As a young lady growing up in a Zango community like Aboabo was a life experiencing one. This is a community where all manner of people with diverse cultural backgrounds reside. In this community, a child will call every man and woman “Baba and Mma” respectively. Our first point of learning is “Makaranta”, an Islamic education system, where we are thought how to read and write Arabic in other to understand our religion. This explains why one’s attendance to ‘Makaranta’ and/or ability to recite the Quran comes first before any value is placed the 100s of certificates one may obtain from secular education. Well, that’s our Zango.
Adhering to the core values of the Islamic religion forms the backbone of our community. Respect for the elderly, obedience to parents, love for one another, self-restraint from all sort of immoral acts and social vices that are against the Islamic faith are strongly upheld. Of course our religion preaches peace, stability, humility and tolerance.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned, our Zangos have been faced with challenges in recent times. A good number of youth have begun to lose focus in upholding the core values of our community. We fight each other, show disregard for authority, and engage in all sort of immoral acts. This inclination of ours has gone a long way to tarnish the image of our community. Our envious virtues that used to be guarded with jealousy by previous generations face erosion at our watch. Today, at the mention of Zango, what comes to mind is a place with unconventional characteristics.
What might have been the cause of this inclination? Well, I think it’s due to, but not limited to, overcrowding in the Zango communities. Most Zangos which started as outskirts, are now located in the centers of cities. Examples include Aboabo, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti region, and Nima in the Greater Accra Region. As rural-urban migration becomes rampant in the country, migrants tend to settle in the inner cities of the country; hence overcrowding in the Zangos. In effect, overcrowding as a social phenomenon has its own externalities such as pressure on social amenities, teenage pregnancies, stealing, peer pressure etc. This introduced inner city externalities is causing us more harm than good. Even though our elders strive to control its impact, it is gradually eroding the culture of our Zangos.
Survival of the fittest becomes the norm, where peer influence is very high. One could imagine how people with incredible potentials could come from these communities. Amidst the negative challenges, it does not mean that there are no positive ones. In actual fact, Zango communities stand tall as a home of moral values despite the numerous bottle necks. The question one may ask is “how would you identify these positive ones?” These Zango communities are blessed with brilliant, intelligent, hardworking and morally upright people. As young as you are, you may not be able to know the good ones to mingle with unless under the coaching of your parents. As we grow, however, our way of thinking changes, and one may start carving out the kind of friends to hang around with in order to achieve that wonderful dream in our minds. This is where Abraham Maslow’s Theory of Need comes in, “self-actualization, who you are, what you want to become, where you are now”. Knowing who you are, and what you want to be in future will determine the kind of friends you mingle with.
As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. You don’t expect to be a medical doctor while mingling with people who “hate” the name school. Why would you be with friends who have no better plans? How would those people impact something positive into your life?
So, as a young optimist Zango boy or girl, it is necessary to choose friends that see potentials in you even though you are adamant to see those inherent potentials in yourself. As you develop your inherent potential, you are half way through success.
Author: Sakina Issah.
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