Court Date

Dear Sanda,

 What did we use to call the “fresher’s” who were admitted in our schools. Today was my first day in court; you can call it a green horn’s outing. I went with two of my colleagues in the news room,  since we were all interns, you can confidently call it the green horn’s outing.

As a normal day for a journalist (intern), I went to the mile 7 police station to speak with their chief inspector that was in the person of......................................... The idea was that he will keep me updated on the criminal information happening within the area. He gave me his number and I promised to call him later in the day.

I quickly got a car to circle, picked a cab because it was almost time for the company bus to take us to our place of assignment. I was lucky to get to the office minutes before the bus took off.

We were dropped at cocoa affairs court, but before we alighted from the company bus ,one of the senior reporters pointed the registrar’s office to us . 
Well we were just being obedient; we do know it in our court reporting that you must see the registrar before you report from “his” court.

The registrar was very accommodating, he was happy to receive students in his court. He gave us a guard and told him to take us to one of the circuit courts. We passed by courts were they were already having their proceedings. 
We continued till we got to where our guard took us to a circuit court which hasn’t started its sitting.  I was sitting close to a lady and I wanted to practice the 5 wives and one husband on her. But poor me, the lady told me if I need any  information I should go to the court clerk. And that she wasn’t allowed to speak on the issue. So I told my “green horn” colleagues who went to the clerks place. That was when we  were given the “NEWS” . It was a matrimonial court. But our guard took us to a matrimonial court “we were told in school that those cases there were held in ‘chambers’. We didn’t know it was a matrimonial court so we comfortably sat down till we found out from the clerk. We took our bags and lined up in the same sequence we came in.

We runned back to the registrar, after telling him what happened, we told him we saw a court which we thought will be very interesting because a lot of people were seated. That was when the registrar told us to go to the court we mentioned and tell them he sent us to come and listen.

Again, we walked majestically to the place and we were allowed to have our seat, comfortably. The hearing began and different case dockets  were opened. The cases were very interesting till we heard the case of one gentleman who was sent with money to deposit in an account, but he took the money to a money doubler who ‘runned’ away with the money.

Another hearing was on a guy who had defrauded a Vietnamese of $22,000. That is a lot of money on the part of the fraudster, and that was the story that got the judge to know we were in her court.

One of my colleague stepped out to enquire from the lady who was standing in for the Vietnamese, as soon as she left the pew, the judge asked her. What are you doing in my court? Her answer was we are here to report a case from Ghanaian times.

The first thing that came to my mind was, if you are the one caught sniffing round for information, do you have to say WE?

Then the judge asked her, where are the others. The other lady and I wanted to raise our hands, but the judge said we should rise up so she will see us. With the attention of the whole court on us, we rose to our feet.

Then you will hear them whispering to themselves, “kokonsa fuc nu aba”. Her ladyship asked if indeed we asked permission from the registrar. We answered Yes in Unison, but she was quick to add, if I find out you are lying?  But we assured her that yes indeed we spoke with the registrar. Hearing continues.......................

And we had the opportunity to hear other cases, with her ladyship’s approval. The court rose on Bishop Obinim’s issue of vandalising hot fm’s studios, it was re-adjourned to June, this year.

We headed back to the office and tried to make a story out of what we heard. We did do a nice story with the information; we closed from the office and headed back home.

We walked straight to circle from work, but since we were in a group and are still students. A lot will b expected from us, as we chatted for a long time before we got to our destination, but not yet, on our way home, we met a couple who were standing outside and curdling each other . But as soon as we got closer to these couple, they kissed and parted.

As soon as we saw that, we laughed our way till we got to our various bus stops. This is an interesting day for us Sanda. It had a lot of great stories.

I will end my letter here, and i hope you are doing well, greet the family for me