...And Ghanaians wept!

- The sad story of the conjoined twins

By Solomon Mensah

The successful separation of the JOY FM’s conjoined twins by the Doctors of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) brought smiles on the faces of most Ghanaians. If there had been a story I have followed keenly this early days of 2013, I think it is this particular story JOY News’ Seth Kwame Boateng put together in a documentary.

From the moment we were told by Kojo Oppong Nkrumah that the said surgical operation was to take off, I never ceased praying. On Facebook, I urged my friends to help me pray for the lives of the kids. So it was not surprising when I celebrated with high spirit when the operation saw the kids separated at last. I must cease this opportunity to say ‘nagoode’ to the seventeen doctors who helped in the operation.

However, some hours after the successful operation, as curious as I were about the happenings surrounding the kids, I kept logging on to www.myjoyonline.com every one hour only to read at one point that one of them had passed on. What? Yeah, Gift as she was named was gone. Heartbreaking! When Gift left, I could imagine Itswell (the other’s name) telling herself that “It is well with my soul. Fare thee well my sister.”

If you have ever watched a suspense filled movie, what happened of the twins would not be something new to you. The next day after the death of Gift, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah on his Super Morning Show spoke to the reporter who brought us the plight of these kids. Listening to him, I needed not to be told that Seth Kwame Boateng had cried his heart out on Gift’s death.

As if he wrote the lyrics for R2Bs “Walayi,” his conviction that Itswell will survive kept him moving on like a soldier. Ohemeng Tawia of Nhyira FM gave a live report from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital on the development. He said that despite the doctors been caught in the web of down spiritedness, all efforts were not lost. They will put in their best to ensure that Itswell survived, he added.

The long and short of the whole story is that Itswell too lost the battle hours after her been operated. To call a spade a spade, I never believed that Itswell would die. While struggling for trotro at the Police Headquarters here in Accra, I had a WhatsApp message from a friend that read; “The surviving twin is also dead ooo!” I felt lost in my mind like a grain of maize in an empty goatskin bag and shivered massively the way a sacrificial ram- which must take in silence the blows of funeral dancers before its throat is cut- would do. The death of the twins hit me so much that this time sitting in the trotro I did not have the zeal to count the number of the descendants of Eve that had went bananas in terms of nudity.

Personally, aside my main wish that the kids survived to declare the glory of the Man beyond the azure skies, I wanted Seth to swag himself by saying “I helped these kids.” From the moment the news was published of the twins who had their stomachs and waists joined together from birth, I told myself that this is the kind of journalism our society needs.

No wonder, on the day the documentary was aired, I sat on one edge of my mattress with my chin buried in my palm. If that day was different from the day I was told that Ama Adease, my mother, had passed on I think it was just the location in which I shed tears. When the phone lines of the studios of JOY FM were activated after the documentary, I realised that I was like a Liverpool fan who never walks alone. Almost all the callers who spoke about how the documentary dubbed “Deformed” touched their hearts cried, wept, and wailed. This called for JOY FM, MTN and some listeners donating huge sums of money to defray the bill after the surgical operation.

Today sitting behind my Samsung laptop to recount the death of our dear kids, tears dropped onto my keyboard as I write this piece. With the left thump, I tried mobbing it off. The more I tried controlling myself, the more the tears flowed like the waters of the Kintampo Falls. With Ghanaians donating and following the story live on Mulitv’s JOY News and commenting on the aftermath of the said sad story, weeping was the only option.

But we cannot complain much since the ageless Man above knows best. At least for the mere fact that the Doctors of the KATH were able to separate the twins successfully should tell us that we can do it as Ghanaians and perhaps Africans. Perhaps one of the kids having a hole in heart and both of them sharing intestines led to their cold departure. Again, we must not forget to say “akpe” to Seth Kwame Boateng, “ayekoo” to the doctors, “mo” to JOY FM for the platform and “hyeden” to the parents of the kids.

Gift you came to this world to tell us to love one another and Itswell to strengthen us to be more courageous in saying it is well with our souls in whatever situation that confronts us. “Monne Nyame nko na monnante yie...!” In case you meet my mother, tell her I miss her.