I-CAN-GHANA

The Visit
When I heard that Obama would be visiting Ghana, I was over the moon. This was THE cool man, coming to THE cool country and visiting THE cool city. I hurried home from a trip to his country, just to be here and feel his presence. To me, the trip was all that I expected it to be, except in one material particular. Obama denied us the opportunity to pull the biggest crowd that he would ever have seen in his life, when post-9/11 security concerns did not permit a Clinton-style outdoor event. I am told that in 1998, Clinton pulled about 500,000 people to the Black Star Square (which by the way, received a significant poetic mention by no mean a person than Maya Angelou, and at no mean event than Michael Jackson’s funeral service). Obama could have pulled 10 times that crowd, easily, to confound the noise that was made when he pulled 700,000 in Oregon and 200,000 in Germany, during the campaign. Somehow the Sadam Hussein/Osama bin Laden combi denied both Obama and Ghanaians such a history-making and record-shattering event.

Those security concerns meant that majority of Ghanaians, including my humble self, could only watch Obama on home TVs. Having only to watch him on TV, Obama could have been anywhere in the world. But we knew that he was HERE, for three main reasons. First, traffic movement in Accra was restricted on account of blocked roads, making it wiser to stay at home and expect that there would be no power cuts. Second, we had witnessed roads being fixed at midnight with floodlights, and a hospital and a King’s palace were refurbished and repainted with great speed. I hear, and it is probably not true, that a world leader once said: “all Third World countries have the same smell – the smell of fresh paint.”

The third reason (and how could we ever forget that he was in Ghana?) was the pathetically poor picture and sound quality that GTV and MetroTV conspired to inflict on us. There was absolutely no excuse for that shambolic performance. Those TV stations humiliated Ghana, and it was painful watching major networks like CNN, BBC and Sky, carrying the awful live pool feed with a disclaimer: that the poor quality was from the “source”. It hurts to think that people were paid to transmit that picture and sound quality, which did not even sync. I am convinced that even my mobile phone could have done a better job. Being as smart as they are, those more serious news networks did their own filming and immediately threw whatever they recorded from our feed into the trash bin, so that their playbacks of the event were crystal clear.

I will not go too much into what Obama had to say to us. Let’s just say that only a black man could have said that to Africa. Neither Bill Clinton nor George Bush (nor any American President before them) summoned enough guts (or maybe even cojones) to say what Obama said to us, to us in our face. And, if this had been John McCain, we would have jumped up and down on his bare back and screamed “don’t you dare patronize us.” Why? Those past American Presidents might look like each other on dollar notes, but they don’t have enough melanin! But this was one of our own, a son of the African soil with African blood running through his veins, telling us the painful home truth, from his heart, and his famous Teleprompters, that we are responsible for our own fate. Oh, and some even felt that he delivered the speech ex tempore. That is Barack Obama. And whilst at it, can someone buy Teleprompters for our Presidents, for now and the future? Teleprompters are cool, just like Cape Coast.

Then Obama went to Cape Coast, where he was given a tour of the Cape Coast Castle by Comedian-Turned-MP-Turned-Castle-Tour-Guide, Fritz Baffour. Obama was also interviewed by Anderson Cooper for CNN and Adam Boulton for Sky News. It was great seeing Cape Coast’s name on TV when the most important person on earth, Obama, was being interviewed. My Fante-ness was in full flow. I felt warm and cold at the same time. This was it – Obama was marketing Cape Coast (and Ghana) for us, for free. Every news organisation on earth, worth its salt (even FoxNews and Wall Street Journal, even if reluctantly), was focusing on us. I went into a romantic overdrive. My head was a tad reluctant to get involved, but my heart was busy telling my head to “stay at home and stop interfering,” as Edward Monkton would have put it. This was our opportunity to milk the event and sustain the attention on Ghana, particularly our tourism potential. I thought that it was time to brand Ghana the way Malaysia is ‘Truly Asia’ and India is ‘!ncredible’. “Get on CNN the way Angola is marketing CAN 2010!” I screamed.

Barack Obama
I am also one of those Ghanaians who believe that the Obama visit to Ghana has given us a rare opportunity to market this country. The mix of Cape Coast and Obama is unbeatable. On the eve of the Obama visit, Bono the musician said wrote in the New York Times that Ghana is the ‘Birthplace of Cool”. He was right generally; but wrong on specifics. “Cape Coast IS the Birthplace of Cool.” You see, I like Barack Hussein Obama, the most unlikely American president with the most ‘un-American name’ possible and who does not look like the rest of the Presidents on the dollar notes. This man makes it cool to be black, and has even stopped using the rather ridiculously anglicized version of his name “Barry,” which he bore when he played basketball in High School. If he had been from Cape Coast, he still would be “Barry”. Just check out the name my Fante dad gave to me…, and I say this with a smile. Good beads don’t bling… I like that.

I first read about Obama when he became the first black President of the Harvard Law Review. I knew then that this guy was in for big and great things, and probably would become the first black President of the United States. Years later when I watched clips of his ‘audacity of hope’ speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, I was moved to tears. I downloaded that speech from the internet, memorized substantial portions of it, unashamedly plagiarized other portions for my own speeches and writings to the unsuspecting public, and, of course, did not acknowledge my source! What is worse, I smuggled portions of the speech into those of a couple of Ghanaian CEOs who asked me to read over and edit some of their speeches. Guilty as charged. Copying Obama is cool. Cape Coast defines cool… whatever you do to Cape Coast, expect retaliation.

When Obama announced his candidacy for President, I had some doubts as to whether he could make it. It seemed a very long journey. For a while, and although I have no vote in the United States, I put my emotional ‘weight’ behind John Edwards. My friend and classmate, Kofi Dom, could not believe that I was backing Edwards when I was the first person he knew, who owned and had read all of Obama’s two books. My other friend, mate and self-proclaimed ‘son in law’ Abieku Neizer-Ashun in faraway Washington State also felt a tad betrayed because he had bought and brought to me, Obama’s ‘Audacity of Hope’. But my initial lack of confidence in Obama winning the race to the White House was a lack of confidence in my own mind, thus: how on earth would a predominantly white America, vote for a black person as President? After all, it was in North America that I discovered that I was black. For all of the one year that I lived and schooled there, their dogs would sometimes barked at me. I must have looked strange to the canines. When OJ Simpson was engaging in that live, slow car chase with the LAPD in the aftermath of his wife’s murder, drunk Caucasian boys and girls made silly noises and pointed at me, and two other black school mates (one from Barbados and the other from Tanzania), as we made our way to and from the eat-all-you-can-for-four-dollars Chinese food eatery, Buffet Uncle Tong, in downtown Kingston, Ontario.

So I thought I had sufficient basis to mask and cushion what I considered the impending, obvious disappointment of an Obama loss by supporting Edwards. But the watershed and defining moment was when Obama won the Iowa caucuses, because on that night, I swung my voteless, meaningless support behind him. If any black man could win a caucus in the almost lily-white land of corn, beans and steel, otherwise known as Iowa, that person was going to be the next President of America. I stayed up on every primary night to watch him whip Hillary Clinton silly, and then make that beeline for the White House, trampling on a hapless John McCain and a clueless, winking Sarah Palin in the process. I reckon McCain is still wondering what hit him. Palin has never recovered – she just announced a confused resignation as Governor of Alaska. To McCain’s credit, he pulled the highest number of votes for any losing candidate in American electoral history, I hear. But he was up, not against a person; he was up against a movement. Obama’s time had come, and history could not afford to wait for Obama a day longer.

I wept on the dawn when Obama was declared President. I was ashamed that in some way, I had allowed some of the not-too-pleasant aspects of my rather short stay in school in North America to define who I was and what I had become. But my resolve, after watching him deliver that speech in Chicago, was that the mere fact that God gave me more melanin than others, hence my darker skin colour, was no longer an excuse to carry a chip on my shoulder that was the size of Africa – with Madagascar added on for good measure. Not that I have ever sought to make that an excuse, but deep in the recesses of my mind, I still felt quite looked down upon and sometimes patronised by some Caucasians, even friends… sometimes. Often, when you are almost the only black face in a class, meeting, course, seminar or conference, you either shut up and hope to leave unnoticed or feel you have to work or think twice as hard to earn your place. To date, when I enter some shops in some countries, I still feel the eyes of the security personnel trained on me, with some actually following me to ensure that I don’t nick a pen from the shop. I appreciate that maybe some of this is more of my own perception than reality, but that was how I felt. But with Obama’s victory, I would be ashamed of myself to ever feel that way again. The Thousand could not defeat the Thirty… that is the spirit of Cape Coast.

Cry A Beloved City

Being a Ghanaian and living in Ghana has its own dynamics and is often like a roller-coaster ride – one minute you are up, the next minute you are down, and the very next minute, you are somewhere in between up and down. Often, I feel like the schizophrenic ghost in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Dilemma of a Ghost, wondering whether I should go to Cape Coast or Elmina. When President Barack Obama’s trip planners were faced with this choice, they chose Cape Coast, much to the angst of the good people of Edina: the land where in 1471, the Portuguese Don Diego d’Azambuja met wise King Kwamena Ansah, and learnt about the sea’s impossible dream of living in the houses of men. Things happen in Ghana that literally send your mind to the Elmina-Cape Coast junction and make you wonder whether we can turn this wheel on which we turn.

There was this sinking feeling when Joy FM carried the news item from Cape Coast of a threatened brawl between the Metropolitan Chief Executive some members of the local NDC over the control of public toilets. Public toilets? In the 21st Century? As the story has it, in many parts of Ghana, the immediately past NPP government gave control over public toilets to its ‘people’. Thus, come the change of government, members of the NDC in those parts of the country believe that it is their time to also assume control of such toilets and the ‘riches’ that are derived from the desire to ‘answer nature’s call.’ Has anyone listened to the latest political satire of a song by the always irreverent Hiplife artist called A-Plus, where he belts out the question: ‘dem tsi-efi yi, whana ne tse-ifi aa…?”

THIS is the country and the very proud city of Cape Coast that Barack Obama just visited!

I like to say that this is the country of “beautiful nonsense” and that I will never exchange my Ghanaian passport for any other. If anyone tries to take away my Ghanaian-ness, we will be headed to court for a brutal fight, and I assure you, there will be blood all over the floor – not mine. And it will take quite a bit…, quite a bit…, ok, really a whole lot, to get me to live permanently outside Ghana.

I am also one of those ‘local mixed breed’ and ‘proudly, ethnically impure’ Ghanaians, who claim lineage to quite a few tribes in Ghana. Of all the tribes that I have blood connections with, I think that I am most in love with my Akyem and Fante sides. The Akyem is from Achiase, from where my mother (when all the other tribal connections are discounted) hails, where my late father was born and grew up, the home of the Jungle Warfare School, the only city with a railway junction in Ghana, known and dearly called ‘Russia’ by ‘Achiaseans’ in the diaspora, which includes even those residing in Accra. My claim to being associated with Fante-ness is because my late father really came from and is buried in the beautiful, serene beach city of Biriwa. But there are other reasons why I love my Fante links. I lived and schooled in Fanteland, and somehow, there is something about being associated with Fante that never leaves you. And, the Fante language is the smoothest language on earth. For instance, almost every language I know of has a monosyllable for the word ‘Yes’. But not Fante – we have the dual-syllabic ‘ee-nyo’.

I like to think that I have roots in Cape Coast, the capital of the Central Region, and easily Ghana’s education capital. I did one term of primary education at ‘Master Sam’, where we sang the same song at each Friday worship service: Captain of Israel’s Host and Guide. The two verses of that Methodist hymn are literally etched in my brain! Then I spent seven years of secondary school at the only School on earth, Mfantsipim, the birth place of secondary education in Ghana. How do you say Dwen Hwe Kan in English? Impossible! Yes, yes, there are other institutions of learning scattered all over God’s earth, but there is only one School! Although I have spent more years living and working in Accra, my Ga has never been as good as my Fante. Cape Coast holds many good memories for me, as it was the city in which I really grew up. The city whose biggest football clubs are called DWARFS and VIPERS. It was in Cape Coast that I first heard the phrase “ahwen pa nkasa” to wit “good beads don’t bling.” But it was in the same city that I heard the proud statement:

Oguaa akoto, akoto dwrodwroba aa ogu won tu ano
Aduasa nye apem koo ee, aa apem antum won
Eyee Oguaa den na Oguaa aanye wo bi?

(*Tomorrow, I will post Part II of this writing, to introduce Barack Obama into this mix.*)

I presented a paper as the Guest Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism Sam Arthur Memorial Lecture on 25th April 2006. It focused on what I termed, “Journalistic Pitfalls and Minefields in the Post-Criminal Libel Era.” The main theme was that agenda-setting by journalists and the constitutional protection given to journalists and the media come with a price. Journalists must therefore know what these potential pitfalls and minefields are. These are my notes from that lecture.

STATUTORY OFFENCES
 Threats of libel or slander
 Extorting property from another person by means of threats
 Failure to register a newspaper or publication: a maximum of 12 months imprisonment and/or a fine
 Failure to publish a rejoinder: a fine
 Failure to comply with the laid down broadcasting standards: a penalty including a pecuniary penalty determined by the National Media Commission

CONTEMPT OF COURT
Criminal Contempt
Words or acts that obstruct or tend to obstruct or interfere with the due administration of justice. It is in the nature of public injury and seeks to protect the public interest.

Contempt in facie curiae
Contempt in the face of the Court, i.e. any word spoken or act done in or in the precinct of the court, which obstructs or interferes with the due administration of justice or is calculated to do so, for example:
 assaults in court
 insults to the court
 interruption of court proceedings
 recording, filming, photographing or sketching in court without the court’s permission.

Contempt outside the Court
Words spoken/published, or acts done outside the court, intended or likely to interfere with/obstruct the fair administration of justice, for example:
 publications intended or likely to prejudice the fair trial or conduct of proceedings
 publications which prejudge issues in pending proceedings
 publications which scandalize or otherwise lower the authority of the court
 acts that interfere with or obstruct persons having duties to discharge in a court
 acts in abuse of the processes of the court.

Civil Contempt
Disobedience to a judgment, order or other process of the court, for example:
 refusal or neglect to do an act required by a judgment order of the court generally or within a time specified
 disobedience of a judgment or order requiring a person to abstain from doing a specified act
 breach of an undertaking given to the court

CIVIL DEFAMATION
 Publication of words that tend to lower a person in the estimation of right thinking members of the society
 Note the relevant defences:
      o Justification: You must be able to justify the precise imputation complained of, and the onus to justify the imputation complained of is on you
      o Fair Comment: (a) that each and every statement of fact in the words complained of are true; and (b) that the comment on the facts so proved was bona fide and fair on a matter of public interest
      o Qualified Privilege: You have a legal, social or moral interest and duty to make or publish the matter complained of (without malice), to the person to whom it is made, and that the person to whom it is made, has a corresponding interest or duty to receive it.
 Damages: Societal/Judicial response to the quality of stories? New reach of media (radio and TV reviews, internet, etc.)?

PRODUCT ADVERTISING
News media to ensure that claims made on behalf of a product can be substantiated
Food
 False, misleading or deceptive adverts regarding the character, nature, value, additives, substance, quality, composition, merit or safety of food
 Advertising food in breach of prescribed standards
 Advertising salt that is not fortified with potassium iodate
 Advertise infant formula, any other product marketed as being suitable for feeding infants up to six months of age, follow-up formula, feeding bottles, teats and pacifiers
Beverages
 Alcohol ads are not to:
      o be targeted at children, be played during or in close proximity to children’s programmes or feature children or role models
      o imply success upon consumption, or therapeutic, stimulating, sedative or tranquilizing qualities
      o infer improved performance or preference for high alcohol content, or link consumption to driving or aphrodisiac effects
      o suggest that it is acceptable, helps resolve personal problems, is essential attributes of masculinity of femininity
      o portray favourable aggressiveness or promote anti-social behaviour
      o show alcohol consumption whilst working
Drugs
 False, misleading or deceptive ads regarding a drug’s character, constitution, value, potency, quality, composition, merits or safety
 Advertising drugs in breach of prescribed standards
 Ads of drugs to treat, prevent or cure the following: STD’s and other genito-urinary diseases, AIDS or diseases connected with the human reproductive functions, Amenorrhoea, Arterio-Sclerosis, Bladder Stones, Blindness, Cancer, Deafness, Diabetes, Diphtheria, Dropsy. Epilepsy or fits, Erysipelas, Gallstones, Goitre, Heart disease, Hernia or rupture, Kidney stones, Leprosy, Locomotortazy, Lupus, Nephritis or Bright’s disease, Paralysis, Pleurisy, Pneumonia, Poliomyelitis, Scarlet fever, Septicaemia, Smallpox, Tetanus or lock-jaw, Trachoma, Tuberculosis or consumption.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS
 Individual journalists should join the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and be prepared to submit to the powers of the Ethics and Disciplinary Council
 There should be corporate membership of GJA for news media organisations
 Constitutionally protected rights of the media are not absolute (national security, public order and public morality considerations)
 Lack of Adequate Training in legal issues
 Bravery/Investigative Journalism/Sheer Foolhardiness
 Issues of privacy and what constitutes “fair game”

I was intrigued by a campaign for the ‘legalization’ of prostitution in Ghana, particularly when that was coming from the Ghana Aids Commission. I wrote this piece which got published in the Daily Graphic. Please read on:

This campaign pre-supposes that prostitution is illegal, because calling for ‘legalization’ of a thing assumes that the thing is unlawful in the first place. My contention, however, is that prostitution, as defined in our statute books, is not an offence. Accordingly calls for its ‘legalization’ have no bases in the law. Simply, there is nothing to legalize, as far as prostitution as an act is concerned. What the law does is to criminalize certain acts that accompany or are related, supplementary or incidental to the actual act of prostitution. I would not want to believe that what the “Legalize Prostitution” campaigners are asking, is for those related offences to be legalized. I beg to differ. It would appear that the campaigners have not averted their minds to the real impact of their argument in the face of the law. The purpose of this piece to highlight what the law actually says because a debate or campaign that fails to take into consideration the actual state of the law is, respectfully, uninformed and amiss.

Definition
The Criminal Code defines the term “prostitution” to include:

“… the offering by a person of his body commonly for acts of lewdness for payment although there is no act or offer of an act of ordinary sexual connexion.”

The use of the word “include” could mean that the definition is not absolute and all encompassing. It could also mean that the meaning of the word is so well known, accepted and notorious that all that is required is to expand its scope to cover possible gray areas. Whichever way one looks at it, the above definition contains three key ingredients as follows:

(1) Offer by a person of his/her body: The definition is not limited by gender. By this ingredient the person must present or tender his/her body to another person for the purposes stated in the definition. Accordingly, if there is no such offer of a person’s body by that person, the act will not fall within the legal definition.

(2) Acts of lewdness: The definition covers “lewdness” whether or not it involves, results in or leads to actual sexual acts. Although the Criminal Code does not define the word “lewdness,” that word is generally accepted to be synonymous with other terms such as gross indecency, licentiousness, immoral or degenerate conduct, and lustful and lecherous acts.

(3) Payment: In a restricted legal sense a payment is the performance of a duty, promise or obligation, or the discharge of a debt or liability by delivering money or something else, where the money or other thing is accepted as extinguishing or reducing the debt or obligation. In effect the “acts of lewdness” must create a debt or obligation in favour of the person who offered his/her body (the “prostitute”). Payment then occurs where the prostitute accepts anything as imbursement or compensation for the said use of his/her body.

Nowhere in the Criminal Code is prostitution, as defined above, made a crime. It is on this basis that I consider the “Legalize Prostitution” campaign as stillborn and fundamentally and incurably flawed. However, Chapter 7 of the Code, which is aptly headed “Offences Against Public Morals”, criminalizes certain acts that are closely related to prostitution, and it is a discussion of these that I now turn.

Exposing Children to Prostitution
The first related crime is committed by a person who has the custody, charge or care of a child under the age of 16, and allows or permits that child to reside in or frequent a brothel. A brothel, according to the Code, is any premises or room used for prostitution purposes. There is persuasive authority to the effect that a prostitute who lives with his/her child in premises that he/she uses for prostitution is guilty of this crime. This provision, seeks to protect children from exposure to prostitution. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” Surely, the campaigners are not saying that the law should be amended to permit children to live in or visit brothels.

‘Pimping’
The second related crime is committed by a person who either (i) “knowingly” lives on the earnings of prostitution, or (ii) for the purposes of gain, exercises control, direction or influence over the movements of a prostitute in a manner that aids, abets or compels prostitution. This covers what is generally referred to as “pimping”. It is arguable that the prostitute also commits this offence because he/she lives on the earnings of prostitution. However, a full reading of the law shows that that provision only applies to a person, other than the prostitute, who knowingly lives on such earnings. The Code shows this by empowering District Magistrates to issue search and arrest warrants where there is evidence on oath that any person residing in or frequenting a brothel “is living wholly or in part on the earnings of any prostitute.” Further, a person who (i) lives with a prostitute, (ii) is habitually in the company of a prostitute or (iii) exercises any control over a prostitute, is deemed to be “knowingly” living on the earnings of prostitution, unless he is able to satisfy the court to the contrary. There is persuasive authority to the effect that a person who allows a prostitute to have the use of his room at specified times at a charge is guilty of this crime.

Pimps are known to be people who control prostitutes and subject them to all forms of maltreatment, thereby keeping the prostitutes in subjection and under their influence. Often this is against the will of the prostitutes themselves, some of whom would gladly leave the ‘profession’ but for the morbid fear that they have of such criminals. I am yet to hear of a pimp who would be so depraved that he will allow his/her child to become a prostitute. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” Surely, the campaigners cannot be arguing that we should amend the law and unleashing such criminals on society.

Soliciting or Importuning
The third related crime is committed by a person who publicly, persistently solicits or importunes to obtain clients for a prostitute or for any other immoral purpose. Soliciting connotes begging and pleading for clientele, whilst importuning denotes a more aggressive pestering and harassment of prospective patrons. In one decided case, a person who stood at street corners, made faces and smiled at people, made suggestive gestures with the mouth, and paid several visits to public toilets, was held to be guilty of this offence even if he did not speak with or touch anyone; and even the absence of evidence that his acts had any impact on anyone was not considered a sufficient defence.

I am not certain if any of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners has been solicited or importuned by a prostitute, which can be a most revolting experience. If this is removed from our statute books as an offence, it will expose all of us to blatant, shameless and barefaced approaches and harassment by prostitutes who are ‘marketing their wares’. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” The campaigners will have to show us what society will stand to gain if by freeing up prostitutes to bang on our cars (pun unintended) and accost law-abiding people on the streets.

Keeping Brothels
The fourth related crime is committed by a person who keeps a brothel. A person is guilty of this crime if he/she (i) keeps, manages or assists in managing a brothel, (ii) as a tenant, knowingly permits premises to be used as a brothel or for habitual prostitution, or (iii) as a landlord, rents out premises with the knowledge that it will be used as a brothel. The question to ask of the ‘Legalize Prostitution’ campaigners is this: “Is this what you want to be legalized?” The campaigners have to show how the establishment up huge brothels in Ghana, and probably advertising the services provided in our newspapers and on radio and television will help the society.

Other ‘Related’ Crimes
The other crimes provided for under Chapter 7 of the Criminal Code are not directly related to prostitution. These are:

1. Publicly and wilfully committing grossly indecent acts (such as having sex in a public place);
2. Compelling a person to undergo immoral or indecent widowhood rites;
3. Publishing or selling books, objects or matters of an obscene nature (such as pornography);
4. Making indecent inscriptions at any public place; and
5. Advertising material relating to venereal diseases, sexual infirmity and aphrodisiacs without the authority of the Minister of Health.

Conclusion
In conclusion, prostitution is said to exist when (i) a person offers his/her body, (ii) for lewd acts, and (iii) for payment. The act of prostitution per se is not an offence, but certain specified related acts are criminal. Since prostitution itself is not an offence, it stands to reason that it cannot be legalized, and calls for its legalization are respectfully, uninformed. What the law says is that although prostitution is not an offence, it is an offence to (i) publicly solicit for clients, (ii) expose children to brothels, (iii) work as a pimp, and/or (iv) keep brothels. These are the acts that are criminalized by our law, ought to remains prohibited by our law, and I would not want to believe that this is what the campaign is really about.

Originally written on 27 May 2009

Is it really the case that Ghana law bans the use of vehicles with tinted glasses? I heard and followed the recent announcements by the Ghana Police Service that sought to remind all motorists of a ‘1974’ legislation that purportedly outlawed the use of tinted glasses in cars.

According to a Daily Graphic article posted on Myjoyonline.com on 30th April 2009, the Kumasi MTTU, over one weekend, arrested and prosecuted car owners who had tinted glasses. 41 drivers were prosecuted and convicted for flouting road traffic regulations. The drivers reportedly pleaded guilty to charges of using tinted glasses against road traffic regulations, were convicted on their own pleas and fined between GH¢240 and GH¢300. The report stated that a total of GH¢7,590.00 was realised from the fines and the convicts were warned to respect road traffic regulations or receive severer fines in future.

Explaining why the exercise was carried out, the acting Ashanti Regional Police Commander of the MTTU, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Abraham Bansah, is reported to have said that police investigations had revealed that the use of tinted glasses was one of the major causes of fatal road traffic accidents in Ghana. He tinted windscreens and windows impaired visibility anytime there was a rainfall, which created serious danger for the driver and other road users, and sometimes led to fatal accidents and the death of innocent passengers and pedestrians. ASP Bansah also said investigations had revealed that vehicles with tinted glasses had been used to commit armed robbery, abduction, and drug-related crimes, such as transporting stolen and smuggled goods. He lamented that by their nature, it was very difficult to see the occupants of such vehicles when they were committing crimes, and therefore made it easy for them to abscond. He said under the cover of darkness, some of those vehicles were also used to promote immoral activities, stressing that active sex took place in some of these vehicles, hence the action to weed them out from the system to enhance sanity on the road and the environment. ASP Bansah warned that since the MTTU would not hesitate to arrest and prosecute those who used tinted glasses, it was better for owners of such vehicles to remove them before they were arrested.

A Ghanaian Times report posted on Myjoyonline.com on 3rd April 2009 also reported that the MTTU would begin an exercise after the Easter holidays, to arrest and prosecute commercial drivers and private drivers whose vehicles had tinted windscreens. The report quoted one ACP Daniel Julius Avorga, the National MTTU Commander, who said police have evidence that some people use such vehicles to transport Indian hemp and narcotic drugs and for other “nefarious activities such as illicit sex and stealing”. ACP Avorga advised drivers with tint films on their glasses to remove them before the exercise starts and noted that an earlier exercise to check the use of tinted glasses on vehicles in 1974 was abandoned years later, when the police were withdrawn from the roads. He said, however, that vehicles whose window screens were already tinted by the manufacturers, would not be affected by the exercise.

I find it very hard to criticise the police. They do a very difficult and impossible job. When they succeed, they get little plaudits. When they fail, we all jump on their backs and call them names. So, when I read the above stories, (by the way I don’t have tinted glasses on my car), I wanted to read the law that proscribed the use of tinted glasses on cars. I wondered why the law would make an exception with respect to glasses that are already tinted by the manufacturer. Really, if the tint was in and of itself an offence, why would the fact of the tint having been applied by the manufacturer amount to a defence in court or constitute some other extenuating or explanatory circumstance. I wondered if any law in Ghana would dare provide that having tinted glasses was an offence except where the manufacturer did the tinting. I wondered how on earth the police would prove that one tint was done locally and the other by the manufacturer.

That set me thinking some more and so I hit the books. I must confess that after weeks of research, I have not been able to find the law that expressly bans tinted windows. I put that down to, probably, my own inability to find the law. But reading the above-cited news stories, the closest I have come to discovering applicable law on this matter is sub-regulation 33(3) of the Road Traffic Regulations, 1974 (LI 953). That sub-regulation provides that glass fitted on cars should be maintained in such a condition that it does not obscure the driver’s vision. It also provided that all forward facing glass should be manufactured and treated to substantially prevent shattering and flying of splinters if the glass is struck or broken. The sub-regulation provides specifically as follows:

“All glass fitted to motor vehicles shall be maintained in such condition that it does not obscure the vision of the driver while the vehicle is being driven on the road; and all forward facing glass, with the exception of lamp glasses, shall be so composed, manufactured or treated as substantially to prevent shattering and flying of sharp splinters of the glass when struck or broken.”

As I have said, I have not found the statute that specifically mentions the word “tint”, if that statute exists. However, if sub-regulation 33(3) this is the legal provision that the police action and trial and convictions and fines are based on then we have a problem.

What the sub-regulation says is that glass fitted on cars should be maintained so that it does not “obscure the vision of the driver.” In other words the glass must be maintained so that it does not make something difficult to see, e.g. in blocking out, masking or veiling. Thus, unless and until the prosecution in each case is able to establish that having tinted windows blocks out, masks, veils or otherwise interfere with the vision of a driver, I fail to see how any tinting of glass at all would amount to a crime or some breach of the law as it stands. What about the percentage of tinting? What tinting does, in the main, is to provide shade in the car. But a driver can get the same shade from wearing dark glasses as he drives. If any shading would amount to “obscuring the vision of the driver” then we should arrest drivers who wear sun glasses when they drive.

One would note from the above Graphic and Times stories that the police are arresting people not only because having tinted glasses amounts to “obscuring the vision of the driver”. They are arresting people because many offences allegedly take place in vehicles that have tinted glasses. In other words, the police would prefer to be able to have an unobstructed view into vehicles. I agree. So let’s legislate so that all vehicles in Ghana will install glass boots, simple.

To the extent that the arrests, prosecutions, convictions and fines of drivers have been based on regulation 33(3), I respectfully think they are all wrong. It is trite that crime must be specifically defined and that there is no room for assumptions and ambiguity as to what action constitutes a crime. If we want to make having tinted glass an offence, the law should state so expressly, clearly and unambiguously. If regulation 33(3) constitutes the legal basis for what has been happening (and I hope I am wrong), then my respectful view is that it amounts to an unnecessary and unconstitutional extension of the wording of the statute. The only statute that should lead to the conviction of a person for having tinted windows is one that expressly states that it is an offence to have tinted glasses, and not regulation 33(3) as it is presently written.

But, as I have said, that ‘tinting statute’ might exist. Maybe I just have been unable to find it. But I have tried. I have checked. The words “tint” or “tinted” do not appear anywhere in Ghana’s law database.