ACCRA KUMASI IN NSAWAM – By NKRABEAH EFFAH-DARTEY

Early in the 1960s, one evening I was pounding fufu for the evening meal. My mother now of blessed memory was turning the fufu in the mortar. She said to me: “Kwame, behave yourself otherwise they will take you to NSAWAM!!!!
Back in JINJINI village near Berekum in those days, legend has it that NSAWAM was presented as a deep black hole in which enemies or bad boys were taken there by President Kwame Nkrumah.
Years later while in a bus attending interview for form one in Achimota School, we passed through NSAWAM – I became so curious, and I saw a signboard: Medium Security Prison, Nsawam”.
Reader, there are FOUR types of prisons. The first type is like an open prison – like FORI FORI PRISON, at Afram Plains. I visited there when I was Deputy Minister of Interior, in 2005 – no fence wall, not even barbed wire fence. It is like a forgotten secondary school with boarding facilities. Even so, there was no record of an escape.
The second type of prison is the average prison we all know – Akuse Prison where I visited Haruna Atta when he was sent to prison, Wa Prison, Sekondi Prison………..high fence wall, with small cubicles as cells.

The third kind of prison is Medium Security Prison where I served two terms there, as part of my military experiences 11 months from Court Martial and later 6 months on detention by Jerry Rawlings.
Nsawam Prison is a modern township – sprawled on about 10 acres, with very high fence wall across the entire perimeter a clinic, a football field, a chapel, VIP block, prison cells, workshop, Administration block, kitchen complex – originally built by Kwame Nkrumah for maximum of 200 persons, Nsawam holds average of 1000 prisoners……………….
The last type of prison is Maximum Security Prison, like Ussher Fort, now abandoned as a World Heritage Site, in Accra. Today the only MAXIMUM security prison we have is the condemned block inside Nsawam Prisons. I was detained and tried there by the Court Martial for 93 days. I counted SEVEN iron gates from the entrance to the cells.
One feature common to all prisons is RESTRICTION of MOVEMENT – you just cannot go where you like. Wake up, eat, sleep, wake up, eat, sleep………….. I have a robbery client in Ho Central Prison pestering me….” “Captain, even if you can’t win the appeal, get me transferred from here to Nsawam – bigger and better”.
In the national interest, as an extreme desperate measure to check the spread of the corona virus pandemic, President Akufo Addo announced a LOCKDOWN for Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi – this is NOT curfew from this time to that time, no, this is LOCKDOWN – wake up, eat, sleep, wake up, eat, sleep……………STAY WHERE YOU ARE!!!
French philosopher Reasseau said: “Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains….”
In the first place, Ghana is relatively a small country – take Accra and Kumasi and you have taken Ghana. Unlike three times as big as Nigeria where they have Lagos, Ibadan, Onitsha, Kaduna, Kano – their capital Abuja is a relatively small administrative settlement.
And so, while Accra and Kumasi were under LOCKDOWN the other parts of Ghana – Hohoe, Yendi, Tamale, Berekum, Assin-Fosu, Cape Coast, Sekondi……. life was going on normally, not bothered by the rich men’s disease in Accra and Kumasi.
But the Lockdown is not peculiar to Ghana. Almost the whole of Europe and North America are all in lockdown, and it is a pity seeing pictures on television.
Indeed, so scared are we of “foreigners” that in some local communities, even well-known natives returning from Accra or Kumasi are declared persona non grata – so back to your “cities” and leave us alone here.
In Accra, while Osu, Ridge, Airport Residential Area and East Legon are like ghost towns, in CHORKOR, BUKOM and NIMA – all in central Accra areas – life is normal. The homeless are the worst sufferers-nowhere to go for the night, and movement daytime restricted too!!!!
Wives are bearing the brunt of constant pummeling by frustrated husbands, while call girls cry daily in hell because no patrons are around, and all hotels are undergoing a drought season.
What is even more bizarre is that the Lockdown announcement was made with less than two week end days notice – so no time to go to the office for soft loan or chase some monies. Only those with monies in their bedrooms are coping with the lockdown.
Wake up, eat, sleep, wake up, eat, sleep……………Accra and Kumasi crammed into NSAWAM………..man is born fee, but everywhere he is in chains.
And what I don’t understand is that not one of our millennium of pastors, apostles prophets and what have you could predict this disaster that has befallen our nation…………. Rev Owusu Bempah, Angel Obinim………..why? What happened?
One thing is clear: if and when the Lockdown is over, life in Ghana, certainly Accra and Kumasi will never be the same again.
The very first lesson is to do all you can, even if to borrow, and acquire your own small residence so that in any emergency you can fall back as a home.
Secondly, the need for reserves. I was shocked when as a cadet officer in Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, UK, one day at breakfast, the officer in charge of the kitchen came to tell us that we should NOT worry about getting milk for breakfast in view of some strike by cattle dealers, sometime in 1978, because “we have reserves of fresh milk for the next three months!!!!
I recommend that every house must always have at least two weeks supply of food items in reserves for the rainy day.
A current street quibble goes like this. Faustina told her friend, Caro on phone: “Oh, Caro, my husband!! He wants to go on road three times every day. I am tired….” Whereupon Caro replied””Faustie, you know I am a widow……”

Author: NKRABEAH EFFAH-DARTEY

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s editorial stance.

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