File photo of Kumawu town
Why are these members of late Nana Nyanor Panin of Kumawu family that irrationally bitter? Don’t they know that anger and bitterness are corrosive and will have a toll on their health in the end?
The more I sit back, watch in silence while their male leader who should have known better, carries on irresponsibly as though, he is the most feared monster on this planetary earth, the more disservice I do to him. I had better bring him back to his senses through correction by way of putting out this open publication for his attention.
I was nominated by his uncles to mediate between him and the other section of his family members with whom he was, and is still, at loggerheads.
Before then, the entire family was at peace without any fissures between the members. Therefore, whatever had brought division, anger, malevolence, and whatnot, among them should be resolved amicably to bring back peace and harmony among them as of old.
The first night I met him somewhere in February or March 2023 in Kumawu, I conveyed to his attention my desire to settle the differences between him and the other members of his extended family. During the short deliberation, I narrated the story of one of my former work colleagues in Paris, back in 1995, as an analogy to help him understand how a problem or a misunderstanding between family members or couples can be resolved without any needless escalations.
This example was cited because of his stance taken that until his alleged offender was called before a panel of elders for arbitration, there could be no appeasement.
He was holding on to the belief that he was innocent and the other party guilty hence without elders getting involved to find the other person(s) guilty, he was not ready for the conflict to be resolved by me.
I told him that one day, a work colleague of mine called Desire came to work very sorrowful. That was unusual of him since he was known to be always jovial. I approached him and asked what was bothering him.
He calmly told me he was overwhelmed with guilt for what happened in his house between him and his wife yesterday, thus, the day before. He said he had a go at his wife for no fault of hers. Just after screaming at his wife amid the raining of insults on her, a pang of guilt descended upon him like a ton of falling bricks.
In his remorsefulness, he had decided that in the evening when the wife set the table for their dinner, he would take her outside for a short stroll, then confess his guilt and beg her for forgiveness.
However, as soon as the wife set the table for dinner, she walked straight to the sofa where he was seated, knelt before him, started weeping uncontrollably and asked him to pardon her for offending him.
Desire said he asked the wife to stand up, confessed to her that he was rather the one who had offended the wife by screaming at her and insulting her for no apparent reason. Nonetheless, the wife was still on her knees pleading for forgiveness.
He said he was moved to weep louder than the wife’s as his plan to beg her prior to partaking in the evening meal had not materialised.
He promised never again in his life would he do anything of that sort to his wife.
Throughout the day at work, Desire remained miserable awash in guilt and would not talk much. He kept to himself.
Much as I tried to console him to let go of the pain, he would not shake off the guilt from his mind.
Going back to the story, the gentleman I liked so much and cared about told me point blank that he would never go and beg anyone since he had not offended anyone but rather, they had offended him. I told him my narration of Desire’s story was only to let him understand or know another way how a conflict can be resolved between couples or family members. I was not forcing that method of approach on him, I told him.
He would have none of that. He said, if it was through the person(s) he had come to see as his enemy that his life would change for the better, he would rather prefer to live his current allegedly miserable poverty-stricken life. He said and I quote, “Sε εnam Afia Akyaa ne ne ba so na mε yε yie a, εneaa me pε ma brabɔ saa”.
On seeing him off, we met his wife and daughter midway down the road, going to pray at a prayer camp situated somewhere along the Kumawu-Abotanso road. This was around 7pm to 8pm.
We stopped and chatted with them. I asked why they were going there at that late time of the evening. He said they were going to pray. About what, I queried.
Was it not for God to answer favourably to their request placed before Him? They said, yes.
When we left them, I asked why he was unyielding to my preparedness to seek a settlement to the problem in their house. He again answered, if it is through Afia Akyaa that my wife, children, and I will prosper, then we prefer to remain poor as we are.
“Sε εnam Afia Akyaa so na me ne me yere ne me mma bε yε yie a, εneaa yε pε ya brabɔ saa”.
The next day, I asked him to accompany me to visit the uncle of my wife and my sister. We stopped by his wife’s house. Again, I asked his wife and daughter to speak to him to agree to a discussion I had been having with him.
I told them I was not going to tell them about his responses as if I did, they would beat him up. We all laughed, and I continued with him on my mission.
On our way, we stopped walking for a moment. I told him God has indeed answered his wife and daughter’s prayers and supplication to Him but because it had come through his alleged enemy, he could not see it.
I told him why God had chosen to pass the favourable response to their supplication through his alleged enemy. It is all because God wants to reconcile them, then use his enemy to help them.
He again said he preferred to remain as he is if only it was through his enemy that he or his family would prosper. End of the story.
I reported to his uncles the result of my unsuccessful mediation when I returned to Accra on my way back to London.
I was later to hear that he was saying I had lied to his uncles. Where lies the untruthfulness in my conversations held with him? I challenge him to come out to prove it, being a self-asserted professional journalist.
I went back to Ghana in February/March 2024. Again, I went to his house in Kumawu while he was in Accra. When I was in their house, I asked why there was no pipe-borne water supply in their house, but all the other surrounding houses had it. I further said my wife had decided to bring pipe water to the house only to be dissuaded by the man in question on the grounds that some of the household members may refuse to pay the water consumption bills when they are due.
They pleaded with me to help them get piped water. I assured them I would arrange that by placing some phone calls abroad and by the evening, they would get a favourable answer.
I made phone calls as promised, and bingo, money was sent over within hours.
The siting of the pipe became contentious. While all the beneficiaries of their father’s testament decided to install it in a common area of the house, the man in question and his mum and sisters vehemently opposed it hence attacking and insulting people through phone calls and the sending of recorded audio messages one or two of those are attached to this publication.
Normally, we are advised to not bite the finger that has fed, or feeds, you. However, in this instance, the inadmissible has happened.
I pray and hope that he doesn’t commit any crime in his effusive rage, thoughtlessly sending out recorded messages in a machismo way.
He is himself not a direct beneficiary of the will yet, he speaks with authority as though, he is the sole owner of the house.
The fact that he claims to have drafted the will does not make him authority over the will or the property, I should think.
