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In our series of letters from African writers, journalist and former Ghanaian government minister Elizabeth Ohene writes about the new normal, from how to hold a socially distant election to attending funerals online.
Since the Covid-19 outbreak, we have come to accept that our lives have been turned upside down.
We have been learning to cope with things that no one had ever dreamed of, like not hugging or shaking hands. Social distancing, self-isolation, and quarantine have become terms of everyday use.
Schools have closed and parents are rediscovering how much food growing children eat.
There are things that we studiously avoid talking about; mortuaries are full, not from coronavirus deaths (so far in Ghana, there have been 16 from the disease) but from the banning of public gatherings, which means we cannot have normal funerals.
Private burials are allowed, but with no more than 25 people, and that is truly an excruciating experience for most Ghanaians.
Therefore, we keep the bodies in the morgues in the hope that this terrible nightmare will end soon and that the dead can be properly given to Ghanaian burials.
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I joined an online funeral last week wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. No one attends a funeral dressed like this. “
Funeral services are becoming high-tech to meet the new restrictions. The service has a prescription of 25 people or less and the procedures are transmitted online. Many people now sit at home next to their laptops and log in to join the service.
If this trend continues, it will totally subvert our funeral culture. I joined an online funeral last week wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. No one attends a funeral dressed like this.
- Why are Ghanaians so slow to bury their dead?
- Red-hot funerals: buried in a chilli
Now that we have spent seven Sundays, including Easter Sunday, without religious services, we realize that the coronavirus is quite dramatic.
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Religious meetings have been restricted due to Covid-19
We are in the holy month of Ramadan. Muslims have begun their fast, without the congregational prayers in the mosque that mark the break of the fast. More and more of us accept that we are in disturbing times.
The capital Accra and its surroundings, and the second city, Kumasi, were closed for three weeks and we have come out of that also with the restriction of the movement of people now lifted.
Frenetic activities
At the center of the entire Covid-19 experience has been President Nana Akufo-Addo. He addressed the nation on the night of March 12 to tell us about the first two cases of coronavirus in the country.
He announced the ban on social gatherings, the closure of borders, the closure in the two metropolitan areas, and lists the count of confirmed cases of infections.
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There’s an undeclared but uncomfortable fact underlying all the frenzy of coronavirus activities in the country. We plan to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on December 7.
Elections are hotly contested here, and campaigns tend to be loud, chaotic, and of course crowd-focused. Preparations were on a tight schedule and didn’t leave much room for anything to go wrong.
Survey plans are derailed
Then the virus attacked and the first victim was the National Identification Authority. He still hasn’t been able to finish giving identity cards to everyone over the age of 16. Without it, people cannot register to vote.
The electoral commission wants to compile a new voter registry, but the opposition Democratic National Congress (NDC) has none of that and has sworn out loud that it will do its best to make sure it doesn’t happen.
In fact, the commission had planned to start the registration process more than a week ago, but since all meetings are banned, it appears to be stagnant.
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The blockade in Ghana’s capital Accra stopped the city.
Furthermore, the two main parties are measuring each other as the nature of politics has changed with the arrival of the coronavirus.
No one knows whether the people’s judgment will be based primarily on how the parties and their candidates will fare during this crisis.
The candidate for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), President Nana Akufo-Addo, and the NDC candidate, former President John Mahama, know each other pretty well. This will be the third time they will meet.
The PNP should have held primaries in some 150 constituencies in which it had deputies last December, but postponed them to April, only to be derailed with closure measures. Candidates cannot campaign, at least not in the way we know.
Party officials are in trouble, will they be able to hold primary elections and how will they handle the tensions that arise with internal elections if there is no time to heal the wounds?
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We know how to revive the economy. What we don’t know is how to revive people “
The NDC has the majority of its parliamentary candidates, but its presidential candidate would have wanted to announce his election of candidate for candidate in a big noisy event, not in an event dominated by social estrangement.
And how do you campaign when a malignant virus is lost on earth and there seems to be no appetite for partisan arguments?
The president has addressed the country eight times since the outbreak and the entire nation listens to him.
He makes a speech and part of it goes viral: “We know how to revive the economy. What we don’t know is how to revive people.”
The president says that the virus does not have a political color, this is not the time for politics, and now we must defeat our common enemy. You are having a good pandemic.
The NDC began its Covid-19 policy on a dubious note when its general secretary, Asiedu Nketia, expressed doubts about the existence of the virus in the country.
When Nketia announced the first two cases of Covid-19 and banned social gatherings and political activities, he said the virus was a big hoax and part of a big design by the president to manipulate the election.
But the NDC soon regained its balance, and the party established its own Covid-19 committee, and Mahama began issuing its own daily bulletins on the progress of the virus.
He had a digital conversation the other day, which sounded suspiciously like an address to the nation.
Within a week of closing, tempers began to crumble, small businesses were feeling the pressure, daily wage earners were distraught, and confirmed Covid-19 cases were on the rise.
A NDC MP accused government officials of asking vulnerable NPP party membership cards before receiving food.
‘Santa Claus’
A video of Mahama distributing food packages in a poor suburb was released. He was appropriately dressed in his face mask and told recipients that he knew they were suffering and that they could feel their pain.
The President announced a series of interventions to alleviate the economic difficulties caused by the pandemic; the government would collect 50% of everyone’s electricity bill for the next three months, the water would be free during that period, and health workers would not pay taxes.
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Many people wear masks to prevent the spread of infection
Last Sunday Akufo-Addo announced that the government was about to start a major hospital construction program. He said the pandemic had revealed how poorly we were cared for with hospitals and that he would build and equip 94 new ones within the next year.
We hadn’t seen the President like Santa Claus before, but he was handing out treats there. For the NDC, it is difficult when it wants to defeat it in the elections.
Since no one has any idea when we will get rid of this virus and there are no provisions in the constitution to postpone the presidential elections, we have to avoid the possibility of holding the Covid-19 polls around us.
South Korea did it and we might have to do it too, socially distanced and with our masks on.
More letters from Africa:
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