KUMASI, Ghana—Zoë Ackah is my married name. I am a rather anonymous type in Canada. Speaking my name garners no response. In fact I am an upstanding citizen who pays her taxes, has a reasonable credit rating, and whose most recent acts of deception were hiding sharp objects from toddlers and dying grey hairs black.
In Ghana, I am a different person. When I give my name people say: "Ackah? Like Ackah-Blay?" And I say, "No, like Jewel Ackah." And then the door opens. Any door leading to almost anywhere will open. I am Jewel Ackah's daughter-in-law.
"Poppee" as every musician in Ghana affectionately calls him, is a legendary highlife musician. At the tender age of nine, my father-in-law played in the cultural troupe that welcomed a young Queen Elizabeth II to Ghana.
As the favoured musician of long-time benevolent dictator Jerry Rawlins, he welcomed dignitaries. "I shook Clinton," says dad. Indeed dad's band is heavy, but he means he shook Bill Clinton's hand during his 1998 visit to Ghana.
After 40 albums, strings of number 1 hits, and years of globetrotting, dad has settled here in Ghana where he is universally revered.
You see, our family belongs to Nzema, an Akan people that live mostly in the southwest of Ghana. There are three famous Nzemas: my father in-law, Jewel Ackah; Ghana's founding father, Kwame Nkrumah; and John Ackah-Blay Miezah, the other Ackah, the naughty Ackah, the notorious Ackah.
For a long time I lived in ignorance, thinking I had no connection to Ackah-Blay Miezah—Ghana's most legendary fraudster. It turns out I was wrong.
The Original Spiderman
John Ackah-Blay Miezah was the certified reincarnation of Kweku Anansi, a popular character of Akan myth. To understand what that means is to understand the disparate feelings that Ghanians have toward Miezah—a man seen at once as a cheat and a hero.
Part man, part spider, the mythical Anansi was a trickster who matched brain against brawn. His exploits are used to warn children against greed and deception; yet at the same time he is a hero capable of subduing the elements with his wit.
In the days before television, Anansi tales were shared with Ghanaian children who gathered at dusk for "toli" time, where stories were recounted with songs and proverbs.
The stories also travelled the world because of the slave trade and are told in the Caribbean and U.S. In fact, Anansi is father to Br'er Rabbit and was the first to be trapped by a tar baby.
Anansi made up for his tiny size and feeble spider-like body by spinning a good story, and trapping people with his wit. Then he would enjoy the food or wealth he tricked his victim out of and, more often than not, fall into his own trap and suffer the consequences.
This is one side of Ghana's national character, a side that appreciates trickery, and a side that seems to have been magnified under the pressures of colonialism and racism, and now by a corrupt system that is not working.
Ghanaian Distrust Fund
Which brings me to my subject.
Decades before you began receiving ominous emails from Nigeria asking for your bank account info in exchange for a generous cut of some trapped fortune, there was John Ackah-Blay Miezah.
Miezah's schemes were more convincing, and arguably more successful. 60 Minutes called him the "Ultimate Con Man," and said he'd coaxed over 100 wealthy investors out of $250 million.
After the third or fourth time I was mistaken for a relative of John Ackah-Blay Miezah, I finally heard my first story.
The Nkrumah Fortune, or "Oman Ghana Trust Fund," may be another fantastic Ghanaian myth, though nine out of 10 people I know believe it exists. My father-in-law told me that at one point it had offices around the world.
It is said that Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, placed millions of dollars into a trust fund for the nation of Ghana, which, once mature, was worth billions and would lift Ghanaians out of poverty. The story goes that somehow John Ackah Blay-Miezah was entrusted to oversee this fund.
Miezah claimed to be able to access the fund's $42 billion dollars, but not without some legitimate investment. He promised U.S. and European investors 40 times their investment once he accessed the funds.
After taking a number of highly respected Americans for millions of dollars (he's said to have collected $18 million in the Philadelphia area alone), Miezah moved back to Ghana.
Former President Rawlins put Miezah under house arrest, allegedly because Miezah would not cooperate with him to collect the funds. He died under house arrest, the "trust" and Miezah's international account untouched. Just another victory for the Swiss, I guess.
Fool Stool
It is said, though my father in-law swears it's a rumour, the Miezah also had a stool (a wooden throne) made for him. He had the stool antiqued and soaked in traditional herbs and marijuana. He then travelled to the U.S. using a fake diplomatic passport, carrying the stinky stool with him.
Naturally, the customs' dogs went crazy. Customs officials insisted that the stool be taken apart and searched, to which Miezah replied that the stool represented the heart and soul of his people. It was a sacred object that had been in his family since time immemorial and could not be replaced for a million dollars.
They cut up the stool, found nothing and ended up forking over one million dollars to avoid embarrassment.
The story continues.
What do you supposed was in the new stool Miezah brought to America on his next visit? Of course, the dogs barked, but they didn't cut it up this time. Did I mention that cocaine is grown in Ghana?
This story is told so often that I've heard the stool changed to a cane. It may be only hogwash, but it is exactly what Kweku Anansi would have done.
In certain crowds, stories like this were once the latest tabloid news. "What did Ackah-Blay do this time?" they'd ask. It turns out I can add some first hand stories that are not rumours.
When I asked my husband, Kofi Ackah Jr., about Miezah, I was shocked to learn that his father's legendary band Butterfly 6 was flown to Miezah's mansion in England. The band set up on the terrace and played outside for a week. There was no crowd. A video camera was set up and Miezah watched the band on a live feed from his bedroom. My husband was 13 at the time, touring with his dad as a percussionist. He still remembers that all the security guards were white men.
At this point I realized my Ackah-Blay Miezah curiosity could best be sated within my own family.
After two weeks of prying my father-in-law, it turns out he was close friends with Miezah. Dad's highlife band Butterfly 6 was named for Ackah Blay's political party Vanguard, whose symbol was the butterfly. Miezah had taken dad around the world as part of his entourage. "I must have gone to Switzerland 20 times," dad recalls. They stayed in the best hotels and travelled in 15-car motorcades.
Dad swears to this day that Miezah wasn't a crook. "Where's the evidence?" he asked me. When I pointed out the criminal charges laid in the U.S., he looked at me in disbelief. "He was too clever. No one could outsmart him. They didn't catch him did they?!"
Of the many stories, this one may be most telling.
Once, when Jewel was in New York his phone rang, "Somehow he got my number." Miezah sent Jewel to KLM to pick up a ticket to the Cayman Islands. When he arrived, a white limo escorted him to a hotel.
When dad reached his penthouse suite, the phone ran. "It was him. He said, 'look outside your door.' I said, 'there is a white man standing there.' He told me, 'he is your security guard. If you need anything, you can send him. When you go back to Axim, you can tell them you sent a white man.'"
You see in Ghana you "send" young people, those beneath you. When a youngster is absent from the house, you may be told, "he has been sent" on some menial errand.
To send a white man meant something to these two Ackahs, who, it turns out grew up just feet from one another. They were born long ago enough to have suffered under colonialism, and to have lived through turbulent regime changes where politics was deadly.
Everybody was living by their wits and corruption was the order of the day. Whose hands are clean enough around here to condemn anyone? This type of rationale keeps many silent in the face of corruption here, especially when the benefits of playing along are so obvious.
Inconclusive Conclusion
After two weeks of writing about corruption, I've heard from many honest, hardworking people here who are demoralized and exhausted by it. Sometimes it seems unavoidable, and when they are forced to play along they are diminished somehow.
Those who are educated are far more likely to stand up to those who exploit their positions. Which may explain in part why the public school system here is still in such disarray while there are glittering new sports stadiums and highways being built.
I would like to encourage my friends and neighbours here in Ghana to continue to cling to hopes, even false ones, lest they plunge headlong into despair.
Canadian Epoch Times correspondent Zoë Ackah is spending a year in rural Ghana. This story is part of a series in which Zoe shares her culture shock and her thoughts on life in one of West Africa's more prosperous nations. See the "Related Stories" links above for more articles in this series.