No Water, No Electricity, No Ministry of Foreign Affairs BUT We do have The FIFA U20 World Cup... courtesy of Pastor T.B. Joshua!

This past week has been weird, wacky and also tragic all over the land of GH.

Just to think exactly a week ago the nation had assembled in homes, pubs, clubs and spots to witness the euphoric FIFA U20 World Cup victory. Impromptu parties started all over my 'hood from Friday to Sunday morning.

Black Satellites in Accra
Source: JoyFm online

By Sunday things started to unravel:

Sunday: I got the Light-Off Blues
Accra was hit by power outages with a vengenance. It was not just my area, your area it was like EVERY area! My entire working-week has been punctuated by light offs from Monday morning all the way until Friday morning. Where from all this? Are we load-shedding on a full dam? Is it that rusty transformer from the 50s that still has to be replaced?

Monday: No Water
Ignorance is bliss. I only noticed on Monday that the water pressure at home was worryingly low. I later discovered that the water has been off for 5 days +. We are just about getting to the bottom of our polytank. *Eish* Waiting for the moment when I turn the tap and we are finally out.


Tuesday: Pastor TB Joshua, YouYube and the FIFA U20 World Cup
Turns out that there was much more to the FIFA U20 World Cup victory. The spiritual adviser to the President of Ghana, Pastor TB Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All-Nations 'engineered' the victory in our favour. Not only had he been in consultation with Coach Sellas Tetteh before, during and after the match but he had a video on YouTube to prove it. The snippet I heard on the BBC had the Pastor instructing our coach to play "Number 10" (team captain Andre Dede Ayew) first in the impending penalty shootout. He also asked to speak to Dede directly. A number of questions have buzzed about Accra since:

1. How come none of us saw the Coach or the captain on any phone just before the shoot-out?
2. How come the young captain says he never spoke to or has ever met Pastor Joshua?
3. How come the Pastor did not 'engineer' the Flying Eagles of his native Nigeria staying in the competition or the Super Eagles of Nigeria going to the World Cup?
4. Why can't we cut out the middle-men and make Pastor TB Joshua the Black Stars coach for our World Cup 2010 campaign?

Oddly enough, the video has since been yanked off YouTube.


Wednesday: Holy (Towering) Inferno!
I stopped watching television a while back. Well, aside from offerings on Viasat-1. As I randomly navigated through channels and landed on Metro TV, I was shocked to see the Ministry of Foreign Affairs completely ablaze! What??!!

Thursday: Where my Ministry at?
The sad reality finally hit. Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs was indeed no more. Property valued at millions of Ghana Cedis completely destroyed and data dating back to the 1950s destroyed. I shudder to imagine how much we have lost as a nation. Three people have been arrested and there are whisperings of arson. One conspiracy theory I overhead: The fire was the wrath of God visited on us for doubting Pastor TB's 'engineering'.

Ghana@50 Emblem
Source: Ghana web

Friday: Ghana@50 Probe Live. Mr. Kwadwo Mpiani finally takes the stand.
The long-anticipated appearance of the Former Chief of Staff at the official probe into expenditure during the celebration of Ghana's 50th anniversary was finally slated for today and was due to be broadcast live on a number of radio and television stations. I have missed almost all the sittings and like many people, had really wanted to hear proceedings. So I tuned into Joy FM and started entering some data while I listened in. I don't know whether it was the data, the fact that my coffee was wearing off, my empty office or the monotonic drones of some of the voices I heard but the Ghana @50 Probe put me to sleep mid-morning! I had to 'leave' the hearings in favour of loud trance music courtesy of DJ Tiesto. If anyone 'sat' through the hearings (including that man and that woman who were chastised by the Chairman for sitting in the wrong place right at the beginning!) please fill me in.

Also, Blogger has not been my friend all week. I'm having a problem with posting comments on other people's blogs...mmm sounds like my procrastinatory wings are being clipped. Hopefully not engineered by anyone!