KWAKU MANFO ASIEDU A TERRORIST? I BEG YOUR PARDON!
A Ghanaian-born gentleman, bearing three traditional Akan names is the latest terrorist in London. A Ghanaian a terrorist? I beg your pardon! Was he not born of Ghanaian parents? It sounds like an episode in a 19th Century play, where the story teller is also a fictional character. It sounds pretty much like the scene in Professor Martin Owusu’s The Story Ananse Told, where the protagonist becomes King because the head of a dead antelope wishes him to be. At the antelope’s whim, he is demoted to his original miserable life of a poor village hunter. A fine piece of drama, isn’t it?
In drama, we are encouraged to suspend our disbelief, and believe that the plot resembles something in a real life situation and the story is real. But, we will not need to suspend our disbelief in the drama unfolding at the Woolwich Crown Court in London, UK, where Mr Kwaku Manfo Asiedu, a Ghanaian, is standing trail with five others on terrorism charges. There is no make belief here; the crown court is not a theatre hall. Kwaku is on trial for real, and we are forced to freeze our sympathies and believe that everything we heard last year about a Ghanaian boy or somebody bearing a Ghanaian identity, being part of a terrorist gang is true after all.
On July 7 2005, when the G8 was busy at Glen Eagles, Scotland, considering how best to solve Africa’s poverty problems, a gang of anti-progressive Muslim fundamentalists, some of them Africans, seized a stage on the London transport system and enacted the United Kingdom’s version of September 11. 58 people died and a lot more were injured. We remember that a Ghanaian woman, one Georgina Vudowu, died in that senseless slaughter. All of us, including President Kufour, mourned and cursed the terrorists, and prayed that Jehovah would gorge out their eyes or at least, freeze their wicked sperms.
July 7 is etched on my mind. I escaped the London underground bombing by less than 15 hours. I had travelled on the Northern Line the previous day to lectures, at the Hendon Campus of Middlesex University. The terrorists had struck on the Northern Line the day after. My lecture time table showed that I had a class on Competition law on the fateful 7th July. I wasn’t a casualty because I skipped the lecture for a date with Bolaji, a Nigerian LLB student, somewhere at Piccadilly Circus in central London.
But before London would come to terms with her vulnerability, Kwaku Manfo and his five Muslim friends tried a repeat performance two weeks later on July 21. The Woolwich Court has heard how Kwaku had gone on several errands to buy more than 400 litres of hydrogen peroxide, which the bombers mixed with chapatti flour to create the explosives. Kwaku had lied to the hairdressing store in North Finchley, where he bought the chemicals with a debit card that, he was going to use it to strip paint. Kwaku had been part of the bomb preparation but lost his nerve at the last moment and dumped his share near a rubbish bin at Little Wormwood Scrubs. On 26 July, Kwaku’s conscience pricked him, and he reported himself to the police, feigning innocent involvement. That also sounds like the plot of a fine drama or perhaps, a melodrama. I write from abroad; I can only gauge the reaction of Ghanaians in Kufour’s Ghana. It is expected that Dr K.K. Manfo would be policeman enough to guard and protect his name. Here in London, it is not clear who Kwaku is; we are torn between probabilities and constants.
The identity problem in London is also a piece of comedy. Overnight, I can decide to call myself Akua Serwaa Boatemaa. All I need to do is, call British Telecommunication toll free and ask the customer attendant to replace the name on my bill with my wife’s, or produce a copy of my bill bearing my wife’s name. I can also put those details on the electoral register and vote to elect an MP. The next day, I put my wife’s identity in my pocket and make my way to an employment agency to register for a job. If they ask for my passport, I produce a photocopy of a letter from the Secretary of State for the British Home Affairs, saying that my passport is with the Immigration authorities pending renewal. OK, bring it later for our records, those beautiful employment consultants will say. The letter does not show my sex, so I start work the next day. Broni Kwasea.
Until recently, Akua could open a bank account, still wearing his moustache and may be secure a loan. Even today, it is possible to open an Alliance and Leicester post office account without showing your face. A photocopy miracle could transplant the genuine portions of somebody’s visa onto a new fraudulently acquired passport. The only problem with it is, you can’t travel to Ghana and come back a burger. Once you promise to stay put, you can wear it on your forehead and it is as good as the Queen’s signature.
Supposing Sumaila Abubakari is an Afghan who was hosted by a Ghanaian, he could roam the principal streets of London a confident Kwaku Manfo Asiedu. Sumaila could also steal or chance upon Kwaku Asiedu’s details. So the probability is that, the Kwaku Manfo Asiedu standing trail at Woolwich is not Ghanaian, but prosecutor Nigel Sweeney continually refers to him as one. The second probability is that the chap is Ghanaian who has several identities. The day he attempted the bombing, he rested his original identity and took an innocent Ghanaian one in his pocket, to fool everybody. The third is that, Kwaku Manfo Asiedu is a Ghanaian whose original identity is Kwaku Manfo Asiedu.
But the court system in common law jurisdictions does not rely on probabilities to charge the innocent for conspiracy to murder. The constants are that: Kwaku had requested a Twi interpreter during initial interrogations. Twi is not yet an international language, the language will mostly be intelligible to a Ghanaian. This will not be the time to experiment with languages. The second constant is that, Kwaku looks very much like a Ghanaian. When you look at him, he oozes the innocence associated with Ghanaians in the west. That he lost his nerve at the last minute drives home a point well known-it is not in our nature. He might have asked himself: me Kwaku a suicide bomber? I beg your pardon. That is when he threw away his bomb. The third is Kwaku Manfo Asiedu is a typical Ghanaian name; adopted or stolen. It may have been given at birth.
Between constants and probabilities lies a grey area where only Aristotle is wise: A probable impossibility is better than an improbable possibility. That may not make enough rational appeal to our ordinary minds, but we know that we are dealing with possibilities in this drama. Sympathetic characters had earlier on suggested that Kwaku is a Ghanaian born guy whose mental health is not any better than the engine of a typical 1956 Labadi-Apapa trotro. A more refreshing twist to this play is that, we hear the original Kwaku Manfo Asiedu, the supposed son of Police Chief K.K Manfo, lives in Watford, some thirty miles from central London, and he is not happy at all.
A good drama provides moments of intrigue. We hear Kwaku had come to the UK on a Ghanaian visa, as George Nayak. We don’t know yet if he had a Ghanaian wife.
Most dramas end in a day and our characters only live as long the play lasts. But Kwaku’s is a tragedy. By their nature, tragedies have bitter endings and they leave their audience with a catharsis. Long after Kwaku is gone, Ghanaians will be wondering how a non-Ghanaian decided to assume a non-terrorist sounding Akan name, to put Ghana on the same register as Osama bin Ladin.
Somebody should let George Bush know that Ghanaians are not terrorists. At least, not until the Woolwich Crown court has established that Kwaku Asiedu is a Ghanaian or a non-Ghanaian, or a Ghanaian-non-Ghanaian. The drama continues. The plot thickens.
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