Tinted Paradise
“It is an offence to bribe a police officer” –
sign on a billboard at the Kasoa Police Barrier”.
Many months ago, I heard my dear friend and professional colleague ACP D.J. Avoga, head of the MTTU, declare on radio that the Police were going to wage war on vehicles with tinted windows. Do you remember? Oh my people? I know that we all have a 24-hour memory span but try and do remember a few things for me, wae. Do you remember the Venerable Begyina? What happened to his matter? Classic ‘ehuru a, ebe dwo’! Do you remember Agya Mpiani? When he toned down upon realising that the same manners he had warped in his prime may be applied to his case, have you seen or heard him take on ‘aban nipa’ again, except for the occasional Ghana@50 appearances? But I digress. Back to the wonderful ways of my people. Yes, I know the venerable D. J. well. Believe you me, he is not a disc jockey though I know he likes music. Knowing him, I can bet my bottom dollar that he meant business about this jihad (oh, Baba!!!) on tinted windows of cars. Indeed, he explained on some radio interviews that the Police could not sit idly by when there was an enforceable regulation that a driver should not obstruct his line of vision with any other objects. He was particularly concerned about the role of these tinted glasses in potential accidents arising from reversing vehicles or even trying to see through the rear-view mirror. ACP DJ asserted that though the regulation on tinted windows had been on the books for over thirty years, it had not been enforced and a lot of vehicles were now plying the roads wholly tinted from front to back.
I cringed a little because I was one of the people who had tinted vehicle.
A tinted jalopy!!! My first car, a 1986 Opel Kadett ‘has collected my love and feelings’ and has been sitting in my house ever since my manager decided she did not want it anymore. Somehow, I have grown to love driving that jalopy and I just couldn’t bring myself to offloading it. My abiding pain was that though E.G. knows all about gears and the fact that you should be in second and not fourth when traffic slows etc, he is still just a precocious 11 year old handsome boy. All he can do now is to race around courses with fast cars on a TV screen. My wahala is with game pads and play stations, a fad that started when his aunt brought him a game boy from Babylon. So my jalopy sits in the yard collecting dust day by day. One day, I get a brain wave and decide that I am going to give the old shaker an overhaul so I can use it around town. Guarantees anonymity. Enter Massa Kofi. Massa Kofi is an amazing mechanic based in Odawna who has been a permanent feature of my mechanical life ever since my Cedi House days. He is a guy that I can trust with everything bar my manager. We go back a long way and we have been through loads of vehicular mishaps together, from breakdowns on the way to the holy village to emergency operations through the phone along a highway. Massa Kofi takes a thorough assessment of the state of the jalopy and assures me the Opel is still very strong and just needs a little tweaking here and there to bring it into the 21st Century. So I find some money and release my bird to him. The car sits at Odawna for a while. They do a fine piece of work on it. The engine purrs beautifully. Seats are cleaned and new covers fitted. Body works completed. Believe you me, even the air-condition is rehabilitated. Oh, my Opel is back with a bang!!!
Then one of Massa Kofi’s boys suggests that I should tint the windows which will make the car a little funkier. That’s how my Opel is being threatened by Chief Avoga and his boys. I have only tinted the back windows and left the rear-screen free. I guess I won’t fall foul of the law team. But you consider how much a tinted window brings. To the policeman and to the vehicle user.
First to the policeman. Nice car approaching. Order to halt. Show licence. Shown. Where is your insurance and road worthy certificate. Shown. Where is your fire extinguisher? Shown. Where is your triangle? Shown. Avoga boy looks around and heaven came down in the form of a tinted window. Massa, why is your window tinted? Haven’t you heard about the law that says that no car should have tinted windows? Paradise has come for the policeman. If you are a Ghanaian, born and bred in these hereabouts, fully conscious of your 'Ghanaianness', then you begin evaluating how much your freedom will cost you in Ghana cedis. Tinted paradise for the Avoga boys.
Then to the driver of the tinted vehicle. You are cruising in the city and your windows are all up. I see you , you no see me’. What may be happening in that vehicle. There may be cocaine sniffing, armed robbers preparing for a raid and checking their weaponsa, girlfriends leaning over to plant wet kisses on a stupid driver’s lips whilst the vehicle is in motion. Come on. Use your imagination a bit. Just imagine the possibilities in a fully tinted vehicle. Everyone inside it gets ways literally with murder. Tinted paradise for the user.
So, DJ, what are you going to do about it. Are you going to insist on applying the law? I have seen loads of quality vehicles with tinted glasses from home. If you imagine that some of these palces are areas with limited sunshine and not out 12 hour free sunlight, you wonder whether everyone who brings a car into the country had it customized. Tinted paradise is there for both the policeman and the user. We could ban people like me who have used some dark foil to tint the windows. Get it off or you don’t access the jalopy. That I can understand. But if we insist on banning all tinted vehicles, you will have to contend with that British Embassy vehicle that is so seriously tinted you can only see the driver if you stand right in front of it. Guess even the venerable ACP’s colleagues have tinted vehicles. It’s practically a venture that is not worth fighting. The effort to ban the cars provides financial resource for most police personnel on the road. The typical ‘ehuru a, ebe dwo’ of the Ghanaian has won in the end. Now I see them all over the place. You only get into trouble with the law if business has not been good for the day and the men in black cannot arrest on any offence but the tint.
We trudge along, tinted paradise for both prosecutor and accused!!! It’s a win-win for all concerned. I am sorry if I woke up a sleeping monster. My tints are coming off this evening so I am not made a scapegoat. Respects, ACP D.J. Avoga, for all the effort you put in. I wish you all the best in your endeavours.
Breda Osimi
P/S: As this piece was being concluded, news filtered in that a new paradise was being created. Its motor-cycles after 8pm. This one, is a win-lose situation for prosecutor=rider respectively, So help them God!!!
sign on a billboard at the Kasoa Police Barrier”.
Many months ago, I heard my dear friend and professional colleague ACP D.J. Avoga, head of the MTTU, declare on radio that the Police were going to wage war on vehicles with tinted windows. Do you remember? Oh my people? I know that we all have a 24-hour memory span but try and do remember a few things for me, wae. Do you remember the Venerable Begyina? What happened to his matter? Classic ‘ehuru a, ebe dwo’! Do you remember Agya Mpiani? When he toned down upon realising that the same manners he had warped in his prime may be applied to his case, have you seen or heard him take on ‘aban nipa’ again, except for the occasional Ghana@50 appearances? But I digress. Back to the wonderful ways of my people. Yes, I know the venerable D. J. well. Believe you me, he is not a disc jockey though I know he likes music. Knowing him, I can bet my bottom dollar that he meant business about this jihad (oh, Baba!!!) on tinted windows of cars. Indeed, he explained on some radio interviews that the Police could not sit idly by when there was an enforceable regulation that a driver should not obstruct his line of vision with any other objects. He was particularly concerned about the role of these tinted glasses in potential accidents arising from reversing vehicles or even trying to see through the rear-view mirror. ACP DJ asserted that though the regulation on tinted windows had been on the books for over thirty years, it had not been enforced and a lot of vehicles were now plying the roads wholly tinted from front to back.
I cringed a little because I was one of the people who had tinted vehicle.
A tinted jalopy!!! My first car, a 1986 Opel Kadett ‘has collected my love and feelings’ and has been sitting in my house ever since my manager decided she did not want it anymore. Somehow, I have grown to love driving that jalopy and I just couldn’t bring myself to offloading it. My abiding pain was that though E.G. knows all about gears and the fact that you should be in second and not fourth when traffic slows etc, he is still just a precocious 11 year old handsome boy. All he can do now is to race around courses with fast cars on a TV screen. My wahala is with game pads and play stations, a fad that started when his aunt brought him a game boy from Babylon. So my jalopy sits in the yard collecting dust day by day. One day, I get a brain wave and decide that I am going to give the old shaker an overhaul so I can use it around town. Guarantees anonymity. Enter Massa Kofi. Massa Kofi is an amazing mechanic based in Odawna who has been a permanent feature of my mechanical life ever since my Cedi House days. He is a guy that I can trust with everything bar my manager. We go back a long way and we have been through loads of vehicular mishaps together, from breakdowns on the way to the holy village to emergency operations through the phone along a highway. Massa Kofi takes a thorough assessment of the state of the jalopy and assures me the Opel is still very strong and just needs a little tweaking here and there to bring it into the 21st Century. So I find some money and release my bird to him. The car sits at Odawna for a while. They do a fine piece of work on it. The engine purrs beautifully. Seats are cleaned and new covers fitted. Body works completed. Believe you me, even the air-condition is rehabilitated. Oh, my Opel is back with a bang!!!
Then one of Massa Kofi’s boys suggests that I should tint the windows which will make the car a little funkier. That’s how my Opel is being threatened by Chief Avoga and his boys. I have only tinted the back windows and left the rear-screen free. I guess I won’t fall foul of the law team. But you consider how much a tinted window brings. To the policeman and to the vehicle user.
First to the policeman. Nice car approaching. Order to halt. Show licence. Shown. Where is your insurance and road worthy certificate. Shown. Where is your fire extinguisher? Shown. Where is your triangle? Shown. Avoga boy looks around and heaven came down in the form of a tinted window. Massa, why is your window tinted? Haven’t you heard about the law that says that no car should have tinted windows? Paradise has come for the policeman. If you are a Ghanaian, born and bred in these hereabouts, fully conscious of your 'Ghanaianness', then you begin evaluating how much your freedom will cost you in Ghana cedis. Tinted paradise for the Avoga boys.
Then to the driver of the tinted vehicle. You are cruising in the city and your windows are all up. I see you , you no see me’. What may be happening in that vehicle. There may be cocaine sniffing, armed robbers preparing for a raid and checking their weaponsa, girlfriends leaning over to plant wet kisses on a stupid driver’s lips whilst the vehicle is in motion. Come on. Use your imagination a bit. Just imagine the possibilities in a fully tinted vehicle. Everyone inside it gets ways literally with murder. Tinted paradise for the user.
So, DJ, what are you going to do about it. Are you going to insist on applying the law? I have seen loads of quality vehicles with tinted glasses from home. If you imagine that some of these palces are areas with limited sunshine and not out 12 hour free sunlight, you wonder whether everyone who brings a car into the country had it customized. Tinted paradise is there for both the policeman and the user. We could ban people like me who have used some dark foil to tint the windows. Get it off or you don’t access the jalopy. That I can understand. But if we insist on banning all tinted vehicles, you will have to contend with that British Embassy vehicle that is so seriously tinted you can only see the driver if you stand right in front of it. Guess even the venerable ACP’s colleagues have tinted vehicles. It’s practically a venture that is not worth fighting. The effort to ban the cars provides financial resource for most police personnel on the road. The typical ‘ehuru a, ebe dwo’ of the Ghanaian has won in the end. Now I see them all over the place. You only get into trouble with the law if business has not been good for the day and the men in black cannot arrest on any offence but the tint.
We trudge along, tinted paradise for both prosecutor and accused!!! It’s a win-win for all concerned. I am sorry if I woke up a sleeping monster. My tints are coming off this evening so I am not made a scapegoat. Respects, ACP D.J. Avoga, for all the effort you put in. I wish you all the best in your endeavours.
Breda Osimi
P/S: As this piece was being concluded, news filtered in that a new paradise was being created. Its motor-cycles after 8pm. This one, is a win-lose situation for prosecutor=rider respectively, So help them God!!!
posted by JOEDEE at 9:22 AM
2 Comments:
joedee is my mentor and i look up to him in almost everything i do.i know how this issue of tinted cars is dear to his heart and i think he has done justice to the topic in a non biased way.something i would call a 'win win' situation for the devil and the sinner.
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