Last Wednesday night’s earth tremors in Accra shook me o. Chai! Uncle Ganyaglo is on a visit so when the first one occurred, he asked what’s happening and I told him it was my landlord shaking te building because rent is due! These 3 a row within 10 minutes was the worst I ever experienced.

We don’t have control but that is why when building a house, the cement must be thick well well but some of our masons? Hmmm! When you see a mason drinking beer in the afternoon, don’t be wondering how. You should just know that a bag of cement has disappeared from someone’s building site! I am referring to my Mason, Akwesi.

This boy is something else erh! My 2 bags of cement disappeared from my building site and when I confronted him as to how a part of some concrete slabs on my septic tank caved in as well, he only smiled and told me ‘man must survive, not only on cement and iron rods’! Hmmm!

See o, just last weekend a trotro ran into my car and I felt the impact quite well. When I got down to see the extent of damage, the driver also got down as his passengers waited patiently and he started begging because he had damaged my tail light and dented part of the left side fender. I just requested that we go and report the matter to the Police before we proceed for insurance claims.

He was pleading for us to settle things there and then but I was also proving stubborn because, for me, there was no need for his plea once there was valid insurance on his car. Before I knew it, this guy started sneezing continuously and to avoid the possibility of the obvious, I just ran into my car and sped off; me rather o! Hmmm! Whether he faked the sneezing just to scare the hell out of me or not, I didn’t want to take chances even though I was wearing my face mask.

Embarrassingly, I could hear his passengers laughing at me la. Ei! Jakpata bey devio menya eku wo’ (to wit the mamba says ‘children have no idea what death is’)! But I was smart and made sure I picked his vehicle registration number. As soon as I dialed the new motor insurance database short code *920*57#, hey presto, every information on his trotro appeared on my phone.

His car was validly insured with the make of the vehicle, the name of the insurance company, the expiry date of the insurance cover with the last bit being: ‘From: NIC’! This information helped me to trace him o and trust me, as we speak, his insurance company which has become more liquid than before paid me the claim la.

Ei! Obroni ‘no good’ o, just by dialing the short code, see how life has become easy for me and the trotro driver. He is now my friend and he goes about shouting *920*57# to his colleague drivers at Kaneshie! Wofa Kwame, I greet you o but tell your passengers to wear their face masks too o, yoo!  

This new motor insurance database er, the way it is catching people er. Please use it to check the validity of your motor insurance before your Missam Moranu turns into a yet to be registered G-wangon o, yoo! But for the MID of the National Insurance Commission, that cow that was actually a suspected borrowed goat may have escaped in joy and would be having all the fun on social media by now.

The MID is such an amazing technology as I am told the short code can even be used to track hit-and-run drivers! Kw3333! Clap for them. Kpa kpa kpa kpaaaa! I don’t know what the Team at NIC is made up of but I think they are the leading State Institution at present in terms of ‘Action’ for man, woman, children, cars, God and country! Clap for them again er…hahahahahaaa!

This software is catching people from all angles. Fake insurance sticker dealers are flushing themselves out, drivers have become more conscious of the insurances they buy so no one takes advantage of their ignorance. Passengers have equally become more cautious of the vehicles they board by dialing that *920*57# short code. It is only logical that no insurance company will pay claims on fake insurance o, yooo!

The reason passengers have become more careful because in the event of accidents leading to deaths and injuries, it is the children and other dependents who suffer the most as insurance companies will not pay compensation on vehicles whose premiums have gone into the pockets of some faceless thieves out there.

And the one that sweet me koraa, is how the Police MTTD have opened their eyes on the roads so most drivers are beginning to do the right thing as the Police make wild roff. If they check and your car doesn’t have a valid insurance, woalaaa oo woalaaa!

I remember the days of Safuli Amanquan at Circle. I was a kid then and my senior brother came back home thanking God for escaping from something that could have had him disciplined. According to him, he was at Circle circa 1987 or so and decided to urinate somewhere by ‘hat’.

While midway in the urination process, he looked back and saw this man in overall military apparel standing behind him with a cane and he immediately identified the popular man most feared for his ‘no nonsense’ in those days! At that point, he realized the man was just waiting for him to finish urinating and then the canes would start descending on his back.

My brother said he didn’t know whether to continue urinating forever or he should take to his heels and he chose the latter. This was because if he had waited to finish urinating, Chief Sahindrin would have visited the canes at his back and he would never forget! The speed with which Bro Abraham ran made the man laugh at him aaaa especially when he was still running and his distin was still hanging with the rest of the urine stopping automatically out of fear. He carried the rest back home o. Those days er, hmmm!

That is one of the reasons I still don’t understand why some people don’t want to wear the face mask o, like by now er…hehehe!

I am just imagining how children who would be born 9 months from now will come out o. My fertile imagination tells me some of them will come out from their mother’s wombs with hand sanitisers in their hands wearing face masks. The first people they will meet in the labour ward will all be wearing masks. They get home and see someone like a man and another like a woman wearing masks too. Nobody knows anybody. That is what the world has come to until a vaccine is found and we must endure it till a vaccine is found and or the pandemic brought under control.

Wear it o, yoo. It may not be comfortable but it is one of the surest ways to help curtail it. You think those of us wearing spectacles are having it easy er. You wear the mask and you breathe hot air and it evaporates as steam into your lenses thus blurring it is no joke but how for do! I will rather do that than to go to the treatment centre! You can also choose one! If you are waiting for a police man to draw your attention to it before you do the right thing, remember the fact that ‘what circumcises a horse is in its own stomach’!

Most of us like to pray and will say ‘Prayer is the key’ yet when there are meetings and people are called upon to pray, no one instantaneously will like to pray. Why? There is this pastor on a Committee on which I serve and anytime he is asked to pray to start a meeting, he will say ‘I am not in the mood’. This continued saaaa till the Chairman once asked him ‘what kind of pastor are you’? I don’t think you want to know his response if it is not ‘Holy Ghost Fire, Consume Them’! Consume what? Abeg, let me walk pass go urinate sef! Ajeeei! Osofo jollof rice! That is his favorite any way!

That is the reason I find it funny these days when I receive some strange calls from some people who would tell you that even though they don’t know you, they have some ‘Two-Sure’ numbers; go and stake and when you win, you give them something in appreciation. Really? Indeed we are not in normal times!

Beware of life and live a simple life; not everything that glitters is in your range or else NIC’s Motor Insurance Database will expose you!

We are now on the battlefield; as to whether we make it or not, depends on us, not Commander. Cover your nose oo, my friend!

I’ve closed!