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THERE IS NO ARUGBO IN GHANA
A common saying in Nigeria while many of us were growing up was that you cannot find old people (arugbo) in Ghana. No matter their age all Ghanaians in Nigeria then were sharp and fresh looking and you can point to them from a distance. The ones you cannot tell apart are Nigerians that have left Ghana long before we were born. Many still bear Ghana names but so are some Nigerians with names outside their ethnic base.
It is interesting how – there is no old people in Ghana – as a saying then translated into the image of Ghanaians as hard working, clean, decent and always smelling good. No matter how old they were, they always carry themselves in a respectable way. So whatever they did, we just assumed that it must be good. The fact that they were also hard working increased our respect for Ghanaians.
We had the best shoe maker and repairer in Campos Square in those days. He hardly missed a date you could come back and collect your shoes. Even in his old age, he worked hard like a young man. His apprentice whom he later passed the business to was a Nigerian, brother Kayode. Those were days when shoe repairs and tailors had signs displayed – London Trained. Ghana flavor in trades and commerce were second to none.
Oh, highlife music of E.T Mensa must have kept them young forever. That is another topic for another day as the politics of Nkrumah, Zik and Awolowo whose hearts were never far from Ghana. The soccer rivalry was something else up to today. It was hard to tell whether some of the players like Baba Yara were actually Nigerians or Ghanaians. The common notion was that anything associated with Ghana never grew old.
There were many Ghanaians in Nigeria in the eighties mostly as teachers and lecturers. Many children in the schools then still remember at least one of their teachers from Ghana. Those of us that came back after our studies in the eighties saw ourselves in the Ghanaians because they were doing the same thing we did abroad. Working and going to school. Those in the universities, like us abroad, would do anything to pay their fees.
One of my sister’s boarding-for- help was a university of Lagos student. She was so pretty, my sister never left us alone whenever I visited. One day my sister just told me she finished her studies and went back to Ghana. She was so mean, never even told me she was leaving. It was hard to find an ugly lady from Ghana since they were always neat and moving gracefully like queens. You might confuse the old with the young ladies.
This was the good image most Africans portrayed in those days when we went abroad to study. There was this church a few of us attended that had great breakfast on Sunday mornings. One of my friends told me about the church. I got there very early in the morning to get my only decent breakfast after some time. The Reverend told me breakfast was served after service, not before. My stomach growled!
After service we went for breakfast and I devoured it, I could not wait for the following Sunday. The Reverend introduced us to another visiting clergy as students from Africa. He asked which country we came from. As soon as I told them Nigeria, he told Reverend not worry about us because we were children of Nkrumah and we will succeed anyway. Here we were for help and the clergy said because of Nkrumah, we would succeed!
We missed the reputation Nkrumah and others created for us abroad in those days. They did not like Nkrumah but they respected him as a fearless African. The amount of respect he got abroad in those days has been squandered by these good-for-nothing looters disgraced at the airports all over the world while their banks aid and abet. This image has effect on Africans, apart from the troubles we get and subject ourselves into these days – stripped and searched at airports.
Anyway, I never lost my taste for kenki when I came back to Nigeria in the early eighties. There seemed to be less people selling kenki when I returned. I was told to go searching since we lived in a new area. It was some blocks away before you could see food sellers. If you were Johnny-just-come, you were not supposed to engage sellers on the road.
One of the popular bus stops near us had some Ghanaians selling food as Nigerians, where I met another beautiful Ghanaian lady. I asked her if she had kenki. She took one look at me and told me – if you want kenki, go find one of those old ladies, they might have kenki since all the sellers of kenki were dead and gone. I was surprised. You mean there were arugbo in Ghanaians! So, poor man could not even find kenki to buy again.
She explained to me that it was a great deal of work to prepare kenki and young ladies could not be bordered. I thought there were no old ladies in Ghana and so there could be none in Nigeria either. I had to get kenki to eat somehow. She laughed at me and concentrated on her customers. She reminded me of that late breakfast after church.
There were Yoruba abodo and Ghana abodo. Around Popo Aguda where I grew up, it was generally understood that you want Ghanaians abodo. It created a problem while we were out of Nigeria between two friends describing abodo. As one referred to that made by Yoruba, the other referred to the one made in Lagos sold by Ghanaians. I had to explain the difference to the two before they exchanged blows.
When one of my young cousins told me she just became a grandmother and wanted me to come to London for the ceremony. I laughed. Go all the way to London for a party? I had a hard time trying to imagine her as a grandmother. So I told her she has become an old woman. She retorted that there was no old woman in her house. Oh, I took it back, “ko si arugbo ni Ghana”. She corrected me – there is no arugbo in Nigeria. O.K. O!
Source: Farouk Martins Aresa