It was a Friday morning, a few minutes after the first break, and the bell had been rung, summoning all of us.
This was definitely not one of the usual Friday mornings.
The KG room, the biggest of all the classrooms, which had the multipurpose function of serving as our assembly hall and the temple of the Heman Presbyterian Church, was filled to the brim.
Attendance that day was massive because even JSS 1 pupils, the only JSS class we had, had been asked to attend the meeting.
On a normal day, such gatherings meant rehearsals for some cultural festival competition or probably preparations for some quiz competition.
But no, it was none of the above that day. And, oh yes, we had gathered there to select or elect student leaders for the school, Twifo Heman Presby Primary School.
Within 30 minutes, about 10 pupils had already been nominated from among the Class 6 pupils to be voted for.
Four of the nominees were ladies. There was Gifty Baidoo, that D-Bee in the school who had all the books in the world and had been taking first position since Class 2. Much as I tried, I had come to accept that I could take first position if and only if Gifty left the school.
The reason, according to the person who nominated Gifty, was, “Ne ho twa” (to wit, she is beautiful).
That was how the nominations were done. Any pupil among us could be called upon to nominate one person from among us, the Class 6 pupils, give his or her reason for the nomination and, bam, you were a candidate for the Boys’ or Girls’ School Prefect position.
Another nominee among the ladies was Clara Amoateng, a slim girl with a silky voice who had come to the school from somewhere in or around Cape Coast and was giving Gifty tough competition.
It was obvious that these two, Gifty and Clara, would whip their two other competitors. And who cared about the other two anyway? We already had our beauty queens, who were not only beautiful but had brains too. Adwuma no asi.
Among the six male nominees was John Danso, the biggest boy in the school.
Then there was Bernard Addae. Bernard was regarded as a D-Bee. His dad was among the few people who had a colour television and a video deck in the town, and their huge compound house was a ‘video centre’ where we all went to pay money to watch movies. There was not a single movie that Bernard had not watched.
Bernard was not really one of us. We did not start Class 1 with him.
Over 95 per cent of us had started Class 1 at the school and had built our own chemistry together, so whoever joined us midway was almost always seen as an alien.
And truly, these aliens never spent more than two years in the school. Our class was a huge cabal, and you could not break the cabal even if you were a newly posted teacher.
Mr Botwe took us from Class 3 and went with us all the way to Class 5 until he left us in the hands of a new teacher in Class 6, whom we never liked anyway.
We cried daily for Mr Botwe, who had become our father. When the news of his unfortunate demise broke, even we, the boys, could not control our tears.
So, this Bernard guy had joined us in Class 4 and had suddenly become the ‘fave’ of our girls. Bernard could recite “The Hawk and the Hen” and “The Red Lions and Green Hawks” without looking in the book, and he could rattle off the English language like the son of the Queen. At least, that was how it sounded to our ears. We naa, we no dey hear baw, so even if he was wrong koraa, we did not know.
Also among the nominees was my good self, K. Frimpong, or ‘K’, as I was usually called. I was a habitual latecomer and very dirty, to say the least, but despite all these negative attributes, you could not beat me in an exam. Not even people who had come from private schools could take from me my number one position among the boys and number two position in the class, after Gifty.
Bernard, with all his arish rish brɔfo, still could not take my second position in the class.
There were times when some of the pupils accused Mr Botwe of stealing the second position for me because he used to send me to the bank whenever his salary came in. But ‘does I care’? Second no deɛ, you lie bad, ebi ma own.
The reason for my nomination, according to my own uncle, Kwaku Duku, who nominated me, was that “Onim adeɛ” (to wit, he is good academically).
After about 30 minutes of nominations, all 10 nominees were to present our manifestoes. Unprepared, unwritten and unplanned manifestoes.
The headmaster had directed that the manifesto presentations should be done in Twi. And, of course, that was the best option. This was Twifo Heman Presbyterian Primary School. Yes, Twifo Heman. The best English sentences we could all rattle off were “YES, SIR” and “NO, SIR”.
The only time we spoke English with our teachers was when they asked us if we had understood what we had been taught, and then the chorus immediately followed.
Teacher: Do you understand?
Pupils: Yes, Sir.
Teacher: Moate aseɛ?
Pupils: No, Sir.
So, how did you expect us to deliver our manifestoes in English?
I have always been talkative outside the house, so I delivered one of the best manifestoes, touching the emotions of the pupils. By the time we left the hall for voting to commence, two things were on the lips of the pupils: “Gifty ho twa” and “K nim adeɛ”.
The modus operandi of the election was that all the nominees would leave the hall while the pupils voted by raising their hands to be counted whenever the name of their preferred candidate was mentioned.
By the time we were called back, the verdict was clear: Gifty and Clara had been elected Senior Girls’ Prefect and Deputy Senior Girls’ Prefect, respectively.
For the boys, John Danso had been elected Boys’ Prefect, and I had been elected assistant, with Bernard getting only one vote.
Then the narrative changed. Sir Dan and Sir Akes, the Social Studies and Mathematics teachers at the JSS, had changed the narrative.
We were to present our manifestoes again, but this time in English.
Cho! Na where from this too?
Much as we protested, we had no option but to present them again. Come and see, opana started shaking like that.
The first to be called was Bernard, and, oh yes, arish rish rish bam. Borɔfo nkotee.
After almost all of them had had their turns, it got to my turn. The number of ‘fans’ was massive. ‘K nim adeɛ’ all over.
K nim adeɛ, K nim adeɛ saa ara. For over five minutes, I could not utter a word, and that was when my school prefect position was taken from me and given to Bernard.
Man taya before o.
This article was first published on 3 May 2018 at sayitright2016.wordpress.com.
The writer is a former student of Twifo Heman Presbyterian Basic School.
