Gbagbladza

Captain Kojo Tsikata passed away on 20th November 2021, aged 85, Eighty Five.Years old. I had known Captain Kojo Tsikata during my days in the Ghana Prisons Service and worked very closely with him. It was during that period that I studied him at very close range. What I gathered from our interactions was that the Captain did analyse me; his looks were intense, but never hostile. I in turn adopted a very pragmatic approach, of course with steely determination...
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Captain Kojo Tsikata passed away on 20th November 2021, aged 85, Eighty Five.Years old.
I had known Captain Kojo Tsikata during my days in the Ghana Prisons Service and worked very closely with him.
It was during that period that I studied him at very close range.
What I gathered from our interactions was that the Captain did analyse me; his looks were intense, but never hostile.
I in turn adopted a very pragmatic approach, of course with steely determination and objectivity, hoping and praying that I could withstand the test of not committing any slip-ups!

Well, in the course of the various interactions, there was that ONE occasion that I thought I had, as they say, "put my foot in it".
Was that a slip-up that I had dreaded,had hoped to avoid?
Well, I was taking instructions from, easily, the most powerful individual in Ghana during the entire period of the Rawlings regimes, military and Constitutional!
That assertion is no exaggeration.
It is not.
I rode my luck,I did.
But, in the end, I had the boot applied.

Did Captain Kojo Tsikata get rid of me?
No.
But, I found him to be both very proactive and a very common sense man.
A man whose judgment could be said to be at par with the legendary judgments of the late Gyekye Darko ("Gyeke D")one of Ghana's most flamboyant Attorney Generals,our Akyemfo born Supreme Court Judge, His Lordship Mr, Justice J.N.K. Taylor.
I did find the late Mr. Johnny Hansen equally so.

I thought it necessary to embark on a review of my earlier work; "CAPTAIN KOJO TSIKATA,
THOSE MURDERS AND THE SUSPICION
THAT WILL NOT GO AWAY" after his passing .

I did watch the private Funeral Service and heard genuine, sincere and heart-felt testimonies.
Then I heard the word "GBAGBLADZA".
I thought it was KPAKPLAGYA".

Being convinced it was an Ewe word, I decided to contact an old friend, AIR VICE-MARSHAL CHRISTIAN KOBLA DOVLO, ("HAPPILY RETIRED") on Messenger.
"What does "KPAKPLAGYA" mean?
I want to review my take on my good friend."

His prompt response was as follows;
"It's gbagbladza.
It's the Eve name for cockroach.
It's actually an appellation; "the cockroach eats and the mouse gets the blame, (rough translation)"

"Interesting", I mused about that word.
I cast my mind back, recalling what had gone on between us, what I had written about Captain Kojo Tsikata and decided to revisit, with his (Secret) Pseudonym in mind.