Corruption In Bolga NTC Management?

A path through the Bolgatanga NTC

The Bolgatanga Nurses Training College is not far from where I live. It is yet to be completely fenced. A dry path runs through the open campus to the Regional Hospital, with a lonely baobab tree on its shoulder. It is my road to work almost every morning. It is common to see students walk briskly from hostels into lecture halls, some of them still adjusting their wears on the way with books held to their armpits and pens in-between their lips. Our paths often cross. 

Recently, I was passing through, late for a programme underway somewhere. I was almost out of the premises when a student ran to me from behind, calling me only when he was close. When I stopped, he looked round very quickly; then, he mentioned his name. He asked when and where would be suitable to meet me with some of his fellow students for a secret talk about the Management of the college. 

A face-to-face meeting was difficult for me to schedule in the midst of so many pressures. We agreed to discuss the matter on phone in the evening of that day. I mentioned my phone number to him. He did same. Before he went back, he pleaded for protection of his identity. Although he was an unfamiliar face, I did not bother to ask him how he came to know me. 

*A BRIEF RECALL

It was late night. Before the prearranged phone chat, I recalled that some students of the same college anonymously had published some allegations in a private newspaper against the same Management. That was 2008. 

At my own invitation, the Management appeared in the studio of Rock FM with a few executives of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) and an official from the Regional Health Directorate to react to those allegations. I was the station’s News Editor at the time. I put their defence live on air— free of charge. The Management, led by the Principal, left the station relieved like a grasscutter freed from a tight rope. It did not end there. Thereafter, I was plagued with verbal gash and silent looks that wished me dead. I thought I only did my job; but some angry students thought otherwise. And they were not afraid to show it. 

Again, I recalled that a usually mute ‘madman’ once suddenly scared off some passers-by around the college. Like one who had decided to let out a long-kept boiling observation, he roared out loud and everyone went in different directions almost bare in the feet. He wears a wig-like bunch of obese dreadlocks and a costume of rags that drip diesel to the ground. He roams, voicelessly looking downwards and sideways as though in search of something—which he never finds. Occasionally, he hunts vultures around the Regional Hospital’s incinerator behind the mortuary, not far from the college. Sometimes, he laughs alone. His laughter scares people away because it comes suddenly, loud and no one can tell whatever has caused the laughter. All that can be seen is a mouth rich in ‘minerals’, an incomplete set of teeth that only resembles a looted cemetery and a tongue darkened like a tarred road in an abandoned slum.

It takes a high level of care to involuntarily share the same path with him, especially when drawing close. It is advised not to walk briskly past him. He might interpret it for a challenge. I am not sure he is aware that he is highly respected. His posture commands for him the honour he himself does not demand. 

I recalled one thing that came out of his mouth on the day he scared people— the day he decided to speak. As his respecters watched him from afar, he said (in English and pointing at the college): “I, too, can be a nurse. But the school will take my money for nothing. They will take my money chop onions, buy car, build, carry woman.” 

Glued to the same spot, he repeated the words in a reversed order, beat his chest and breathed out fire. When he shifted forward, his respecters shifted backward to maintain the gap, with all ears pointing upwards in traffic-red alert. He was not armed—except with teeth, which the frightened audience, too, had. But a stampede was lurking. 

* THRERE IS SENSE IN NONSENSE 

No one might have immediately understood if there was any connection between his condition and a college for nurses. I did not immediately understand either. Like the rest, I muttered the words to myself and, because they tickled my ears, I laughed. 

But in-between that incident and the time I heard a whisper from the student, the Rural Media Network (RUMNET) in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had assembled journalists in a workshop on conflict prevention and human security. 

It took place in Tamale and lasted two days—from 24th to 25th in November, 2011. When officials from the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding Ghana (WANEP-Ghana) took their turn to make a presentation, they stressed that reliable early warning signs sometimes were disgorged to the public by people often despised—the staggering drunkard or one who is mentally ill. 

Months later, a Data Analyst at the Human Security Early Warning Centre of WANEP-Ghana, Albert Yelyang, laid the same emphasis when he interacted with some members of the Interparty Youth Dialogue Committee (IPYDC) and youth groups during a conflict management seminar organised by the Youth Empowerment Synergy Ghana (YES-Ghana). 

Mad men have senses, I can deduce from what experts say. Oftentimes, they have a point. Behind the funny words they spew are frank meanings. Yes, there is sense in nonsense.



* ALLEGATIONS OR REVELATIONS? 

After the flashback had faded, I took a slow sip of mashed kenkey and dialed the number to now hear from the student. He responded. And I had my ears full. 

He told me it was a long tradition for the Management to levy each student hundreds of Ghana cedis as feeding fees; the kitchen staff carried some of the food stuffs away in bags and gallons; and the Management always shielded them.  According to him, a vehicle comes at night, and when it seems no one is watching, it is loaded from the food store. It sneaks out. Then it comes another day. This year, each fresh student was charged a whistling feeding fee of GH¢800.00 just for a year. The Management denies it. It is in the admission letter, a signed copy of which I have. I am told the continuing students were charged the same amount. 

Some of the tutors are discontent about the serial secret looting of the food store. One of such, whose name I can mention only to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to assist investigations, told me in plain terms that the Management itself was long aware of it and consistently had refused to act despite reports from some concerned tutors. Ridiculously asking for hard evidence is all the action the Management reportedly takes and nothing beyond that. 

The concerned tutors together with some angry, hungry students secretly organised a vigilante network. And just this November (2012), a popular taxi driver in Bolgatanga was caught in the night swelteringly loading from the mouth of the food store. He had pulled two bags of maize, one bag of rice and a gallon of cooking oil onto the vehicle. 

In swift defence, he told the impatient mob that what they just saw was an errand by the matron in charge of the kitchen. He said he was taking the items to the mill in their own (students’) interest. So they asked if he was also going to mill the rice and the oil. Whilst he was searching for an answer with beads of cold sweat on his forehead, some of the students walked to the vehicle and deflated all its four tyres. Lynching came near. But he freed himself suddenly, abandoned everything and ran away with both eyes shut.      

Alive but hiding, he confirmed to me in a recorded telephone interview that he was sent by the matron to send the rice and oil to a house. Then, he repeatedly told me he was innocent. In another recorded telephone interview, the matron in charge of the kitchen told me she had asked the taxi driver to convey the items to the college’s kitchen supervisor who reportedly had a father’s funeral to perform. 

Granted that the items really were heading in the said direction, I asked whether it was proper to donate food meant for poor students towards a funeral of a staff member’s relative. And the rest of the conversation was stammers, coughs and hiccups. Up to now, the kitchen supervisor would not pick phone calls from unfamiliar numbers. Whether the person is a man or a woman, I only wish I could tell. All I have is the person’s Vodafone number. It is obvious the supervisor was immediately informed about a possible, impending interrogation after I had spoken to the matron. I sent a text on the issue to that line and several calls followed for days, yet there is not a flash back from that number. It is possible the person may have been advised to refrain from making comments so the matter may die.  

“That is what they are doing there,” said an angry-looking taxi driver on my way to meet the Principal of the College. The Principal, Moomin Mac Musah, had declined to talk to the issue in a telephone interrogation. He said he preferred a “one-on-one” talk. Even though I told him the telephone conversation we were having already was one-on-one, he insisted on face-to-face. 

As the car drove towards the college, the taxi driver continued: “The Management is corrupt and has no conscience. They need to transfer that Principal and some tutors from the school. We’re taxi drivers; our station is close to the school. We carry the students’ everyday in our taxi; they tell us everything. Some of us have our family there, studying there. They carry their food in the night to their house and to some stores in town to sell. The one who went there and they caught him, we know him. I know the taxi driver. He’s called…”

The outcry of the students on campus over the poor quality and quantity of the food served is much familiar to many ears in town. I am told the campus food itself, which is meant to nourish the students for brain cells that can absorb facts and figures for their examinations and their later-life career, is malnourished— ridiculously missing the target! 

Kitchen of the Bolgatanga NTC

 

 

 

And this is what the Principal, surprisingly standoffish and very cold, told me after I had barely sat down in his office and asked him about the reported food pillaging: “How does that concern you? How does that concern the public?” He paused, stood up from the sofa where I had met him at my arrival and walked to his table. He stood by the table; then, peered at me behind his ‘Gandhi’ goggles. “This is an internal matter. Look, I have the right to respond or choose not to respond.” 

He said it ‘I-don’t-caringly’, with a scowl and a demeaning look. And it ended there. He would not say anymore. I was so dumbfounded, considering the time and the fare wasted to meet him only for the same person who invited me to his office to rebuff in this manner, that I even forgot to ask of the ‘evasive’ kitchen supervisor as I had intended. I was embarrassed. I had my face and fingers ‘burnt’. 

Six questions here, quickly. If all he told me in his office was the reason he had asked for a face-to-face interview, couldn’t he have just mentioned this on phone? Should we stop investigating alleged corruption because everyone can say it is an internal matter? Are journalists excluded from holding duty bearers accountable to the public on such issues as alleged shoplifting and malfeasance? Why did the same Principal not tell me it was an internal matter when I invited him over to Rock FM to refute the 2008 allegations? When fire gutted the female hostel in 2011, was it not an internal matter when the same Principal granted me hours of interview for a publication in the Daily Dispatch? And when the Daily Dispatch in 2010 published an exclusive interview story with the same Principal on the chronic challenges sinking the college, I guess that one was an external matter— right?

An unexplained long looting spree; the Principal does not want to talk to the media about it; the kitchen supervisor will not pick calls. What do you think?

“Injustice Anywhere Is a Threat To Justice Everywhere”— Martin Luther King Jr.

My late-night telephone conversation with the student continued. Some students joined him later, and spoke to me in turn. Another issue brought up is alleged registration of unqualified students for the final examinations— the licensure. 

According to them, the Management had initially done a mass registration of students for the examinations and, as usual, at a fee. Registrations, they say, only take place after unqualified students have been separated from those who qualify. It was a strange development. 

Bolga NTC

Later, the Management reportedly published names of only qualified candidates, leaving the dropouts in suspicion that their monies had gone for “onions”. 

The list, which was nailed at a height reachable to only Management, was removed and later reappeared several inches longer. More names had been added— resurrected and recovered names of some ‘patients’ who reportedly had been referred to ‘Korle-Bu’. I have some of the names they mentioned. They also mentioned a senior tutor, Williams Sebil, as the Principal’s main ‘lawmaker’ and perceived ‘heir apparent’ who words are widely described as “unfavourable” laws— the rigid laws of Persia none can tip over. Other tutors were mentioned with what they do, but I will hold on to those names till detailed subsequent publications.

When I met the Principal in his office with two other newsmen (Osman Issah Abadoo of Word FM and Radio Gold, Albert Sore of A1 Radio and Joy FM), we were told that the added names initially had their examination scripts fraught with marking errors— an excuse some demoted students still say is an unwholesome lie.   

In addition, came another report that the last episode of the college’s annual trip of students to Ankaful in the Central Region as part of the necessary clinical exposure for final-year students turned torture. The Management had promised to transport the students, about 160 of them, on three Metro Mass buses, but ended up bringing only one bus— which purportedly was so out of shape that only the name ‘yellow elephant’ could describe it. 

Some students stood on the bus from the Upper East Region to the Central Region. The Management itself confirmed it to us (Osman, Albert and me). Furious at such treatment, a number of them boldly decided to go on their own. And when they returned they were asked to pay GH¢35.00 each as what the students described to me as “punishment” for opting out of the bus.   

They also claim that SRC dues which are meant for students’ activities and are supposed to be in the SRC treasury are rather with the Management and are nowhere to be found whenever they are needed for the purposes. The Management denies but those students strongly insist on their claim.

Recently, an announcement from the Management rocked the student body. It said only students with less than two referrals in the last final examinations would write in 2013 whilst those with more referrals would have to wait till 2014. It is the first time such has happened. Although some reckon that the announcement may be a directive from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), they think there is an internal twist somewhere. When I asked the Principal for explanation on the development, all he vaguely could tell me was he was not an examiner. He would not say more. Affected students and their relatives are yet to come to terms with the shock— a shock almost comparable to a pain cold-bloodedly inflicted on a mother, Rose Sore, when the Management this year expelled her son, Martin Sore, a final-year student on the grounds of examination malpractices.  

On Martin, whom many students and some tutors say they can vouch for as a talented and clever student who will never hurt a fly, the Management claims a disciplinary committee has found him guilty and deserving of irreversible expulsion. He is reported to have leaked an examination paper and refused to show remorse before the committee. All Martin needed to dodge the ‘axe’ of expulsion was to disclose the source of the leaked paper. He said he only saw the material in a book and, carried away by the discovery, did not bother to look at the name written on the book let alone to remember the owner. This submission was enough for the committee to say he was a bold liar with a mind made up to be sacrificed as a hero for the rest. And speechless like a lamb, he was dragged to the blazing altar. He bled out of the school.

Meanwhile an old student of the school says: “It is the same tutors [some] that leak the papers to some of the students, especially the female students. The girls would come and tell us what was happening.” 

Many believe the Management loathes Martin because the poor boy is an extraordinary campus music star whose shine the Management finds odd with nursing. Contrary to public expectations that Martin’s balanced swing between the ‘studio’ and the ‘ward’ would make him a good ‘steward’, like some accomplished examples who have succeeded in a combination of their gifts and professions, the Management rather seems to have at long last found an outlet in an isolated misconduct to get rid of him firmly and completely. 

Martin himself says the report that he was not remorseful and lying about the source of the material is false. His elder brother, Albert Sore, says just a suspension for Martin would have done enough good for the college and Martin’s family who had spent so much bringing him up to that final-year level. Eminent personalities, including a paramount chief, have in vain pleaded with the Management. The Principal is reported to have unemotionally told the boy’s worried father: “We have taken our decision. There is nothing we can do about that. I’m surprised you are yet to come to terms with the reality that your child has been dismissed. Is it because of the investments you’ve made in his life? What could you have done if he had died?” 

Relatives are suggesting Martin’s case should go to court or the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), but Albert, fighting back tears, tells me: “My father does not think it is a wise thing to do. And if the head of the family does not want to go that way, what can those behind him do? He wants justice from God.”

*THE VOICE OF THE PUBLIC

 

The people have spoken. Freedom is when people speak. Democracy is when government listens. In a place where there is a constitutional government that has ears, the people should not live in pain. There is a groundswell of public clamour for investigations into the happenings and allegations at the Bolgatanga Nurses Training College.  

You may have heard Dr. Seidu Alhassan, University for Development Studies (UDS) Senior Lecturer, when in his poverty profile of the north he said 7 out of every 10 people in the Northern Region, 8 in every 10 in the Upper East Region and 7 among the same number in the Upper West Region went to bed hungry. 

Who does not know that the national headquarters of the international monster called “poverty” in Ghana is in the north with many corrupt, faceless ‘country directors’? Yet, it is in the same region a human institution like the Bolgatanga Nurses Training College invites hundreds of admission-seeking students from poverty-besieged families every year and asks each person to pay a shadowy amount of Gh¢30.00 as interview fee. All they are told is that the fee is for refreshment of interview candidates. And all they are served in a hot weather is a warm bottle of sprite and kindergarten biscuits. 

You would want to multiply that amount by the colossal turnout of desperate interview candidates, every year. And you would want to shake your head and dab your eyes if you heard that a jaw-dropping number of these brilliant candidates come from households that survive on skinny and erratic sales from riskily gathering fruits from a forest floor, firewood, peanuts and shea-butter in remote parts of the north where there are no mobile networks. 

This year, each interview candidate was asked to pay another GH¢30.00 for verification of each examination results slip. Every individual who had three slips to verify paid GH¢90.00— which, added to the interview fee of GH¢30.00, drained every already-empty pocket of GH¢120.00. Multiply the figures by the turnout. It happens every year when authorities themselves know that more than half of those poor candidates will not be admitted— but their monies, which came through a pool of sweat, are blown into the wild wind! Just like that. And just like that. 

Even though my checks can confirm that there is a letter from the West Africa Examinations Council to the effect that Gh¢30.00 should be taken for the verification of every results slip, an angry army of relatives and concerned individuals want the system checked, thoroughly, to justify that amount and to find out if a case study like the Management of the Bolgatanga Nurses Training College is taking any advantage somewhere.

 

There is a growing call for immediate, external investigations into all the issues raised here by real people who are ready to talk to people they can trust, people who will act as they should. 

The table has turned round. In 2008, I heard the Management. In 2012, I listened to some students, a few tutors, some parents, and some observers— including the ‘madman’ who says he, too, can be a nurse but he is afraid his money will go into “onions”. 

One of the worries that motivated me to bring out this issue for security agencies, early warning networks and legal organisations to take swift action is what a taxi driver said: “It might not be long: there will be confusion in the school. What the Management is doing, a time is coming the students will not take it again. They [the students] talk about it inside our taxi and we hear.” 

People who say they are victims of irresponsible decisions have done their best. They want the EOCO and the BNI to do the rest. And I doubt the strength of the Management to stand in the path of a hurricane when the EOCO and the BNI descend. Maybe the EOCO and the BNI, too, would be told: “How does that concern you? How does that concern the public? This is an internal matter. Look, I have the right to respond or choose not to respond.”

This is a mirror of an alleged exchange of gains for pains. It is not the end of the matter. I stand by my job— maybe at my own risk.

 

Travelling to The US Is Like a Marathon Race

The boy from Piiri in the newly created Nandom District of the Upper West Region of Ghana, has never in his adulthood thought of travelling to the West or America except to wish that if it ever happens, he perhaps would be going for further studies or attending a conference on any of his areas of interest which he regularly reports on as a journalist.

Whilst working with FIILA FM 89.3 MHz, a local radio station in Tamale in 2008 as news reporter, I had my first taste of internet scam from one Jennifer in the US.

It all happened when one day I checked my email and found out that this young lady who I’ve never met or talked to before, had sent me an email proposing friendship to me. I quickly showed much interest because in those days if anyone had an internet pal from America or UK, the person was sure of counting some few dollars or pound sterling every month. Besides, it was a prestige then to have an internet pal from any of the aforementioned super rich countries.

The friendship grew stronger, and to make matters worse, I suddenly became the envy of some friends when I informed them that I would be attending an international youth conference in New York City and an African version of the same conference in Senegal West Africa through the invitation of my friend Jennifer. In fact, I can still recall that the invitation letter emailed to me from a supposed International Youth Organisation through the recommendation of Sister Jennifer said: “You are to represent Ghana at this conference where you will have the platform to tell fellow participants about how the youth have contributed towards the positive development of your country.”

Folks, when the Nandom boy read the above slanted paragraph, he said to himself; “So, since I will be representing Ghana, I would have to inform the President of the republic (President J.A. Kufour) when the date of departure is close. This is because my president would have to tell me what to say over there, so that I don’t end up destroying my country’s reputation.” In fact, I remember my mind was full of thoughts on how I would chat with the president when the time comes for me to go and brief him about my trip to the US and Senegal, and what he (Mr. President) would want me to say. Fantasising, isn’t it?  

But I did not have a passport and had no idea how it looked like. So how do I get one since the conference was just about a month away and I needed to submit my passport details towards visa acquisition. Indeed, that was the first time I also heard about visa.

I remember I closed from work one day and mustered courage to call the then Northern Regional Minister Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris asking for his assistance to acquire a passport within the shortest possible time. “Puuuuuuu. Puu puu, I rang the minister with a Motorola c330 mobile phone I inherited from my dad. Hello, Good evening sir! Yes, who is this? The minister asked. Please sir, my name is Joseph Ziem, a news reporter of Fiila FM. Aha, what is the problem my brother? Sir, I have got an invitation to travel to the US for an international conference but I don’t have a passport and wanted your assistance to get one. Ok. Come and see me in my office tomorrow morning, I will give you a letter to see the director of passport in Accra”, the minister replied.

After more than a decade since I left the land of my birth (Accra), I was going back there just for a passport. My father also contacted his cousins in Accra and told them about my coming and asked them to assist me. I still remember I left Tamale on a Friday morning after seeking permission from my employer to go to Accra and see my ailing uncle. What a damn lie I told?

My uncle (my dad’s cousin) told me to hire a taxi and tell the driver I would alight in front of 37 Military Hospital, the hospital where I was born 27 years ago. I arrived in Accra Friday evening through an Intercity STC Bus. Uncle Boniface picked me up in front of the hospital where the taxi driver left me and took me to a drinking spot and later to the house of his elder brother (Uncle Casmir). 

        

On Monday morning the following week, I set off to the passport office and lo and behold, I met a long winding queue of potential passport seekers outside the gate of the passport office and I nearly gave up. But upon a second thought I said to myself that I couldn’t let my coming to Accra be a waste of time and resources. I approached the security at the gate and told them my mission there. “Good morning sir! I greeted one of them. Good morning my brother; how may I help you? Please sir, I’ve been asked by the Northern Regional Minister to see the Director of Passport. This is a letter the minister gave me to be handed over to him personally”, I told the security. 

Whilst I was thinking that the process would be smooth for me since I was carrying an “Executive Letter” to enable me gain access to the director of passport. But the security officials denied me entry. “Sorry boss, you will have to wait when the man (director of passport) is going out then you can see him” the security official said it courageously without caring a hoot about the fact that a minister of state had sent me to see his boss. The usual Ghanaian bureaucracy started playing in my face and my patience began to diminish. 

Finally, I was able to submit the letters and asked to come back the next day. When I went back the following day, I was told that I needed to renew my old birth certificate. I quickly dashed to the Births and Deaths Registry but had to go and come the following day for it. The next day, I went for it and I was asked to go to the Immigration Office to process some documents. This is where I nearly cried in the presence of a female immigration officer who wanted me to go back to Tamale and bring the original copy of my academic certificate. In fact, that was when I understood why many Ghanaians would offer bribe in circumstances such as mine in order to get what they want.       

Sadly, I had to leave Accra still without my passport being ready after spending one week there. An official there told me to go and come back in few days time for my passport because it would take time to complete the process or that I could go back to Tamale but ask a relative to pick it up when it is completed. I had no option than to agree with that arrangement. By the time I got the passport, my trip to the US and Senegal had expired, but I was happy I also had a passport and wished that in future, a more credible opportunity could come my way.   

So, after keeping my passport for four good years which I have never used to even cross my second country Burkina Faso, opportunity finally came my way to travel to Atlanta, Georgia in the United States of America. 

One mid-morning in the first week of October 2012, my boss Mr. Ben Ephson Jnr. and Managing Editor of The Daily Dispatch called me and when I answered, he said: “Joseph congratulations! But there was deafening silence at my end and so, he quickly asked if I was not aware of me being invited to the US. Sir, I saw it but I thought it was a scam, I replied. Hey! Joseph this is not a scam ooh, please check again.”

Indeed, the first email I received came from a lady called Zelda Sharp, whom I did not know from anywhere and decided to treat it with contempt by deleting it. So I told my boss I was going to check my mail again since what he received was from a known official at the US Embassy in Accra. I did check and this time round the same message was emailed to me by this embassy official.

The invitation was from the United States of America Poultry and Egg Export Council (USAPEEC) asking me to join a delegation of government officials and media from Ghana to participate in an educational mission to tour American poultry farms, hatcheries, feed mills, processing facilities, restaurants and retail stores. The focus is to learn more about the quality and wholesomeness of U.S. poultry products.

At this point, I decided to relax thinking that everything would be done by the organization sponsoring my trip to the US. Little did I know that I would have to fill a US visa form online and book for an interview. It took me four days to fill the online visa form and another three days to get money to pay for my visa fee. This is because the ATM Machine at my bank –Access Bank, denied me money when I went to withdraw GH¢320.00 to pay for the visa fee and also book for an interview. I inserted my VISA ATM Card, made the request and the money refused to come out even though I heard the machine counted the money to my hearing. If I were an unbeliever, I would have thought that some evil forces were at work considering the frustration I was going through. But as a Christian I said to myself “Lord, may your will be done.” 

I knew I was late for booking for interview considering the fact that one needs to book for an interview at least two weeks or more ahead of travelling date, but in my case it was just left with 14 days to November 1, 2012 when I was supposed to leave for US if only I had a visa. 

Eventually I was able to pay for my visa after officials at the bank were able to rectify the technical problem as they called it and paid me my money. However, booking for an interview was another headache for me as my US Embassy online account refused to admit that they have my records in their data. My GH¢320.00 would have gone down the drain for nothing if an official I knew at the embassy had not worked out things for me. Within six days I travelled to and fro Accra three times for visa interview, picking up my visa and departing Kotoka International Airport. Folks I’m currently in Atlanta, Georgia.

So, why is travelling to the US likened to a marathon race? If I was well informed on what to expect when travelling to the US, conversant with how to fill a visa form and the anxiety associated with facing a consular officer for a visa interview, I wouldn’t have been bothered at all. What compounded my problem was the naïve reasoning that the US Embassy or USAPEEC would do everything on my behalf since they nominated me for the trip, and that they would only call me to come for my visa when the time was due without going through any form filling, interview session and other difficulties. Indeed, if this whole journey was a marathon race I would have finished without even a hug as prize for me. This is because those who emerge as champions at marathon races normally prepare in advance to receive the gold medals. Good Day Ghana and I hope to see you soon.