She wouldn’t survive the insults, especially the ones written in Twi. They bite the hardest, because they are written very well, often describing certain mentally unaffordable images in terrible detail, as if Satan was not better off being the devil we know he is.
What perhaps, we should know is that it is not the same on the Nigerian webforums that I have had the chance to visit. There isn’t a cyber war between Yurobas and Ibos. Check the websites of other countries in the ECOWAS sub-region. As Ghana centred as it is, the Ghanaweb forum has a reasonable non Ghanaian representation at any time, who also read and form their impressions on who are as a country. A very decent talking and respectable Irish writer, Catherine Jennings, is a regular on this forum. Her thoughts on the comments are not particularly encouraging. Ghana is all we have.
Thankfully, we have Daasebre too. The last time I checked the story on his court victory had received some 267 comments from fans and enemies, and those who do not belong to neither of the two: the tribal confederacy. These are also our lovely brothers and sisters. We hope they join the mainstream soon.
It is almost a custom that fallen heroes usually have a story to tell when they rise up. When a peer of the English House of Lords, bestselling author Jeffrey Archer, was imprisoned for perjury, he spent the time writing the Prison Diary, another bestseller which made him couple of millions. We don’t know if Daasebre had been writing any songs during the one year that he was unjustifiably kept in a London prison. Fans reckon he would do a massive comeback hit; something in line with Abrantee Amakye Dede’s Let it not come true what enemies have wished: Ma yenfa nto wo so, na mma no nye ho.
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