The bizarre happens and living in Accra gets costly
E. Ablorh-Odjidja

Have you ever wondered the frequency with which accidents happen in Ghana? I am sure you do but I am afraid I am not talking about the road accident kind.

Other things happen like thieves breaking into your car and causing untold damages and cost.

One such event occurred just last week. I had gone to shop and I had forgotten to take my camera bag with me which unfortunately contained some money and important documents such as my passport.

The car was in visible view of what should have been a safe place, the security gate. There was a man in uniform in the area. I had forgotten to remove the bag, which was on the floor of the back passenger seat.

I remembered the bag just as I was about to enter the store. But, I foolishly presumed that it was safe because of the security detail I saw. Besides, I would be away for only ten minutes. I returned to see my car broken into, damaged, bag stolen, and no one the wiser. This event occurred on the parking lot at the Melcom shopping plaza on Spintex Road, Accra.

To get the bag, this unprofessional thief shattered the glass window on the back passenger side. There was no exercise of caution or show of expertise; the amazing aspect of it being that no one saw the thief or heard the noise of breaking glass. And it was all done in broad day light, at about 1:00 PM on a work day with a supposed security detail on duty.

Leaving the bag in the car was my fault. But a society that blames the victim solely, in this instance, for the crime must be sick. And any understanding that dismisses this event as “a crime is a crime” risks committing the fallacy of moral equivalency that can be dangerous to its own attitude toward development.

We need to learn from our failings. I am, therefore, forced to remember a similar breakage into my car in New York City, back in the 80s, where my car radio was stolen.

The thief compromised the door of the car in such an effective manner that he was able to gain entry without damaging any part of the car. I opened the car with my key after the burglary, drove away from the scene and did not notice the theft until I decided to turn on the radio and discovered there was a hole where the radio used to be.

I was yet to learn more about the professionalism of this thief. The dash board was undamaged. He had cut the wires from the radio so expertly that the technician who was putting in the replacement had to admire the thief’s work.

The thief, the technician proudly narrated, had spared me the extra cost of replacing the rest of the wire by cutting it off at the exact length on the harness and this allowed replacement without much fuss or additional cost.

The situation at Melcom on Spintex road was different. The break in was so badly done that part of the window frame was badly mangled by the undue force of the illegal entry.

I have not only been unable to find the right glass part since the burglary, but the search had also subjected me to some unintended consequences – more fraudulent deals, one of which promised an exact replacement after deposit fee to allow the pick up of this part.

But the shocker was the attitude of the administrators and workers at the Melcom shop on Spintex. They didn’t have a telephone number for the police. And had it been an ambulance case, I became certain that they wouldn’t have had this either. I had to contact the police without help.

About three hours after my call to the police, a call came from the station to say that a bag with documents that indentified me as the owner had been delivered to them.

A cursory inspection at the station showed the bag as a lady’s, with my things stuffed in it; not the camera bag I wrote for the complaint records. Yet, the police on the phone had insisted that it was my bag to add to my disappointment and headache that day. Apparently, someone at the station had taken me for a cross dresser!

The police didn’t tell me where it was found, who brought the things to the station, except to fish my few things out of the lady’s bag to hand them over to me. I was happy to receive my passport, but cash and check book were gone.

However, what rankled was the damage and collateral cost inflicted on me by this rank unprofessional thief. It compelled me to miss the expert break in by the professional thief in New York City.

I may warn at this stage that a discussion of a subject of any kind is a function of the minds that engage in it. There may be a wise mind out there, who on reading this, may ask: Do you want a professional thief, like the one in New York City, to break into your car in the future so as to lessen your cost for repairs?

My point is that I don’t want any thief on the prowl in the streets of Accra. Living in Accra is getting costly, more so than some of us thought. So if you lived abroad and were planning to return home soon, factor in increases in petty thievery as part of your cost of living.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, November 7, 2010

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