Brother Ikihide:
Thank you very much for your dynamic and very educative discussion of the cankerworm called CORRUPTION, which is a problem in almost all of Africa, including Ghana! Sometimes, some of us from Ghana did kid ourselves that Flt.-Lt. J.J. Rawlings, as a military leader, helped Ghana to set anti-corruption example. Yet, what happened to me at Ghana's Kotoka International Airport (named after the top assassinated anti-Nkrumah coup General), some time ago -- which easily prompted me to think seriously about taking a foreign citizenship by naturalization -- proved that both men and women can be corrupt when it comes to an African country.
For "donkey years", I had lived in foreign countries, including the USA (since 1973/74), but I never had the urge to change my citizenship from that of Ghana to anything else. It was not until not long ago, when a female immigration officer at Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana, took $150 to give my son a Ghana visa "on the spot", but she refused to do so and, still, pocketed the money was what made me think twice about Ghana citizenship. "A corrupt woman?" My teenage son and I wondered aloud, and we still joke about the incident!
The Ghana airport scenario was sad: When my teenage son and I were leaving JFK Airport for Accra, Ghana at about 9:30 p.m., my teenage American son's USA passport had a valid Ghana visa, which was expiring the next day. Upon our arrival the following morning (at about 9 or 10 a.m.), the Ghana visa had expired. Sadly, we learned it only that time when a Delta air hostel told me the problem. She, in turn, said that I could pay $150 at the Kotoka International Airport to get "on the spot" visa for my son. In fact, upon our arrival, the immigration officials might not have even detected the expired visa, as it was only 24 hours.
Yet, to be prudent, I went around looking for the immigration window to pay the $150 to get the Ghana visa for my teenage son. A female immigration official (in official uniform) took the money and my son's USA passport. instead, he went to speak with the male immigration official inspecting and stamping the passports. The man "nodded" his head to whatever she was saying!
The female immigration official gave the immigration guy my son's passport for him to stamp it, but she was still holding the $150; she came and asked us to get the stamped passport to leave the airport for the city of Accra. I looked inside the passport and asked her, "Please, where is the Ghana visa in the passport for the 4150?"
"Look, move on. Your son has the required immigration stamp to enter Ghana," she said something like that to me, and rudely.
I insisted on a visa being placed in my teenage son's USA passport before she could pocket the $150 that she was no longer holding. My fear was that when my son was leaving Ghana, he would be asked by another immigration officer to show how he entered Ghana in the first place. The female immigration officer told me to move on because, as she said the second time, she needed to talk to other airport arrivals. I left with no visa in my son's passport, but I "paid" the $150 for a mere entry stamp, with a date.
On our return to the USA, a male Ghanaian immigration official at the same airport scrutinized the USA passport of my teenage son, and he also looked at the stamp in the passport showing that when we entered Ghana, our son's visa had expired for 24 hours. Therefore, he also demanded that I "do something"; it was another bribe, this time, only $50! We paid before he stamped the passport for us to go to our Delta flight to leave Ghana. I thought hard, and I had tears in my eyes: "A corrupt woman?" I still wondered. As for the "$50-bribery man", I knew that many men could be corrupt, but NOT a woman!
A Kenyan comparison: In June 2015, my spouse and I had to travel hurriedly to Kenya on an important business trip. We had no Kenyan visas in our passports. At Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, my spouse and I paid $50 each an got our visas, with official receipts stapled into our passports: NOT $150, dear Ghana!!!
When I complained belatedly about the $150 bribe at the Kotoka Airport to a Ghanaian official, who could do something about the corrupt woman's behavior, he said to me, smiling: 'A.B., the politicians are chopping big money. Your $150 was just peanut. My brother, forget it. After all, as a professor, you could afford it..."
Well, Brother Ikihide, is "corruption not official in Ghana", too?
A.B. Assensoh.
Sent: Sunday, August 2, 2015 10:14 AM
To: USAAfrica Dialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Buhari, Corruption Is Still Official In Our States, By Tony Osborg
- Ikhide
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