By Akoto Alexander
My name is Nii Dromo Steven, a graduate but unemployed in my late 20’s. Since my national service to the nation every reputable company and organisation has received either one or two application letters from me, I have undergone hundreds of job interviews that my face was a known face to many interviewers. In most of my interviews it was either I was over qualified or the job description was below my standard for me to be employed. Some of the people I helped in the university are gainfully employed whiles others married and raising their family to a better standard, for me my story was different. I had searched myself thoroughly to see if there was something about me that has rendered me jobless for this long period but I have never gotten any concrete answer to that. Day in day out my life was becoming unbearable and a hell, I had also vowed never to use foul means to get money as my fellow youths were engaging themselves in now even though sometimes the edge comes to me so strong that on several occasions I had left the house to some shrines and mallams but half way through I back out of that move or idea.
I stopped attending church because I realised even the church was not having compassion for the poor and the needy, you might ask why am saying this but come to think of this, why should I pay a “Consultation fee” before I see the man of God for spiritual direction? Some of this so called men of God having been robbing people with the quotation “thou shall not come to the house of God empty handed”, so I ask myself what happens to those who truly don’t have money in their pockets? Does it mean such people don’t have to come to the house of the Lord because we don’t have such requirements?
Meanwhile the current economy of the country is so bad that most of the private companies are even laying off some of their current workers and the government sector is also choked that the “WHO YOU KNOW SYSTEM” has taken over. I weep a lot anytime this thought comes to mind, at my age I sleep in a kiosk in the zongo slum. The only thing I can boast of is a second hand mattress, a box iron, a small wireless and a 14inches colour tv. This was all I could afford for now till I get a better job to move out of this hell I call my home, I have already sold the valuable things I owned and for the above listed items people who bought my things saw it as garbage hence leaving it behind.
The elders say when you don’t have money your case is always small, I believed this old saying when I left the university to face the real world, in fact when you are born a man then you have been born to face troubles from all angles.
As I mentioned my name earlier, I am Nii Dromo Steven and in my late 20’s, am the elders amongst the 4 children my parents brought to the world. Am half a Ga from my paternal side and half Kwahu maternal side, currently my mother and my little siblings are in Kwahu. My late father who was once a great business man died through food poison without leaving behind any document or will to protect my mother and her kids, my uncles and aunties together with my father’s younger wife took possession of all my dad had. The reason why they did this was because my mother once told me my father’s family were never in support of the marriage between my father and mother, she further told me my father was from a royal family and that he was eligible to be crowned a chief the moment the current chief occupying that stool dies, so therefore his family members forced him to marry again and this time from the Ga tribe. Things changed the moment he took that advice from his kinsmen, his attention drifted from us totally but in a way his actions were understandable until his untimely death.
We were told after his death that he died of food poisoning but up to now we never got any document or medical note as to what exactly he took that ended his life, shortly after we buried my father his kinsmen together with his younger wife evaded the house and threw us out without any prior notice, my mother tried contacting some lawyers to help us but the money they were charging was too much for us, later one female lawyer adviced my mother to stop pursuing that case because my mother was never legally married to my father, it was just a traditional marriage which was not properly recognised in our society now.
Tbc
