On this occasion when I visited Sinba, he was fixing his drum. He leads a local drum ensemble in the village. He told me to hold all serious conversations until he was done with his drum. I sat observing him.

Sinba stretched the ropes around his drum to make sure they did loosen again, then pressed the whole instrument against his great chest as if he was hugging a long-lost son who had just come back home. Here, I did not understand what he was trying to achieve but I kept quiet. Finally, he left the drum on the roof of his room for sunlight to reach it.

Sinba and I were schoolyear mates. He schooled at the village while I lived in the city with my parents and schooled there. During vacations when I visited the village, we did everything together. When we finished Junior Secondary School, he decided to drop out. He did not have the finances to pay his way through Senior Secondary School. His father had died many years ago and his mum was often ill. His grades were not too good but he could have gained admission into some of the less-fancied Senior Secondary Schools. However, his mind was made up – he did not want to be a burden on anyone. So that’s how his education ended.

The years that followed, Sinba did virtually everything to earn a living in the village until… should I say he discovered himself? Now he and his drumming group play at local functions. They make cultural compositions and play for people to dance and can also compose songs to sing praises to chiefs and other rulers. They would charge a fee for their services but when their performances wow their crowds, people throw pennies to them. The group usually has someone assigned to pick up such monies from the ground.

Sinba and his group are experienced but like many village men, they started their own families too early and got many children so the money they make is not just enough for them. Sinba for example, had his first child the same I finished Senior Secondary. He has four children now. Therefore he and his men have to often lobby to get the nods to perform at funerals, festivals and the likes because there are several other groups like them. The bigger the functions and the more frequently they come, the better for them.

I don’t visit Pelungu, my village much due to work schedules but I try to visit during every Christmas season and when I do, I never fail to pay Sinba a visit in his home. He has grown up very fast and has a lot of village knowledge. Listening to him fascinates me and watching he and his group perform makes me laugh because I never pictured him in this profession when we were children. He had hoped to become a nurse and work in the village clinic but that’s all a mirage now.

Anyway, this time I was not able to visit Pelungu at Christmas so I went there at New Year. I missed all of Sinba’s Christmas performances. During Christmas, they perform in bars and the village market square for pennies. And when Christmas is over, the members of his troupe disperse to do other things and to reconvene anytime there is a function for them to perform at. Sinba would hang his drum and go into gardening until the rainy season sets in, then the major farming season.

This time I was surprised to see him getting his drum ready instead of hanging it so I asked if there were some functions they still had to perform at. He said no. He was only getting ready for the political season. We had a long chat about our lives till evening. I gave gifts to Sinba’s wife and children and went with him to one of the village bars. We had a few drinks and I said goodbye and went back to Bolga.

I did not give it much thought when Sinba said he was getting ready for the political season until later in the night when a video of President Mahama was shared on a whatsapp group page. The president was speaking at a 31st December Night Service in 2014. Only a portion of the video where the President had promised to “banish” the country’s erratic power supply (dumsor) in 2015 was cut and was being circulated, obviously to make the point that he failed to deliver that promise and yet again, made the same promise for 2016. It was at this point that as I reflected, my mind went back to Sinba and his drum.

In Sinba’s sixteen years of experience, he has come to know that election years are the harvest years for he and his troupe. The Members of Parliament come home more often in these years to commission projects and attend social gatherings. They hire Sinba and his troupe to drum and sing to their praises and give them resounding welcomes back home.

Most of these MPs have not come home much since after the last election. In fact, a majority of the people who voted for them have not set eyes on them since after the last election. But this year, the MPs will come home not less than ten times. They will commission a local school here and there and a borehole there. Sinba and co will drum to praise them, the village men will remove their hats in honor of these MPs and the women will spread their cloths on the ground for them to walk on. Yes, the MPs will look good in the eyes of the people. Sinba and his group will be paid, function after function. There will be money in their pockets. The people will be happy with the MPs. The MPs will get re-elected for another four years. And for another four years, the people will remain the same – poor, deprived, ignorant, hopeless. This circus will continue for a very long time.

But it is not only Sinba and his troupe who will enjoy a harvest season and help pave the way to our hopelessness.

In this election year, like every other one, even our chiefs and elders will host these politicians to large banquets. The people will see, the politicians will look good, nobody will ask critical questions.

In the churches, politicians will be special guests of honor. Some church elders will vacate their front seats in the churches for politicians who have never stepped into a church in the last four years. The collection plates will be filled, the new church buildings will rise fast, the politicians will get elected, and nothing else will matter.

It will be harvest season for journalists too. The soli envelopes will be heftier. Any politician who does not grease palms is on a sure way to losing the election because he or she will either get bad press or no press at all. The ones who will give bigger envelopes will be painted in good light even if they stink like pigs. Some journalists will top up their peanut salaries and the politicians who make that possible are sure to get re-elected, our hopelessness will go on.

The circus will continue. For a very long time, it will. Because the politicians understand our thinking. Their hearts are cold. But, to borrow some words from the late Lucky Dube, since their hearts are made up to be as cold, that’s the burden of the pen I hold. If anything will change, our reasoning must change. Let the few of us who are thinking and reasoning clearly make it our burden to stop the circus by thinking Ghana’s future and not our stomachs.