QUEUES FOREVER?

What is it about Ghana and queues? I was born and bred in Tapa Amanya in the Biakoye District (then Jasikan District) some couple of years after the independence of Ghana. In my village, the only time I remember queuing was at school where we fell in files to match to our classrooms. The idea behind being in this 'line' was not to wait for one's turn anywhere but to go through formalities before learning started. A normal RITUAL I call it.

I came to my uncle to Accra for some two terms at Most Holy Heart Preparatory School at Mataheko and the story was different. My cousins and I queued for everything. We queued to buy Gari and Beans, to fetch water, join trotro, to watch 'Osofo Dadzie' and the most annoying, to attend natures call. What didn't we do?

In the early 1980s, the situation got worse because we queued to buy bread (baked from corn flour), soap and milk from the PDC. I am missing that point where we queued for fuel. Kerosene was very scarce and LPG was for the afluent in society. In those days, the queues to the toilets were so long people of 'substance' could soil themselves. On the 10 seater KVIP, the first is always reserved for kids. This allowed the elder's queue to flow and prevent them from soiling themselves. With us at the time (kids), soiling oneself was 'normal'. Some kids around Emit adopted the "sitting entrance" where they sat on windows of uncompleted buildings to attend to nature's call without queues. Even it the "sitting entrance", there were queues later on.

These were before my graduate younger brother was born. He is 26 years and still counting. People still queue to buy waakye at Adabraka, join trotro (troski), to fetch water and to s**t (excuse my language). What is it about queuing? Is it the order or disorder? the calm or confusion? the corruption? the quarrels and fights or what is so special about it that some 30+ years, it is still with us.

Spare me if I do not say what you expect me to. LPG and long queues in Ghana, the least said about it, the better. Ghanaians expect a Ghana without queues or limited. I do NOT know if it is creeping into everybody. Just enter a banking hall today and observe this, once it is left with only one customer, all the tellers get so busy counting their money till they see long queues. What is in queues? Long queues breed corruption. If this is why tellers and gas dealer delay, then their  queues are not worth it. Long live Ghana queues.