Even the best movie directors all through Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood, Ghallywood and several other ‘woods’ the world over would relish the talent of this actor par excellence. The one single actor whose stage is anywhere corruption reigns; there can he play a myriad roles.
By far Ghana’s most surreptitious actor is at it again, in by far his most interactive half hour expose that gives the ordinary Ghanaian by far the closest pictorial idea of who he is and how he looks like.
Wait a minute; how a faceless person as he is looks like, comes with ‘privileged strain,’ savor as best as you can his prying eyes through his spectacles, his spiky beard and moustache, fingers and well shaped lips and mouth, whence he tells the gory story of social injustice in Africa.
Having exposed corruption, pursued and haunted nation wreckers in his own motherland, ace investigative journalist, undoubtedly Ghana’s undercover general; Anas Aremeyaw Anas; spreads his tentacles further and pushes yonder his crusade for social justice cross continentally.
He scores full credits in all of his four top level investigations, for which the faceless truth speaker is indeed deserving of more plaudits in addition to the countless local and international awards that he has picked in the line of selfless and unrelenting crusade.
Join me let’s recount how many roles he has played in times past and then would you agree that he is indeed deserving of a role with Agya Koo, John Dumelo, Kyeiwaa and Idikoko; if you are not a fan of the local cinema for all its worth; how about Anas alongside Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington, Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal? Isn’t farfetched trust me.
How about a collaboration with Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan; perhaps with Raja and Raji or with Pishdadi, Indira and Shree? Enough! I hear you say; bottom line is; he picks roles in the line of subterfuge and has always executed them to bring home truth; call it the harsh reality.
Known to be a print journalist with Kweku Baako Media, publishers of the New Crusading GUIDE newspaper; he has passed once before as a taxi driver and trader when he set out to douse the injustices in Ghana’s madhouse; then the big one was as a mental patient, Musah Akolgo.
Then in the ‘Orphans Home of Hell’ expose, he stepped in, in the name of the Lord God Almighty as Pastor Akpabli of the Church of Jah Ministry. Out of his masculine domain; a wigged and kaba and sleet clad philanthropist from Mali turned out to be this star actor.
In the case of his latest works however, Aremeyaw Anas plays varied roles to confirm his suspicions of wrong and to bring to book people who ordinarily should know better but for reasons best known to them, choose to go down the Machiavellian path of worsening the plight of innocent persons.
As if that was not enough, in the specific case of Fool’s Gold, Patrick and his gold scam mafia, ‘sons’ of the land were busily by their actions denting the image of the country and scarring off foreign investors.
Then, Anas went in with Jordanian pal Bilal as businessmen interested in gold and lured the scammers to an action-packed but disgraceful end. For the full story of his business escapade as far as the office of the Sierra Leonean Vice President: Watch Sierra Leone’s Timber episode of Africa Investigates, mind boggling if you ask me.
Next was his role as an illegal miner in an illegal mining – galamsey – endemic area, managed to secure a job on a rig and with Chinese superiors who paid him an amount of GH¢ 10 for in his own word in an agitated tone; “how I help my Chinese partners to destroy the river.”
Then as the owner of a rig, Anas busted security officials at Twifo Praso, ever ready were they to sell their mandate and conscience for a pittance and for that they must by now be facing service enquiry.
Why at all did he have to spray a staff and clad himself in royal regalia? Fact though is that it was in line of getting enough evidence of the devastating effects illegal mining poses first to life, children and to water resources. The full story of Sarki (Hausa for Chief) Aremeyaw is in his must watch piece, Ghana’s Gold.
When genetic conditions and African magic threatened to wipe out ‘ofri jatos’/albinos in the southern African country of Tanzania, daring Aremeyaw with an incensed tone set out to prove that young albino bones in the ‘vingila’ concoction was nonsense and that the Barcelona jersey wearing medicine man and others like him were criminal charlatans.
Walked into the house of a medicine man as customer, journalistically gets answers to his questions through an interpreter before presenting the man with the scary ‘gift’ of a prosthetic arm of an albino; after forcing a confession from the medicine man, takes back ‘his’ hand having contributed to lessening the plight of albinos in ‘Spell of the Albino’.
This last role turned out to be his briefest roles in his usual ordinary mode, especially as his anonymity as he concedes himself; is his biggest weapon in the nature of work that he does. There he sat amongst a number of young men in front of Kanda as a spectator in his trademark red hat, the closing stages of Fools Gold.
The question to pose after ‘what price the story,’ would be where next his destination and perhaps more importantly what role is he likely to star in? The forever anonymous actor in Corruptionwood is out there: watch your step, move and words.
All five top class investigations could be found at: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/africainvestigates/ better still jaunt off to youtube.com, type 'Africa Investigates' and search for any of the top five works.
© Abdur Rahman Shaban Alfa
alfarsenal@yahoo.com/ newcguide@gmail.com
- Abdur Rahman Shaban Alfa
VERITAS LIBERAT - The TRUTH shall set you free.
