Ever called at a Chop Bar after 1pm? l mean a typical DON’T MIND YOUR WIFE, ANKONAM BOAFO, BAAKO YE YA, NO CHOP MONEY, NSO NYAME YE, ASANTE BOAFO YE NA at Ntumkumso, ATWEEWOM etc categories of eateries?
Mince no words, after 1pm at the aforesaid eateries, the most juicy parts of the soup including the bushmeat/fish/crab/mushroom, mention them, might “have gone”, oh yes, settled in the stomachs of early comers and gradually finding its level within their digestive systems leaving the remnants – plain bones rearing its ugly heads and struggling in the thin bubbles of the remnant soup poised to be diluted by the Chop Bar Handlers.
l travelled with my boy to Kumasi and had a scrumptious fufu meal at a Chop Bar somewhere in the Eastern Region. That was around 10am. On our return journey to Accra a day thereafter, we got to the same eatery around 1:30pm, the food almost exhausted but a few hungry patrons hanging around.
After waiting patiently for about 30 minutes we were finally served and set off thereafter.
Then my boy quizzed, “Dad, this time round, the soup was “lighter”. Again, “though you bought the same amount of fufu and meat as the last time, this time around, the sizes had shrinked, why?”.
Small boys are young. The boy had virtually fractured my peace, yah, he won’t leave me alone to think about myself. l was duty bound to explain the why to him.
Listen son, what you have seen and experienced is akin to the ill thought and badly implemented Free Senior High School (FSHS) policy initiated by Addo Show boy and his cohorts. Yah, it permeates through even in the procurement of buses for the programme and will expatriate shortly.
Boy, did you realize that before the food was served, the entire pot holding the soup was taken to the kitchen theatre for about ten minutes thereabouts. Yah, in our full glare?
The soup, when it entered the kitchen, was diluted with water from the galamsey ridden Birim river to balloon the same without adding the complementary ingredients to boost its chemistry. This accounted for the lightening of the soup you complained of. This “methodology” was so adopted so that all present will be served without caring a hoot about the quality of the meal and other ramifications thereof. This is exactly the philosophy that lies beneath the FSHS policy – to compromise on quality and serve a wider populace amid choked classrooms, crass indiscipline, stressed infrastructure, epileptic academic calendar – add up.
Note that the Chop Bar handlers partook not, in the diluted soup, so goes the Political class who dodged the FSHS and dumped their kids, including “Bola birds”, l mean “Abanomas” in private schools and worse still, ferried them outside for good and better education – how can they knowingly afford to allow their kids and “Abanomas” to take in, cyanide, mercury, lead and other heavy metals infested soup? It was, and is, you and l who are supposed to take in that soup, l lamented.
On the same score, almost all Senior Secondary, Technical, Vocational Schools under the FSHS were empowered with high occupancy buses under the programme.
Most of these buses are of Asian origin – my information is, these mass produced buses are relatively cheap and l equally buy into the idea of spreading the net as explained in the fufu matter earlier. l mean to say, the value of one robust bus from elsewhere can procure three or even more of the same buses with the same or more seating capacities from that of Asia.
Yah, that’s the fate of the SHS buses, yet the handlers of the buses are yet to appreciate the fact that the buses aren’t such and that robust, aka, Obɔmɔfoɔ nnim aboa yarefoɔ, alias, once there was space/room on the bus, it shall be filled to capacity no matter its safety ramifications, after all, it’s God who gives and takes.
The point l want to drive home from my lay’s man point of view (never read mechanical or related engineering) is, the handlers over load these fragile buses anytime the schools embarks on exercises outside, notably during Inter Schools & Colleges sports as l witnessed at Koforidua last two weeks – all the schools buses that trooped to the Koforidua Stadium had students parked to the brim like sardines, the Police Service having turned a blind eye thereto because it was a normal feature of school buses – WHO CARES.
The State could have done better knowingly knowing that the “rights” of these buses would by all means be violated by pressure from the students and the exigencies of the times. This is to say, they could have procured more robust buses for the FSHS programme to contain the likely and probable menace, or was it or is, a question of “noko fio?”.
Recall the sad commentary of the Aburi Girls Secondary School (not Aburi Girls SHS) incident where some students tragically lost their lives – no lessons learnt.
In the recent past, there was one such accident somewhere in the eastern part of the Eastern region involving one of these FSHS overloaded buses on an educational trip where a student and a parent lost their lives. The driver is said to have lost control of the steering wheel – the packed load in the bus apparently had adverse effects both on the steering and braking systems culminating in the incident. The bus somersaulted like a match box being rolled over.
Yah, the FSHS has come to stay. We had the benefit of hindsight, Kenya having experimented it earlier amid issues which we could easily have tapped into, but NO.
As obstinate as they were and still are, they won’t listen but prey on gullible and susceptible Ghanaians – for far too long, we have been taken for granted.
Pray the system is inched further.
Fractured Peace Rested.
Written by Osei Kwabena Esq., Accra
Editor’s note: Views expressed in this article do not represent that of The Chronicle
