Stop Jailing Effutu Fishermen …Afenyo-Markin Warns As He Launches Effutu Dream

Top-notch lawyer, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has said he would support a class action law suit being filed by a group of fishermen in Effutu against a local based NGO that has accused them of being wicked fathers who sell their own children into slavery.

“Too many of such complaints have reached my office and it is sad that some Effutu fishermen have been jailed and some more risk the danger of being jailed over allegations that they have sold their children into slavery.

“This is being sponsored by someone who does not understand the way and culture of these fishermen. I am a lawyer so I know everything about child rights. I am also serving under a government that understands the importance of education and the free SHS policy is a key evidence.

“But I have also taken my time to put emotions aside and study the situation very carefully to come to a conclusion that the fishermen in Effutu are not slave masters. There is this culture and it is part of history that fishermen would pick one or two of their children and send them to go stay with another family in faraway places for a while. That cannot be same as selling the children into slavery. There are still ripples of that cultural practice and if we feel it is wrong, there is a better and sensible way of addressing that challenge rather than accusing them of being child slave masters and when they are unable to get the best of legal representation, they land in jail, leaving behind their wives, children and other dependents to suffer. This wrong must stop. It benefits no one in Effutu except the NGO who packages such stuff to show to foreign people to raise funding. You cannot take advantage of the people, exaggerate their issues, dramatize it and ride on them to raise your funds while they languish in jail”, Afenyo-Markin spoke to The New Publisher on Thursday during the launch of The Effutu Dream project.

The Effutu Dream is a brainchild of Afenyo-Markin and has become a mass movement meant to galvanize the energies, dreams and aspirations of Effutu Youth and channel these energies and aspirations into progress and development but for the individuals and the community as a whole.

It is my dream to make Effutu the best place to live, the best place to work, the best place to visit for tourism and the best place to invest and to do business in Ghana. The Dream is to make sure that all persons living, working and schooling in Effutu has what it takes to compete favourably with their contemporaries anywhere in the world. And with the right mindset, unity and hard work, we can make this Dream a reality.

“Already we have started living this dream by providing an enabling environment for the people of Effutu to become productive. When I started this project to create an enabling environment, some people who are only interested in jailing our fishermen and painting Effutu black to the outside world were going round saying Effutus are lazy people”, Afenyo-Markin noted.

In his official speech at the launch, Afenyo-Markin said he has no doubt in his mind that the people of Effutu make the best use of opportunities provided for them.

Speaking to thousands of people who has gathered at the Effutu Youth Conference to observe the official launch of the Effutu Dream, Afenyo-Markin said from experience, the people of Effutu are not lazy and that they rather take full advantage of opportunities that come their way.

He noted “We, Effutus are not lazy. I remember when I decided to buy cars for the commercial drivers in Effutu to work with, many people said drivers are lazy so I should not buy them cars. But I went ahead and got as many brand new cars for the drivers and today they are happily working with the cars and no one calls them lazy anymore. They are making their own money through hard work, paying tax to government and are seen as responsible husbands at home.

“When people were insulting Effutu fishermen as lazy, I said no, they are not lazy. They only need the proper machines and equipment to do their fishing, quickly, we organized brand new outboard motors for them and today, they are happily fishing with the outboard motors. They have proven that they are not lazy.

“We have masons who were not working and they were described as lazy. I said, no, they are not lazy. They need tools to work with. So we bought head pans, trowel, level gauge and other tools masons need. We distributed to them and today they are busily working all over Effutu. No one calls them lazy. Today, when you go to the estate site we are building for Effutuman, over 400 Effutu youth are there working because we have provided the training, the push and the environment.

“Same support has been given to several groups of workers and artisans across Effutu. Hundreds of deep freezers have been given to people to start or expand their cold store businesses, hundreds of industrial sewing machines have been shared to our Effutu people who are in dressmaking businesses and today no one calls them lazy. We have given over hundreds of hair driers to our sisters and mothers in the hairdressing business and today no one calls them lazy anymore because they are working to achieve their dreams.

“We have given capital to hundreds of Effutu people who want to do mobile money business, we have given capital to hundreds of Effutu people who want to do professional music spinning. We call them spinners.”