Digital beggars in Ghana are easy to identify. You may owe your landlord, your tailor, and sometimes your conscience — but you never owe Instagram reels. In the Republic of Uncommon Sense, we starve our pockets to feed our scroll, praying for free bundles while potholes and power cuts remain stubbornly offline. When gossip is food, data is life — until your last megabyte humbles you back to reality.
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Poverty With Filters
In the Republic of Uncommon Sense, poverty wears filters. We may not have clean water in every home, but we have unlimited memes on every phone — for three days, or until the data runs out. Here, suffering is real, but aesthetics are non-negotiable.
Ask any young person for their prayer point. It is not fuel prices or potholes. It is simple: “Lord, please stretch my data bundle.” In this land, data is more precious than breakfast. Who needs food when you can snack on gossip, trending skits, and second-hand inspiration from strangers posing beside Accra potholes with borrowed Dubai backdrops?
The Rise of the Digital Beggar
The modern hustler is a digital beggar with a smartphone. He has no job but owns four SIM cards, rotating them like a magician pulling coins from thin air. One network for dawn browsing, another for midnight leaks, another for 2am motivational videos that expire by sunrise.
At cafés, people nurse a single bottle of water for six hours. Free Wi-Fi is the real menu. Laptops are open. Tabs are flicking. Earphones are plugged in. But the screen tells the truth: TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, back to TikTok — with a brief pilgrimage to YouTube sermons nobody finishes.
Scrolling Instead of Working
The same soul who owes rent will never owe Instagram reels. Ask when he last updated his CV and he will show you the latest influencer dance — complete with hashtags, borrowed ring light, and borrowed shirt.
In the Republic of Uncommon Sense, productivity has been replaced by presence. Being online is achievement enough. If you are scrolling, you are surviving.
Politics, Bundles, and Broken Promises
We roast politicians by day and beg them for free data by night. Campaign season is the season of flowing bundles. Every party logo arrives with a free megabyte: “Vote for us, browse for free!” And so we do — until election results dry up the internet faster than an expired promo code.
The telcos smile at our collective digital hunger. Every new bundle is priced like premium fuel. You load ten cedis in the morning — by lunch, it is gasping its last breath because your cousin shared a five-minute video of a pastor washing sins in a swimming pool.
Business in the Cloud, Hunger on the Ground
Small businesses now live in the cloud. The streets are empty, but the comment section is full. A tomato seller without a stall now sells by status update. The only problem? Her entire shop disappears the moment her data expires.
Parents shout, “Stop wasting data!” while forwarding every conspiracy theory that needs another two hundred megabytes to survive. Aunties share blurry prayer flyers. Uncles send “good morning” GIFs that drain batteries and dignity.
No Bundle, No Dignity
When the bundle finishes, humility returns. Digital beggars hop from neighbour’s Wi-Fi to public hotspots, hovering near cafés pretending to check email while downloading the next scandal.
And yet, we brag: “We are the digital generation!” True — but digital is only half the word. The other half is debt. Credit left? Zero. Airtime? Finished. But the status update? Posted. The clapback? Delivered. The meme? Circulating.
Patriotism With a Data Cap
In the Republic of Uncommon Sense, our national anthem should come with a data cap. Patriotism is scrolling through noise while potholes remain offline and unpaid bills stay very real.
Nothing humbles a broke person faster than the message: “No Bundle. Please Recharge.”
So next time you see your neighbour smiling at his phone with no electricity to charge it, whisper a proverb to stay sane: “The one who feeds on gossip never checks the cost of soup.” Then check your balance. Chances are, you are a digital beggar too.
The Price of Gold: The Fight for Sikakrom’s Soul
If Digital Beggars feels uncomfortably familiar, this novel goes deeper.
The Price of Gold exposes how survival, corruption, and desperation shape life in the Republic — where resources vanish, promises glitter, and ordinary people pay the real price.