The highway from Accra enters the City of Kumasi from the east and the campus of the Kwame Nkrumah College of Science and Technological know-how (KNUST) lies on the left hand, or southern side of the highway, just in just the metropolis boundary. Driving on the right, travellers from Accra descend from transportation on the northern side of the street at Ayigya Junction wherever a lorry park has long been proven. In the early 1970s, daily life on the university campus was cozy and enjoyable but throughout the road in Ayigya was the zongo, the former slaves’ village, the place lifestyle was continue to a grim struggle for existence. Living in this kind of shut proximity, the two communities had identified a way to live in peace and mutual dependence, with the university giving work and farming options and the previous slaves furnishing spherical-the-clock stability.
Just before the colonial interval the Ashanti Empire experienced been dependent on slaves gathered largely from raids on northern tribes. These unfortunates were accommodated in communities hooked up to Ashanti villages and referred to as zongos as a result across the street from the KNUST campus were the two Ayigya village and Ayigya Zongo. Officially, slavery was illegal in modern day Ghana but in practice it was a matter of perspective. At a meal bash hosted by the Director of the Creating and Highway Analysis Institute (BRRI), Dr Joseph W S de Graft-Johnson, afterwards to become Vice President of Ghana below President Hilla Limann (1979 – 81), informed his British and American friends that, ‘The British declare to have abolished slavery but we however have slaves in our homes.’ The Ghana press, far too, periodically claimed raids by police and army on communities still claimed to be holding slaves.
Whether or not there were pockets of slavery in other places, the inhabitants of Ayigya Zongo were being not slaves in any official or legal perception, but their condition could hardly have been worse. A study executed by the Section of Social Sciences of KNUST unveiled their plight in brutal data. It was located that in the full of Kumasi the average area occupancy was 7 people, but in Ayigya Zongo with its broken mud walls and rusted iron roofs, it was eleven. These density of lodging was only attainable by arranging sleeping by rota and this was only possible due to the fact most people today have been unemployed. Needless to say, work across the highway on the university campus was eagerly sought.
The operate of the university generated quite a few everyday labouring work and these have been rapidly stuffed by zongo people who exploited their obtain to the campus by growing corn on just about every spare plot of land. Though this casual farming was towards university rules in exercise it was typically regarded with a blind eye. Those with paid out work on the campus were the blessed kinds, many other folks lived close to starvation. The standard carbohydrate input in their diet plan was cassava but this affordable foods contained pretty minimal protein. The social scientists’ report produced it apparent that the major resource of protein for the zongo people were chickens, goats and puppies rounded up on the KNUST campus. People whose nocturnal hunting was unsuccessful have been normally diminished to taking in rats and lizards.
Relatively incredibly, the college protection pressure was generally recruited from the zongo. A person may well have envisioned the zongo recruits to knowledge blended loyalties have been not the night burglars also coming from their community? In exercise, nevertheless, these men hailed from the exact northern Moslem tribes from which the British previously recruited military and law enforcement personnel. Quite a few continue to held proudly to their traditional sense of self-discipline in uniform, with armed service bearing and regard for their officers. A number of older guys nonetheless wore the medal ribbons they gained in Entire world War II, serving with the West African Regiment in Ethiopia and Burma. Any try to divert them from the study course of responsibility was most likely to be fulfilled by their universal slogan, ‘I like my pay out.’
