The Rawlings Factor

I love the eighties and I'm sure that many of you would agree that there would never be a time like the eighties ever again. The eighties was a time of jerry curls and sprays, activators and punk hair cuts, sunday evenings where mostly reserved for the two most popular sitcoms on the nation's television namely, Obra and Osofo Daddy. And by the way, yellow corn, Gari and Shito were also everywhere.

A can of Nestle milk was only affordable for the rich and for us poor it came in spoons.

High life music was hip life music for both young and old and woe to the person who was spotted outside when Accra hearts of oak was in a soccer match duel against their arch rival Asante Kotoko on any given day of the week. And for those who were into foreign music Michael Jackson, Prince, Cool and the Gang, New Edition, Shalamar, Eddy Grant, Gregory Isaac were all getting us down and dirty and does anyone remember where they were when Azuma Nelson won his first WBC championship belt, damn how the whole country went crazy.

One fateful day we heard that Ghanaian migrants who had gone to Nigeria to seek greener pastures were being deported and most of us knew or at least had one or two persons amongst those coming home and we cried for them, because nearly all of them left with nothing, worked hard during the stay in Nigeria and had to come back home with nothing and to nothing. And let's not forget those who committed suicide because of the shame factor which accompanies the so called losers who come home with nothing after great expectations from both friends and foes.

On the lighter side, the eighties also offered post graduates and graduates alike a chance to dream of London, Amsterdam, Tokyo and many more of these places, whilst the two main super powers of the world America and the Soviet Union were busy provoking each other.

The economy of Ghana was so bad that the people couldn't wait to leave the country, some of our women packed their bags and headed towards Europe, America, Australia just anywhere for work and it was also around this time that most graduates and post graduates took their acquired knowledge and skills to foreign countries in search of work.

Europe, America and Australia where known to be paradise, these places where good but little did we know how good these countries really were until we got settled in, damn those we got married traded their Ghanaian citizenship for a universal citizenship, because whereas a Ghanaian passport could take you somewhere, it's nothing in comparison to let's say an American, European or Australian passport especially if you have one and let's not forget how easy one could apply for a welfare when one is unemployed, this was paradise.

Food came in aplenty and one didn't wait on Christmas to eat chicken, if you know what I mean and so it was bye bye to yellow corn, Gari and Shito, constipation and hello to everything. And it was also the first time that some of us men got introduced to white women and discovered how juicy their vulva were and are in comparison to our own ladies and our ladies got to discover that some whiteman were and are uncircumcised, but still could hit it better than the brothers.

So what did we do when we discovered the opportunities and material affluence of our new found countries and homes, we cursed at Rawlings and asked ourselves how all these opportunities could be available somewhere, but nowhere near our own home and country?

Rawlings is indeed a bastard and spat on the ground every time his name got mentioned in our midst, he is a traitor we said, an illiterate someone added and look at this and that as we pointed our fingers in condemnation of this man and his socialist ideology, who needs this stupid serial coupist with his o-level education when you've got Reagan and Margaret Thatcher's paradise?

Now fast forward to the present and some of us could say Europe, America and Australia have indeed made us more worldly, we see things from multiple-angles, our accent have changed even our attitude have undergone transformation, some of us are now big time entrepreneurs investing big money's in projects of our choice and living the dream like we wrote ourselves.

But now let's ask ourselves, where would we have been, if Rawlings hadn't whooped our behinds and set us all off for schooling, so that we all could return one day as both sophisticated and worldly rich men and women with experience about life itself?

I guess only time would tell.