It was 5:30 pm on a typically moody Friday in Kumasi—the kind of day when the clouds gather for a union meeting with thunder serving as chairperson. I found myself leaning on the rusty railings of our office balcony, gazing at the Kumasi-Accra highway, where traffic was peeling out of town like students fleeing a surprise quiz.
There it was—our sacred hour of national meditation known as rush hour, when every vehicle moves precisely two inches every five minutes, and trotro drivers become philosophers of lane innovation. The sky above was growing darker, not with night, but with that Kumasi-style rainfall that doesn’t arrive like a gentleman—it storms in like a drunk uncle at a funeral, uninvited but impossible to ignore.
I stood there, frozen—not from the chill of the wind, but by that profound Kumasi dilemma: To drive, or not to drive? That, indeed, was the question. You see, Kumasi rain has a secret relationship with traffic lights. At the first drop, they vanish like civil servants on Friday afternoons. No signal, no order, just pure anarchy—like okro soup without salt.
Just as I was about to resolve my balcony dilemma using the ancient Ashanti method of Ɛnyɛ hwee, yɛbɛ nya aboterɛ (It’s nothing, let’s be patient), a sharp, urgent wail pierced through the urban orchestra of honking horns and frustrated trotro mates shouting “Tech, Ejisu, Konongo, Konongo!” (names of destinations along the Kumasi–Accra road).
It wasn’t an ambulance—not in Ghana where ambulances are shy and mostly nocturnal. No, this was a police dispatch rider on a motorbike, his siren wailing louder than a Kumasi funeral brass band on Saturday morning, slicing through the cacophony of rush hour like a hot knife through Blue Band margarine.
The rider weaved through the oncoming traffic like a man whose pension depended on it. He wasn’t driving on the road—he was redefining it. One hand on the handlebar, the other in the air like Moses parting the Red Sea of Picanto drivers. It was clear: a VIP was coming. Not just any VIP, but a blessed anointed one, housed in the holy sanctuary of Ghanaian power—a Toyota Land Cruiser V8.
The V8 came gliding down the opposite lane, majestic and untouchable, like a bishop late for a naming ceremony. Rain or no rain, lights or no lights, traffic or funeral, the V8 does not negotiate. It is the one vehicle in Ghana that obeys only one rule: Make way, or be made history.
And as the V8 passed, windows tinted like the conscience of a tax evader, we all paused. Not out of fear, but out of reverence—because who knows which honorable behind was being transported? Could be a minister. Could be a cousin of a deputy director. Or even someone who once shook hands with someone who once went to Parliament.
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To my astonishment—and to the utter confusion of a sparrow perched nearby—the so-called “convoy” veered off the main road, swung into our humble car park like it owned shares in the building, and rolled to a halt just behind the stubborn gate that guards our inner courtyard like a jealous housewife.
And the saddest part? It is no longer strange. We’ve normalized the absurd.
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One of the caftan boys, puffed up with the audacity that only thirst can inspire, barked at Ogidi:
“We’ve just bought fulla (a local millet-and-milk street drink), 70 Ghana cedis. Pay for it!”
Just like that! No negotiations. No fundraising. Just an invoice delivered with the moral authority of a Supreme Court ruling backed by the spiritual power of His Holiness the Rev. Obofour.
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Then I drove off, smiling all the way to my favorite watering hole, the Clarke House, Danyame—where Fridays are healed with chilled beer and peppered tilapia, highlife classics, and stories like this one, told better each time they’re retold.
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