Just last week, a global internet personality, Darren Jason Watkins Jr., popularly known as IShowSpeed, arrived in Ghana.
He was given a thunderous welcome by Ghanaians.
Let me start this article by making some concessions here, and pardon me for it. In all honesty and sincerity, I had never heard, read or known about Speed.
So, when I first heard his name, that he had arrived in Ghana, nothing about him and his presence excited me, maybe because I didn’t identify myself with his activities. As I said, forgive me for this.
Later, I kept hearing people talk about him and why his presence in Ghana, projecting our culture to the world, is good for us. But still, I wasn’t too interested in such discussions.
One of the days, while I was focused on other things, two of my colleagues at work were engaged in discussions about him. Then it dawned on me to find out a little about him from my colleagues.
I also started reading about him just to be abreast of what was happening. Then I was told how influential he was, using the power of social media to promote brands, countries, culture and others.
I was also told he has a huge following on social media, especially on YouTube and uses that to promote the brands. I said Ok, that must be interesting but still I was not caught in the euphoria.
Upon arrival in Ghana, he embarked on a number of activities. He toured parts of the country, visiting the Asenema Waterfalls in the Eastern Region. He also visited Akropong, where he was given the name “Barima Kofi Akuffo”.
An article I read online stated that “Speed’s audience is primarily Gen Z and Gen Alpha. By engaging them now, Ghana is building a ‘soft power pipeline.’ When these viewers have disposable income in five to ten years, Ghana will already be on their travel shortlist.”
There have been discussions about the impact of his visit to Ghana on our GDP, and also the passport he is reported to have been given.
I am not going into these areas; the focus of this article is not to talk about the impact of his visit to Ghana’s economy, whether it is good or bad. That is a discussion for another day.
This article touches on public health concerns that one of his actions raises. During one of his events at the Independence Square in Accra, he is captured in a video jumping onto a jollof rice prepared in a giant pot.
In the video, he is seen in the footwear he had used, which obviously had gathered dust and gems, thereby contaminating the jollof. Again, the sweat on him at the time will certainly contaminate the food.
I can’t really tell what his motivation for doing that was. This would not have been an issue if it had ended there.
But, either by ignorance or recklessness, some of the people who had gone there to watch and enjoy his activities were seen in the video fetching the rice and eating after the gentleman had jumped onto it.
Imagine his action contaminated the food with deadly infections; it would certainly threaten the lives of those who ate the rice.
This no doubt raises serious public health concerns that the state authorities should pay attention to. It has been a notorious fact in Ghana, and I think in almost every part of the world, that whenever you want to eat with your bare hands, you wash your hands with soap under running water.
Some people have made it a priority that when they close from work and get home, they first take a bath before touching anything to eat. All these are practical ways to avoid infections. It is for this reason that I find the action of Speed worrying.
In case you are not seeing the seriousness of this matter, let me demonstrate it this way. It is like someone cooks food for you to eat, then, after cooking, right in front of you, he or she steps into the food with the slipper or shoes. How will you feel?
It is obvious that any sane person would reject that food and find an alternative.
The reason the state must be concerned about Speed’s action is that the individuals who ate the food, if they develop any complications, it will put pressure on our health system.
We are not even done with covid-19 entirely yet; there are other infectious diseases that the country is dealing with and these are already overstretching our health institutions.
So, we do not have to allow, for want of a better expression, the recklessness of some individuals, all in the name of entertainment, to hand us over to another enemy like COVID again.
